To be quite honest, the stated concerns in the studies over "what social media does" sure seem to have a lot to do with recognizing the harms all other media and society does - and then deciding that only the subsets present on social media are the actual problems.
And of course there's the fact that social media spans an extremely broad spectrum of functionality, predominant cultures, and even sheer level of interactivity/control at all. Even if every human had the same responses as all others to one particular social media service's own set of conditions, that leaves both a wide variety of conditions to have responses to AND quite a lot of month-to-month changes in what each social media service even does to test against. Facebook in 2023 doesn't operate all that similarly to how it did in 2018, and especially to how it did in 2013 or 2008. They've gone through a wild set of pivots in basic site experience. Same goes for most everything else.
I really liked this piece. Really affirms all my reasons for subscribing - especially your explicit acknowledgement of the ambiguity and almost-impossibility of a definitive answer. Thanks for your work, friend :)
Good points. Pryzybylski also did a study where he tried to look at mental health diagnoses globally and compare to internet access, and found similarly few links. But as I recall the diagnosis data set had its own problems
An interesting variable here: I was seeing a psychologist for over ten years before I was given a formal diagnosis. In my case, it was because Borderline Personality Disorder carries such a stigma (even among health professionals) that my psychologist didn’t feel it was safe for me to have that label on my paperwork for a long time.
So, even for people who seek psychological support and manage to access it (a small population in Australia), I don’t know if my diagnosis would have registered on the research side of things.
To be quite honest, the stated concerns in the studies over "what social media does" sure seem to have a lot to do with recognizing the harms all other media and society does - and then deciding that only the subsets present on social media are the actual problems.
And of course there's the fact that social media spans an extremely broad spectrum of functionality, predominant cultures, and even sheer level of interactivity/control at all. Even if every human had the same responses as all others to one particular social media service's own set of conditions, that leaves both a wide variety of conditions to have responses to AND quite a lot of month-to-month changes in what each social media service even does to test against. Facebook in 2023 doesn't operate all that similarly to how it did in 2018, and especially to how it did in 2013 or 2008. They've gone through a wild set of pivots in basic site experience. Same goes for most everything else.
Great points
Another researcher responding directly and credibly to Haidt and Twenge’s arguments: https://shoresofacademia.substack.com/p/social-media-and-time-displacement It would be too reductionist simply to say David Steinberg’s in Przybylski’s “camp.” And I don’t believe Haidt’s position is mirrored in the surgeon general’s report, which stated in several ways that we simply don’t know enough yet to conclude that social media is causing the youth mental health crisis. Steinberg speaks to this, as does Prof. Justin Patchin at U. of WI (https://cyberbullying.org/surgeon-general-social-media-advisory). My own post on this is here: https://www.netfamilynews.org/surgeon-generals-advisory-lets-take-stock Haidt is actually more the outlier than Przybylski, but the former definitely satisfies a whole lot of people’s confirmation bias.
Thank you for these links!!
I really liked this piece. Really affirms all my reasons for subscribing - especially your explicit acknowledgement of the ambiguity and almost-impossibility of a definitive answer. Thanks for your work, friend :)
Thank you so much!!
Good points. Pryzybylski also did a study where he tried to look at mental health diagnoses globally and compare to internet access, and found similarly few links. But as I recall the diagnosis data set had its own problems
An interesting variable here: I was seeing a psychologist for over ten years before I was given a formal diagnosis. In my case, it was because Borderline Personality Disorder carries such a stigma (even among health professionals) that my psychologist didn’t feel it was safe for me to have that label on my paperwork for a long time.
So, even for people who seek psychological support and manage to access it (a small population in Australia), I don’t know if my diagnosis would have registered on the research side of things.