Studying Teen Mental Health and Impact of Social Media on Democracies Transcript: Speaker 1 There are two major areas that I study. One is what is happening with teen mental health? It fell off a cliff in 2013. It was very sudden. And then the other is what is happening to our democratic and epistemic institutions. That means knowledge generating, like universities, journalism. So my main areas of research where I’m collecting the empirical research and trying to make sense of it is what’s happened to teen mental health and what’s the evidence that social media Is a contributor. And then the other area is what’s happening to democracies, not just America, and what’s the evidence that social media is a contributor to the dysfunction. So I’m sure we’ll get to that because that’s what the Atlantic article is about. But if we focus first on what’s happened to teen mental health? So before I read the quotes from Mark, I’d like to just give the overview. And it is this. There’s a lot of data tracking adolescents. There’s self-reports of how depressed, anxious, lonely. There’s data on hospital admissions for self-harm. There’s data on suicide. And all of these things, they bounce around somewhat. But they’re relatively level in the early 2000s. And then all of a sudden around 2010 to 2013, depending on which statistic you’re looking at, all of a sudden, they begin to shoot upwards, more so for girls in some cases. (Time 0:12:21)
Correlación entre uso de redes sociales y problemas de salud mental adolescente Summary: Adolescents’ mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, and hospital admissions for self-harm and suicide, showed relatively stable levels until around 2010 to 2013. After this period, there was a significant increase, particularly for girls, with levels escalating by 50% to 150% in some cases. For preteen girls, suicide rates doubled between 2010 and 2015. This alarming trend is not unique to America but is also observed in countries like Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. The notable correlation with the timing suggests that something happened around 2012-2013, impacting preteen girls the most. Despite the complexity and the understanding that correlation does not prove causation, the data provides a strong indication of a significant shift in adolescent mental health during this period, with no clear alternative explanation. Transcript: Speaker 1 This. There’s a lot of data tracking adolescents. There’s self-reports of how depressed, anxious, lonely. There’s data on hospital admissions for self-harm. There’s data on suicide. And all of these things, they bounce around somewhat. But they’re relatively level in the early 2000s. And then all of a sudden around 2010 to 2013, depending on which statistic you’re looking at, all of a sudden, they begin to shoot upwards, more so for girls in some cases. But on the whole, it’s like up for both sexes, just that boys have lower levels of anxiety and depression. So the curve is not quite as dramatic. But what we see is not small increases. It’s not like, oh, 10%, 20%. No, the increases are between 50% and 150%. Depending on which group you’re looking at. Suicide for preteen girls, thankfully, it’s not very common. But it’s two to three times more common now. Or by 2015, it had doubled. Between 2010 and 2015, it doubled. So something is going radically wrong in the world of American preteens. And so as I’ve been studying it, I found, first of all, it’s not just America, it’s identical in Canada and the UK. Australia and New Zealand are very similar. They’re just after a little delay. So whatever we’re looking for here, but yet it’s not as clear in the Germanic countries. It’s in continental Europe. It’s a little different. And we can get into that when we talk about childhood. But something’s happening in many countries that started right around 2012, 2013. It wasn’t gradual. It hit girls’ hardest. And it hit preteen girls’ the hardest. So what could it be? Nobody has come up with another explanation. Nobody. It wasn’t the financial crisis that wouldn’t hit preteen girls’ the hardest. There is no other explanation. The complexity here and the data is, of course, as everyone knows, correlation doesn’t prove causation. The fact that television viewing was going up in the 50s or in the 60s and 70s doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the crime. (Time 0:13:10)
salud_mental redes_sociales correlación adolescencia 2min
The Correlation Between Television Viewing and Crime: A Look at Causation and Social Media Use Transcript: Speaker 1 It wasn’t gradual. It hit girls’ hardest. And it hit preteen girls’ the hardest. So what could it be? Nobody has come up with another explanation. Nobody. It wasn’t the financial crisis that wouldn’t hit preteen girls’ the hardest. There is no other explanation. The complexity here and the data is, of course, as everyone knows, correlation doesn’t prove causation. The fact that television viewing was going up in the 50s or in the 60s and 70s doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the crime. So what I’ve done, and this is work with Jean Twangi, who wrote the book, I, Jen, is because I was challenged, when Greg and I put out the book, the Coddling of the American Mind, some researchers Challenged us and said, oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The correlations between social media use and mental health, they exist, but they’re tiny. It’s like a correlation coefficient of 0.03 or a beta of 0.05. Tiny little things. And one famous article said, it’s no bigger than the correlation of bad mental health and eating potatoes, which exists. But it’s so tiny, it’s 0, essentially. And that claim, that social media is no more harmful than eating potatoes or wearing eyeglasses. It was a very catchy claim, and it’s caught on, and I keep hearing that. But let me unpack why that’s not true, and then we’ll get to what Mark said, because what Mark basically said, here, I’ll actually read it on my mind. (Time 0:14:40)
The harmful effects of social media’s like button and retweet mechanism Transcript: Speaker 2 And by the way, just to pause real quick, is you implied, but this is made explicit, that the best explanation we have now, as you’re proposing, is that a very particular aspect of social Speaker 4 Media is the cause, which is not just social media, but the like button and the retweet, a certain mechanism of virality that was invented, or perhaps some aspect of social media is the Speaker 5 Cause. Good idea. Speaker 1 Let’s be clear. Connecting people is good. I mean, overall, the more you connect people, the better. Giving people the telephone was an amazing step forward, giving them free telephone, free long distances, even better. Video was, I mean, so connecting people is good. I’m not a Luddite. And social media, at least the idea of users posting things, like that happens on LinkedIn, and it’s great. It can serve all kinds of needs. What I’m talking about here is not the internet. It’s not technology. It’s not smartphones. And it’s not even all social media. It’s a particular business model in which people are incentivized to create content. And that content is what brings other people on. And the people on there are the product, which is sold to advertisers. It’s that particular business model, which Facebook pioneered, which seems to be incredibly harmful for teenagers, especially for young girls, 10 to 14 years old, is where they’re Most vulnerable. (Time 0:16:01)
No es el smartphone, son las redes sociales en donde el usuario es el producto. Summary: The insight highlights that the issue is not with all social media, the internet, technology, or smartphones, but specifically with a particular business model where people are motivated to generate content that attracts others. Transcript: Speaker 1 Needs. What I’m talking about here is not the internet. It’s not technology. It’s not smartphones. And it’s not even all social media. It’s a particular business model in which people are incentivized to create content. And that content is what brings other people on. And the people on there are the product, which is sold to advertisers. It’s that particular business model, which Facebook pioneered, which seems to be incredibly harmful for teenagers, especially for young girls, 10 to 14 years old, is where they’re Most vulnerable. And it seems to be particularly harmful for democratic institutions, because it leads to all kinds of anger, conflict, and the destruction of any shared narrative. So that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about Facebook, Twitter. I don’t have any data on TikTok. I suspect it’s going to end up having a lot of really bad effects, because the teens are on it so much. (Time 0:16:48)
redes_sociales modelo_de_negocios adolescencia salud_mental 2min
Los datos no son sólo autorreporte, están respaldados por admisiones a hospitales. Summary: The data on self-harm and suicide in young people is not just based on self-reporting, as there has been a significant rise in hospital admissions for these issues. This rise occurred between 2009 and 2012 and continued to increase, indicating a genuine and concerning trend. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the problem predates COVID-19 and will persist even as the pandemic recedes. Transcript: Speaker 4 That’s right. Speaker 1 So when this data started coming out around, so Jean Twang’s book, I Gen 2017, a lot of people say, oh, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. This is just self-report. Like Gen Z, they’re just really comfortable talking about this. This is a good thing. This isn’t a real epidemic. And literally the day before my book with Greg was published, the day before, there was a psychiatrist in New York Times who had an op-ed saying, relax. Smartphones are not ruining your kid’s brain. And he said it’s just self-report. It’s just that they’re giving higher rates. There’s more diagnosis. But underlying there’s no change. No. Because it’s theoretically possible. But all we have to do is look at the hospitalization data for self-harm and suicide. And we see the exact same trends. We see also a very sudden big rise between 2009 and 2012. You have an elbow. And then it goes up, up, up. So that is not self-report. Those are actual kids admitted to hospitals for cutting themselves. So we have a catastrophe. And this was all true before COVID. COVID made things worse. But we have to realize COVID’s going away. Kids are back in school. But we’re not going to go back to where we were, because this problem is not caused by COVID. (Time 0:26:54)
adolescencia evidencia redes_sociales salud_mental 2min
Correlación de 0.2 es ENORME en salud poblacional Summary: Correlational studies consistently show a link, with a correlation coefficient around 0.1. The correlation for screen use and self-reports of depression and anxiety is about 0.03, and when focusing on social media use, it often increases to around 0.15 to 0.2, especially for girls. Public health correlations are almost never above 0.2, highlighting the significance of these findings in the context of population health. Transcript: Speaker 1 So first point, correlational studies consistently show a link. They almost all do. But it’s not big. It equivalent to a correlation coefficient around 0.1, typically. That’s the first point. The second point is that the correlation is actually much larger than for eating potatoes. So that famous line wasn’t about social media use. That was about digital media use. That included watching Netflix, doing homework on everything. And so what they did is they looked at all screen use. And then they said, this is correlated with self-reports of depression and anxiety. Like, you know, 0.03, it’s tiny. And well, they said that clearly in the paper. But the media has reported it as social media is 0.03 or tiny. And that’s just not true. What I found digging into it, you don’t know this until you look at the there’s more than 100 studies in the Google Doc. Once you dig in, what you see is, OK, you see a tiny correlation. What happens if we zoom in on just social media? It always gets bigger, often a lot bigger, two or three times bigger. What happens if we zoom in on girls and social media? It always gets bigger, often a lot bigger. And so what I think we can conclude, in fact, one of the authors of the potato studies herself concludes. Amy Orban says, I have a quote from here, she reviewed a lot of studies and she herself said that, quote, the associations between social media use and well-being therefore range from About r equals 0.15 to r equals 0.10. So that’s the range we’re talking about. And that’s for boys and girls together. And a lot of research, including hers and mine, show that girls, it’s higher. So for girls, we’re talking about correlations around 0.15 to 0.2. I believe, Jean Twangy and I found it’s about 0.2 or 0.22. Now, this might sound like on our Cane Social Science debate, but people have to understand, public health correlations are almost never above 0.2. So the correlation of childhood exposure to lead and adult IQ, very serious problem, that’s 0.09. Like the world’s messy and our measurements are messy. (Time 0:28:12)
correlación epidemiología salud_mental adolescencia 2min
Púberes no están preparados para utilizar redes sociales. Debiese prohibirse su uso. Summary: Social media use is not just a dose response issue like sugar, it’s a complete rewiring of childhood that began in the 1990s. People need to understand that the harm is not just correlated with the amount of use, but with the fundamental shift in the nature of childhood interactions because of social media. Gen Z is the first generation to have access to social media before puberty, and they have experienced a decline in normal social interactions, leading to increased depression. This has been worsened by the constant drama and pressure created by social media use. According to a study, the most damage is observed in girls between 11 and 13, and thus, it is not safe for pre-teens or even 13 to 14-year-olds to use social media. Hence, it is suggested that children should not be allowed on social media platforms until they are 16, and it is proposed to raise the age limit and enforce this measure. Transcript: Speaker 2 Say? Speaker 1 OK, so here’s the most important thing to understand. In the social sciences, we say, is social media harmful to kids? That’s a broad question. You can’t answer that directly. You have to have much more specific questions. You have to operationalize it and have a theory of how it’s harming kids. And so almost all of the research is done on what’s called the dose response model. That is, everybody, including the researchers, are thinking about this. They treated this like sugar. Because the data usually shows a little bit of social media use isn’t correlated with harm, but a lot is. So I think of it like sugar. And if kids have a lot of sugar, then it’s bad. So how much is OK? But social media is not like sugar at all. It’s not a dose response thing. It’s a complete rewiring of childhood. So we evolved as a species in which kids play in mixed age groups. They learn the skills of adulthood. They’re always playing and working and learning and doing errands. That’s normal childhood. That’s how you develop your brain. That’s how you become a mature adult until the 1990s. In the 1990s, we dropped all that. We said, it’s too dangerous. If we let you outside, you’ll be kidnapped. So we completely began rewiring childhood in the 90s before social media. And that’s a big part of the story. I’m a big fan of Lenore Skeney’s, who wrote the book Free Range Kids. If there are any parents listening to this, please buy Lenore’s book Free Range Kids and then go to letgrow.org. It’s a nonprofit that Lenore and I started with Peter Gray and Daniel Schuchman to help change the laws and the norms around letting kids out to play. They need free play. So that’s the big picture. They need free play. And we started stopping that in the 90s that we reduced it. And then, Gen Z, kids born in 1996, they’re the first people in history to get on social media before puberty. Millennials didn’t get it until they were in college. But Gen Z, they get it because you can lie. You just lie by your age. So they really begin to get on around 2009, 2010. And boom, two years later, they’re depressed. It’s not because they ate too much sugar, necessarily. It’s because even normal social interactions that kids had in the early 2000s, largely, well, they decline because now everything’s through the phone. And that’s what I’m trying to get across. That it’s not just a dose response thing. It’s imagine one middle school where everyone has an Instagram account and it’s constant drama. Everyone’s constantly checking and posting and worrying and imagine going through puberty that way. Versus imagine there was a policy, no phones in school. You have to check them in a locker. No one can have an Instagram account. All the parents are on board. Parents only let their kids have Instagram because the kid says everyone else has it. And we’re stuck in a social dilemma. We’re stuck in a trap. So what’s the solution? Keep kids off until they’re done with puberty. There’s a new study actually by Amy Orban and Andy Shabilski showing that the damage is greatest for girls between 11 and 13. So there is no way to make it safe for pre-teens or even 13, 14-year-olds. We’ve got to, kids should simply not be allowed on these business models where you’re the product. They should not be allowed until you’re 16. We need to raise the agent and force it. That’s the biggest thing. (Time 0:32:27)
adolescencia competencias regulación salud_mental redes_sociales
Relación ansiosa y adictiva con las interacciones en redes sociales Summary: Living a life of constant posting and scrolling on social media leads to girls feeling that everyone’s life looks better than theirs, which creates a fake and negative comparison. The constant need for posting and checking responses takes over the mind, making it hard to be present in the moment. This behavior is observed not only in young girls but also in adults, leading to an anxious and addictive relationship with social media interactions, which can be especially damaging for young girls going through puberty and feeling self-conscious. Transcript: Speaker 1 That’s one of five or seven different avenues of harm. The main one, I think, which does in the girls is not being bullied. It’s living a life where you’re thinking all the time about posting because once a girl starts posting. So it’s bad enough that they’re scrolling through. And this is everyone comments on this. You’re scrolling through and everyone’s life looks better than yours because it’s fake. And all that you see are the ones the algorithm picked that were the night anyway. So the scrolling, I think, is bad for the girls. But I’m beginning to see, I can’t prove this, but I’m beginning to see from talking to girls from seeing how it’s used is once you start posting, that takes over your mind. And now you’re basically, you’re no longer present because even if you’re only spending five or six hours a day on Instagram, you’re always thinking about it. And when you’re in class, you’re thinking about how are people responding to the post that I made between classes? I mean, I do it. I tried to stay off Twitter for a while, but now I’ve got this big article. I’m tweeting about it. And I can’t help it. I check 20 times a day. I’ll check. Like what are people saying? What are people saying? This is terrible. And I’m a 58 year old man. Imagine being a 12 year old girl, going through puberty, self-conscious about how you look. And I see some young women. I see some professional young women. Women in their 20s and 30s were putting up sexy photos of themselves. Like, and this is so sad, so sad. (Time 0:39:28)
redes_sociales adicción ansiedad diseño 2min
The Dynamics of Social Media in Catalyzing Division Transcript: Speaker 2 So. So the unique thing here is there’s something about social media in those years that a small number of people can sort of be catalysts for this division. They can start the viral wave that leads to a division that’s different than the kind of division we saw before. Speaker 3 It’s a little different than a viral wave. Speaker 1 Once you get some people who can, who can use social media to intimidate, you get a, you get a sudden phase shift. You get a big change in the dynamics of groups. And that’s the heart of the article. This isn’t just another article about how social media is polarizing us and destroying democracy. The heart of the article is an analysis of what makes groups smart and what makes them stupid. And so because, as we said earlier, you know, my own research is on post-doc reasoning, just post-doc justification, rationalization. The only cure for that is other people who don’t share your biases. And so if you have an academic debate, it’s like the one I’m having with these other researchers over social media, you know, I rate something, they rate something, I have to take account Of their arguments and they have to take account of mine. When the academic world works, it’s because it puts us together in ways that things cancel out. That’s what makes universities smart, what makes them generators of knowledge. Unless we stop dissent. What if we say on these topics, there can be no dissent? And if anyone says otherwise, if any academic comes up with research that says otherwise, we’re gonna destroy them. (Time 0:52:20)
Social psychology and leadership in the face of mob mentality Transcript: Speaker 2 That’s where it stops. That’s where the buck stops. So if there’s going to be new mechanisms for mobs and all that kind of stuff, there’s going to be tribalism. But the end of the day, that’s what it means to be a leader is to stop, stop the mob at the door. Speaker 1 But I’m a social psychologist, which means I look at the social forces that work on people. And if you show me a situation in which 95% of the people behave one way, and it’s a way that we find surprising and shameful, I’m not going to say, wow, 95% of the people are shameful. I’m going to say, wow, what a powerful situation. We’ve got to change that situation. So that’s what I think is happening here, because there are hardly any in the first few years, it’s began around 2018, 2019, it really enters the corporate world. And there are hardly any leaders who stood up against it. But I’ve talked to a lot, and it’s always the same thing. You have these people in their, usually in their 50s or 60s, generally they’re progressive or on the left. They’re accused of things by their young employees. They don’t have the vocabulary to stand up to it. And they give in very quickly. And because it happens over and over again, and there’s only a few examples of university presidents who said, like, no, we’re not going to stop this talk, just because you’re freaking Out. No, we’re not going to fire this professor because he wrote a paper that you don’t like. There are so few examples, I have to include that the situational forces are so strong. (Time 0:55:12)
La solución pasa por regulación legislativa. Summary: Raising the age for social media use to 16 or 18 with enforcement is crucial to address teen mental health concerns. The current lack of enforcement and pressure on platforms to not enforce age restrictions contributes to the issue. Central regulation is necessary as individual platforms are unlikely to act on their own accord due to business imperatives. This situation is likened to a social dilemma, where a systemic approach is required to resolve the problem. Transcript: Speaker 1 Made. And you have to look at it systemically. And so the biggest change for teen mental health, I think, is to raise the age from 13, was set to 13 in COPPA in like 1997 or six or whatever that was, whatever it was. It was set to 13 with no enforcement. I think it needs to go to 16 or 18 with enforcement. Now, there’s no way that Facebook can say, actually, so look, Instagram, the age is 13, but they don’t enforce it. And they’re under pressure to not enforce it because if they did enforce it, then all the kids would just go to TikTok, which they’re doing anyway. But if we go back a couple of years when they were talking about rolling out Facebook for kids because they need to get those kids, they need to get kids under 13. There’s a business imperative to hook them early and keep them. So I don’t expect Facebook to act on its own accord and do the right thing because then they- The regulation is doing it. Exactly. When you have a social dilemma, what economists call it like a prisoner’s dilemma or a social dilemma is generalized to multiple people. And when you have a social dilemma, each player can’t opt out because they’re going to lose. You have to have central regulation. So I think we have to raise the age. (Time 1:37:37)
ley regulación adolescencia redes_sociales 2min salud_mental