
With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit - prostoalex
https://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996
======
lsc
Tuesday, this was the theme at my toastmaster's debate club[1] - I got stuck
arguing that social media doesn't make you depressed.

And... my problem with my argument wasn't that it was untrue, but that it was
kinda mean. I don't feel jealous of the lives of almost anyone I went to high
school with; quite the opposite. A lot of them post "racist memes with
spelling mistakes" \- which is sad on many levels; If nothing else, it is a
certain indicator that they are not living their best lives... but I have a
hard time imagining a world where I could be _jealous_ of someone like that.

For that matter, most of the positive social media content I see is baby
pictures. I'm one of those people who is glad other people have children; I
admire parents, yes, but I certainly wouldn't want to be one myself.

I suppose I just don't get it. Do other people carefully curate their social
media lists so that they are only following the super-rich, super-successful
and super-articulate? because my experience with social media is that I see
people closer to 'average' when I log in to facebook, whereas in real life, I
live in a world where most people I spend time interacting with are smarter
and wealthier and more successful than I am on several other axes.

[1]The silicon valley "Agile Articulators" toastmasters debate club - we meet
at the Hacker Dojo in Santa Clara. [https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Articulators-
Toastmasters-Club](https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Articulators-Toastmasters-
Club)

~~~
jraby3
I'm not on social media aside from Reddit. But what I notice with my wife and
others is a simple reason why I dislike it. If you have 400 friends, and they
each only take one vacation a year, that means 8x per week, you're looking at
other people taking a vacation. Even if you travel 4x per year, you'll still
feel like you never do anything and everyone else is always celebrating their
life.

I realize this is a simple example, but it's valid and wears you down over
time. Also, even having a handful of very wealthy friends can eventually lead
to feelings of envy.

In past times, most people grew up surrounded by people similar to them in
terms of wealth and status - but in today's world that's no longer the case.

~~~
lsc
>Also, even having a handful of very wealthy friends can eventually lead to
feelings of envy.

I.. huh. I really don't get this. Maybe it is because I am doing better than I
thought I was going to for the first half of my life? or maybe I'm just less
jealous than most people? but yeah, there are a few people I follow who you
could say I am envious of; people who are super successful in all the ways I
want to be successful, but I think it's good rather than bad, because I feel a
connection to what I want and admire, and there's this person I really admire
who is talking with me. That is... kinda neat, you know? Like showing up at
your buddy's weekend board game party and finding the inventor of a famous
programming language was also invited.

I guess I don't see how seeing people who are more successful than you on
facebook could possibly be more distressing than seeing those people at work
(and you _will_ and always have seen those people at work. We've always had
bosses.)

Even in person, I've always found being around people that are better than I
am (better by my standards) to be fun and exciting. I don't think this is
uncommon, really.

~~~
manmal
If you are perfectly content with your life, then Facebook probably won’t be
an issue at all. But if you have _any_ area where you don’t feel fulfilled -
like bad life/work balance, insufficient funds, loneliness, unfulfilled baby
wish - then Facebook is going to rub it into your face, daily, that others
have what you desire, and does it in a misleading way.

Let’s say you can’t have a baby and you have a colleague with 4 kids at work.
In real life, you talk to them, get a grasp of their situation, and might
realize the caveats - Eg they also had an unfulfilled baby wish at first
(which gives you hope), or you can offset the perceived „unfairness“ with the
areas they are lacking in (eg they often feel overwhelmed by the kids or are
sick a lot). On Facebook, you have an army of super-happy baby making
machines, posting Instagram filtered of happy smiles in the sunny park, kids
cuddling with a dog, birthday candles... the bad moments are very rarely
reported - and when they are, lots of people flock to the post and comment,
making that person their center of attention (= socially important). But they
won’t write next to that happy picture „right after, baby cried for 45 minutes
and I almost had a nervous breakdown“ because you don’t appear to be in a
favorable position when writing that.

[As a father of two, I was never directly affected by an unfulfilled baby
wish, but a friend of ours was.]

~~~
lsc
>If you are perfectly content with your life, then Facebook probably won’t be
an issue at all. But if you have _any_ area where you don’t feel fulfilled -
like bad life/work balance, insufficient funds, loneliness, unfulfilled baby
wish - then Facebook is going to rub it into your face, daily, that others
have what you desire, and does it in a misleading way.

I am super amused that in the middle of a heated debate on the internet, a
stranger is implying that I am a happy, well-balanced person with a full life
:)

~~~
manmal
Interesting argument :) Do you mean that a happy, well-balanced person would
not engage in discussions on Hacker News?

------
cteague
Many of you are speaking about the social aspects of smartphones and social
media, but I think a big issue is also the cognitive impact of short-term
gratification due to internet/tech addiction. Happiness often comes from
feeling competent. If teens attention spans are dwindling due to this
addiction, they are going to grow up without the grit to persist and develop
skills.

~~~
malux85
I see this in the students I mentor. Every single one of them cannot focus on
a single task for longer than 60 seconds, which is severely hampering their
ability to think deeply about abstract programming and data science problems.
It's very frustrating, but they just cannot stop checking their phones for
updates

~~~
JCharante
What types students are you mentoring? I've observed that groups of the best-
performing students look down on those "addicted" to their phones and some
have switched to flip phones.

~~~
malux85
Comp-Sci/Electrical Engineers - I've never seen any of them without a
smartphone, or even heard them talk about their friends switching.

Sounds like a good idea though :)

~~~
matte_black
I would try switching to a flip phone but the problem is I want a cool modern
flip phone not something that looks vintage.

~~~
wilsonnb
It's not a flip phone, but I quite like the way the new Nokia 3310 looks.
Simple but modern.

[https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nokia-3310-3g-cell-phone-
unlock...](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nokia-3310-3g-cell-phone-unlocked-
charcoal/6092438.p?skuId=6092438)

------
purple-again
Except from 2010 - 2015 many teens did feel a crushing sense of economic dread
as they dealt with the realities of student loans, an out of reach housing
market, devalued college degrees, the gig economy, promises of no retirement,
etc.

The article just skims over it with a quick this is why economics couldn’t
have been the reason.

~~~
wutbrodo
> the realities of student loans, an out of reach housing market, devalued
> college degrees, the gig economy, promises of no retirement, etc.

Have you ever met a teenager? Almost literally zero percent of them think (or
need to think) about this stuff, with the possible exception of some of the
very oldest teenagers (ie, people in their first or second year of college who
are starting to think about the details of the start of their careers).

~~~
watwut
Teenagers I do know personally talk about being worried about jobs, housing,
debt and general economical problems. I never start those discussions, they
do.

~~~
Spooky23
That sounds like a branch of the problem being discussed here. If you’re 16
and worried about housing options, something is wrong imo.

~~~
newfoundglory
Well, yea. The housing market is super fucked up, that’s what’s wrong.

~~~
abusoufiyan
I guess but why would teenagers of all people care about this? You don't need
a house. Many of the kids I knew growing up lived in apartments.

If they lived in a house they could inherit it from their parents. Why is the
housing market something children worry about?

~~~
doktrin
> You don't need a house. Many of the kids I knew growing up lived in
> apartments.

Apartments are part of the housing market

> If they lived in a house they could inherit it from their parents.

Teenagers probably want to move _out_ of their parents home (be it a house or
apartment).

> Why is the housing market something children worry about?

See above : teenagers often want and look forward to independence, and housing
is 100% central to that goal. Their future horizon may be a little shallower
than that of the average adult, but they _do_ have a horizon - i.e short term
goals that they want to achieve.

At least for me, that meant figuring out how I was going to actually live on
my own come 18. You can bet I was worried about housing prices (even if my
immediate goal was to rent).

------
ThrustVectoring
Screen time is a symptom, not a cause. One of the vital drives of adolescents
are to gain independence from their parents and figure out their own place in
life. To do this, teens _need_ to interact with peers, hang out, make
mistakes, and generally be sociable.

Our society, largely, does not allow this. Instead, safety fears, need for
cars, etc, keep teens at home. So what else is a teen to do to interact
socially with their peers? Online is the least-bad remaining outlet for this
desire - if they can't hang out in a parking lot or whatever, at least they
can take selfies on instagram or whatever.

~~~
bpicolo
People are using smartphones as a replacement for face-to-face interaction.
That's not just symptomatic.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
The solution isn't to ban or reduce smartphone usage, like you would if
smartphone usage itself was causing problems. The solution is to make it
easier and more accepted to hang out face-to-face.

Ban the phone and keep the isolating culture and you wind up with even more
isolated teens.

~~~
bpicolo
Of course. Banning phones doesn't make any sense and computers are pretty much
the same thing in the context of home. Self-moderation is critical here,
though hard to do

------
Razengan
I think the "likely culprit" is, as it has always been, just the "human
condition."

The coming into an unknown world, ignorant of everything, constantly
reconciling conflicting ideas, nagged by a sense of ultimate pointlessness,
and the dread of inevitable mortality. However we may try to pooh-pooh these
things away, they've been an incurable source of unhappiness since time
immemorial.

Humans cannot be truly happy unless we keep ourselves seriously deluded or
constantly distracted; with biosocial emotions, religion, duty, hope,
ambition, goals, pleasure or whatever.

Throughout our history the distraction has mostly been provided by daily
struggle for survival, but the comforts of civilization and technology, and
the increasing knowledge of the species as a whole, have been laying us bare
to the above.

We probably either have to keep cooking up new distractions, or we'll need to
sit down as an species and conduct a no-bullshit review of what it means to be
human, and everyone's place, right and requirements in this world, and our
combined place in the cosmos.

~~~
spuz
That may be the underlying cause of some suicides but it doesn't explain why
depression and suicides have increased for teenagers in the last 5 years.
Also, if we need distraction to survive the ultimate meaninglessness of life
as you claim then why would technology make depression worse instead of
better?

~~~
Razengan
> _why would technology make depression worse instead of better?_

I can only speak for myself, of course, and in my case, the ever increasing
access to information and social contacts, actually eliminates the hope of
finding any large-scale meaning in this world, ever-so-gradually, when you
keep failing to see any point no matter what you learn and who you meet.

Not exactly depression, maybe it falls under nihilism, but.. Everything just
is, and it doesn't ultimately matter what you do.

I suspect that even if I had a starship capable of traveling to other worlds,
and a long enough lifespan to see them all, I'd still find everything
ultimately pointless.

~~~
jm__87
So what if life objectively has no meaning? You can only experience it through
your own subjective viewpoint, so why not find something that is subjectively
meaningful to you?

~~~
where_do_i_live
And there lies the problem. That means your lack of existence is on par with
anything else. So you can find something random meaningful to you or poof just
end it early.

Usually this leads to drugs first and not outright suicide, but it is still
nonetheless quite harmful to the individual.

~~~
jm__87
I think you missed my point... your lack of existence is on par with anything
else, to some objective observer. You are not an objective observer. You can
choose to care about yourself. You just have to accept the trade off that
caring about something means there will inevitably be some pain to go along
with it too when things don't work out the way you want.

------
deckard1
They did a study using Facebook. But I'm more curious about Instagram. "Look
at all these rich beautiful people with millions of followers sailing around
the world on their yachts." Ten minutes on Instagram is enough to fill any
sane person with existential dread and bring about severe depression.

~~~
limaoscarjuliet
For my son (17 y.o.) it is online games and phone use in general. He has - I
hope - mild depression, which - I believe - is caused by his online habits.

His mom and I thought taking his PC away from him would fix it. But then he
falls into school-sleep cycle, that looks like full-blown depression.

Yes, his grades are affected and in not a good way.

What works for now is to participate in his life with him. As of now we are at
a Volleyball tournament. While he "sucks" at it, the social interaction and
sense of belonging to the team/cause that puts a wide smile on his face.

Not saying we should take phones away from kids, but certainly they should be
treated as potentially harming things when used incorrectly: guns, alcohol (,
drugs?), etc.

In any case, Volleyball includes scores of girls dressed in spandex, so there
is hope he will get interested in them and starts to think how to get to them
rather than look at the phone.

~~~
pixelperfect
When I was around that age I also had my PC taken away from me. My
recommendation would be to see if you can kickstart some hobby by spending a
few hundred dollars on something as a substitute for the PC. Something of his
choice than is more constructive than video games. When my PC was taken away
and not replaced with anything, I just got bored and didn't know what to do
with my time.

~~~
ams6110
I've been thinking that possibly that is part of the problem. Kids don't
experience being bored anymore, and working out ways to deal with a lack of
constant entertainment/stimulation.

When I was a teenager I was frequently bored. Nothing on TV (we only had a few
channels), no mobile phones, SMS, or online social media. You could call a
friend on the telephone, maybe, if they were home and their phone wasn't busy.
Once you were old enough to drive, and assuming you had access to a car, your
options opened up a bit but meeting friends still took some planning.

I have teens now, and I can literally not remember the last time I heard the
"I'm bored" whinging that my parents heard so often. They are never bored.
They always have their phones, with games and connections to friends. I don't
know if that's good or bad.

------
greggarious
This is anecdotal, but when I was a teen, I was bullied, and online was an
escape. The idea of those bullies hitting up a Facebook, Instagram, or even
just texting insults 24/7 would probably be jarring and depressing.

~~~
rdiddly
Yeah I was surprised they mentioned bullying in the article as a possible
"real life" cause of depression, and not a "smartphone" one. Social media does
make it easier for a bully to "connect" with you.

------
ouid
Teenagers get depressed when they are in love, their love is unrequited, and
they are constantly reminded of that fact. Facebook facilitates all of these
conditions. Why is love never mentioned in these studies as a primary
motivator in teen suicide?

~~~
guskel
Or just rejection and being a social outcast in general.

~~~
sneak
Maybe phones need IRC clients.

------
psb31
This research is highly debated and is by no means a sure thing. The research
so far has been correlational, inconsistent, and weak. Twenge hugely
overstates the confidence we should have in the findings.

See [https://medium.com/@OrbenAmy/social-media-and-suicide-a-
crit...](https://medium.com/@OrbenAmy/social-media-and-suicide-a-critical-
appraisal-f95e0bbd4660) and
[https://twitter.com/shuhbillskee/status/955070356091555840](https://twitter.com/shuhbillskee/status/955070356091555840)
for some critiques of the work.

~~~
autokad
When I worked for a research lab for a university attached to a hospital,
facebook usage was highly correlated with diagnosed depression. it was unclear
whether depressed people used facebook more, or using facebook more caused
depression.

the correlations with facebook usage and other illnesses was weak, but
depression was not.

~~~
abritinthebay
Speaking from experience - the former.

------
adamnemecek
Im sure smartphones could be a possible factor however one must not forget how
depressing the whole high school experience is. I think that the pressure has
increased quite a bit. The amount of hw has also increased.

I don’t think that this suicide increase has been observed in say Finland.

~~~
Pxtl
Well, remember that we're talking about an uptick. High school has always been
soul-crushing for a certain percentage of the student body. The question isn't
just what's wrong, but what's changed to make it worse?

~~~
adamnemecek
I know we are talking about an uptick. He this been observed outside the us?

------
wheresmyusern
i think the article is correct, but i also think that new perceptions about
society are contributing to the problem. kids used to think that they could
make ends meet, somehow. as time goes forward, that notion is increasingly
replaced by the notion that there is no way to make ends meet or to have a
good life besides succeeding in high school and then college and then in a
fancy career. anything besides that is not really accepted or respected, from
what ive seen. so imagine that you are a kid and you are in fact not up to the
gauntlet of challenges associated with making all of that happen -- or imagine
that taking on that huge challenge frightens you which causes you to do badly
in school which then makes you even more frightened and hopeless. and you need
to do all this while attending a public high school in the US, which are some
of the most toxic, inhospitable and shortsighted places in the world.

the whole thing a stupid cultural artifact that not only makes no sense (the
economy will not function if everyone has white-collar jobs), but also
completely overlooks the mental health of the people who are subjected to it.

and its all made worse by social media, because kids know that if their life
and career dont wind up being ideal, their entire social circle is going to be
looking at it online.

i was in high school when facebook first took off. i suppose im lucky because
i got to experience high school before facebook (before modern social media)
and i got to experience high school after. such a transition happens once in a
lifetime. i immediately had a very bad feeling about facebook and felt really
bad whenever i used it. when i was faced with the transition to a facebook
world, informed by the memory of how i felt before facebook, i chose not to
make an account and effectively opt out of online social interaction. its a
decision that i have never regretted and one that seems better and better as
the years tick by.

i still cant understand why people use facebook. and im not surprised in any
way that a world where everyone is on facebook has these kinds of
consequences.

------
simplify
I just read a good article that relates to this. The cause isn't pretty,
though (and not related to a screen).

[https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a6a144de4b0ddb658c46a21](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a6a144de4b0ddb658c46a21)

~~~
nate_meurer
Thank you for this

------
randomname2
Is it possible this is also in part due to EMFs from their phones (and
environment) and circadian rhythm disturbances from screens?

Some studies suggest the radiation can be risky to kids:

Christ A, Gosselin MC, Christopoulou M, K’uhn S, & Kuster N. (2010 Jan.). Age
dependent tissue-specific exposure of cell phone users. Physics in Medicine
and Biology, 55: 1767-1783. Retrieved from
[http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9155/55/7/001/pdf/0031-9155_5...](http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9155/55/7/001/pdf/0031-9155_55_7_001.pdf).

Block, R. (12 July 2012). American Academy of Pediatrics letter to the FCC.
Retrieved from [http://www.scribd.com/doc/104230961/American-Academy-of-
Pedi...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/104230961/American-Academy-of-Pediatrics-
letter-to-the-FCC)

Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K. (2009) Epidemiological evidence for an
association between use of wireless phones an tumor diseases. Pathophysiology
16 (2-3): 113-122.]

Hardell L, Hansson Mild K, Carlberg M, Hallquist A. (2004) Cellular and
cordless telephones and the association with brain tumours in different age
group. Archives of Environmental Health 59 (3): 132-137.

Divan HA, Kheifets L, Obel C, Olsen J. (2008) Prenatal and Postnatal Exposure
to Cell Phone Use and Behavioral Problems in Children. Epidemiology 19(4):
523-529.

Byun, YH, Ha, M, Kwon, HJ et al (2013 Mar 21). Mobile phone use, blood lead
levels, and attention deficit hyperactivity symptoms in children: a
longitudinal study. PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e59742. doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0059742.

Morgan, L, Kesari, S, Davis, D (2014). Why children absorb more microwave
radiation than adults: The consequences. Journal of Microscopy and
Ultrastructure 2(4): 197-204. doi:10.1016/j.jmau.2014.06.005

Environmental Health Trust (2015). Wireless and Children. Retrieved from:
[http://ehtrust.org/cell-phones-radiation-3/wireless-and-
chil...](http://ehtrust.org/cell-phones-radiation-3/wireless-and-children-3/)

Exposure to radio-frequency electromagnetic fields and behavioural problems in
Bavarian children and adolescents.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19960235](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19960235)

~~~
jotm
Ah, whatdya know, I said the same thing a while ago - we don't actually know
the effects of long term exposure to so much radiation.

But I think it's mostly the Internet - too much information, endless info
streams, endless mindless entertainment, endless feeds of successful people
(so it seems that everyone is successful, or making 50K/year, or pretty,
except you and your family/friends/hometown).

~~~
ebikelaw
Currently we're running a huge experiment in which virtually everybody is
exposed to the electromagnetic fields of communication networks. This has been
going on for more than a decade. If there is an effect, we should easily see
it.

~~~
trendia
> we should easily see it.

Note, I'm not saying there is an effect, but it's not quite so easy to say we
should have found it if it exists. First, there is a delay between radiation
exposure and cancer risk (up to ten years).

Second, if all population centers experience the same increase in radiation
exposure, then it is very difficult to use radiation as an independent
variable to measure its impact on cancer.

For instance, it took decades before anyone was able to show that nuclear
testing caused an increase in deaths, and that was only possible because the
distribution of radioactive isotopes was not uniformly spread across the US --
some states (especially in the midwest) received far more radiation than
others (e.g. Western California or Louisiana).

In contrast, if electromagnetic radiation from cell towers is relatively
uniformly spread for the same population density (e.g. New York is comparable
to Los Angeles, and rural Washington is comparable to rural Missouri), then it
will be rather difficult to separate cancer risk from electromagnetic
radiation from other risks.

~~~
Findeton
Non-ionizing radiation, like the one from cell towers or your smartphone (or
radio signals, or TV, or even from power lines) does not cause cancer. It just
can't cause cancer, as it can't even rip off a single electron from an atom
(definition of non-ionizing).

~~~
ramblenode
This seems like a very wrong-headed assumption. We don't understand the
etiology of cancer generally, and radio frequency radiation may have
physiological effects which produce conditions favorable to cancer. Microwaves
aren't ionizing, but it's easy to demonstrate that an oven will damage tissue.
Tissue damage results in a cascade of physiological processes, including
inflammation and scarring which may precipitate cancer. RF energy is similarly
absorbed by tissue producing heat, but the specific absorption rate (SAR) for
common RF emitters, including phones, is low. Maybe enough exposure over time
becomes an issue, though.

~~~
cornholio
An oven will damage tissue by thermal heating. Since the energies involved in
cell phones, WiFi, etc. induce negligible heating, we need another plausible
pathway of interaction with the tissue. If we don't have one, then it's like
saying that african butterflies could cause cancer at the North Pole by an yet
unidentified phenomenon of spooky action at a distance. Impossible to disprove
but irrelevant.

Edit: To make matters worse, there is even a profesional disease among people
with RF exposure: eye cataract, due to thermal heating of a poorly irrigated
and termoregulated corneal tissue. These are guys working in close proximity
to megawatt transmitters. It is not correlated to cancers.

~~~
ramblenode
Heating was an example to demonstrate that non-ionizing radiation still
impacts tissue. It doesn't make sense to dismiss a possible link between
cancer and RF emitting devices just because we don't understand all the
mediating mechanisms in that relationship. A lack of understanding is not
negative evidence. And the fact that I can't disprove your butterfly theory is
not a reason that simpler theories (phone usage ~ cancer) are invalid.

~~~
cornholio
> A lack of understanding is not negative evidence

Clearly, but anybody claiming the spooky action effect needs to accept the
burden of proof and produce positive evidence. When that necessitates new ways
of physical interaction unknown to science, it's a colossal burden, likely to
have far reaching implications and revolutionize multiple fields; it's highly
unlikely that such positive evidence was ignored for the decades the effect
was claimed.

~~~
Gnarl
You, also, need to see this:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26151230](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26151230)

------
mirimir
The existential challenge for most teens is "Do I belong with peers?" I had a
hard enough time with that, with only a few hundred schoolmates. I can't quite
imagine how tough that must be on social media today. Bullying and mobbing are
just so much more efficient.

I suppose that one could argue that's it's just stronger selective pressure
for toughness. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never
hurt me." But now, words can hurt. Can destroy your life. Or so it seems. And
what about the ones who survive? What sort of society will they create? I have
no clue.

Maybe we should manage social media like psychoactive drugs.

~~~
cornholio
> Bullying and mobbing are just so much more efficient.

That's a deeply insightful observation that should be centerpiece in this
conversation. As others have pointed out it's clearly not "screen time", and
if the effect is real, it's related to social media, not screens. My happiest
days were spending 10+ hours on my Sinclair Spectrum clone, the screen
certainly made me feel more capable and confident in my abilities than school
work or social interaction.

Yet, my social interactions were moderated by the constraints of real life,
that strongly dampen agresive tendencies. I can imagine in terror what it
means to be a withdrawn teenager now: technology permits cutthroat exclusion
of the undesirables while ridicule is instantaneous and viral.

------
verbify
Teen suicide isn't going up in Europe generally or specifically in the UK.

It seems more likely to me that the uptick is due to a 2004 FDA black-box
warning on antidepressants indicating that they were associated with an
increased risk of suicidal thinking, feeling, and behavior in young people. It
seems likely that prescriptions for antidepressants would go down and people
avoiding taking their antidepressants would go up a few years after the
warning.

------
CryoLogic
Housing market is pretty bad factor. Most generations previous could afford a
starter house on two minimum wage or a bit above minimum wage incomes. In many
areas today you need two engineering incomes to pay off a 30 yr mortgage.

~~~
bkohlmann
I'm not sure how many 13-17 year old teenagers were or are concerned with
their ability to purchase a home.

~~~
dorfsmay
More than you think. They are concerned about being independent, which means
affording rent which leads them to think about buy vs rent.

~~~
djrogers
No, there are a near-zero number of 13-17 year olds worried about how they’re
going to pay their rent when they graduate from college. Those that do
generally see things through the optimism of youth and assume everything will
work out.

------
lazyasciiart
tl:dr correlation between them all getting mobile phones and facebook. Perhaps
because of the need to reduce it to six paragraphs, it is a very unconvincing
piece.

~~~
lisper
It might be an unconvincing piece, but it still seems like a very plausible
hypothesis to me.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I've got a plausible (to me) hypothesis of my own - namely, that the "kids
these days are getting worse and worse" is something people have been
thoughtlessly regurgitating for as long as we have historical written records,
and that new customs or technologies are easiest to blame. Today it's
Facebook, previously it was TV, earlier still it was walkmans and metal bands.
Hell, if I'm to believe random quotes from the Internet, even earlier it was
paper/pens and... books. "Facebook is bad for the kids" seems to be the
cheapest thing you can write these days while being sure you'll have an
audience that agrees with you.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I think there is actually a bigger danger with people summarily dismissing
negative consequences of technology, and then just saying "it's no big deal"
because it's been going on a long time.

Look at TV. Of course TV has many positives, but it's also another factor in
people (at least Americans) becoming _much_ more sedentary over the past 6-7
decades, which has been a large factor in the US obesity epidemic. It's a
mistake to dismiss the negatives of TV just because we've gotten used to the
fact that nearly everyone is so fat.

Similarly, with social media, forget about teenagers, as I think many people
are able to see the huge negative effect it has on their own lives. The fact
that we're becoming a society that constantly compares ourselves to the
idealized versions of other people shouldn't allow us to dismiss the obvious
negatives of those comparisons.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Not trying to dismiss _all_ negatives; just biased against this particular
flavour (kids getting sad or unruly is surely because of the things they
enjoy, as opposed to e.g. broken economy visible every day through their
parents). So I'm not dismissing e.g. sedentary lifestyle issues.

> _The fact that we 're becoming a society that constantly compares ourselves
> to the idealized versions of other people shouldn't allow us to dismiss the
> obvious negatives of those comparisons_

I think social media is actually a step up here - the time spent comparing
ourselves to idealized versions of our friends is the time not spent comparing
ourselves to the apparent presence of all those celebrities and rich people,
which was a constant of the previous century. _Mass media_ broke the
availability heuristic; the generic dysrationalia it caused in people is
clearly visible. Which would be a kind of tech negative I'm not denying.

------
mordymoop
Weird that they so often write "screen" when they mean "social media". My eyes
were glued to screens growing up. TV, PC, GameBoy, consoles. But his is only
happening now.

------
alkonaut
So if we find this correlation to be causation, what do we do?

Can the genie be put back in the bottle?

I’m hoping that giving 12yo kids smartphones in ten years will be seen as
giving them cigarettes.

------
limeblack
I find it interesting the article doesn't talk about physical health. Many of
the mental health drugs cause extreme weight gain which can lead to
depression.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Well the one I'm on definitely doesn't. /anecdata

------
comatose
While the unemployment rate may have "improved" it doesn't track people
"leaving the workforce " due to giving up or running out of benefits. It was a
considered a somewhat jobless recovery actually. With regards to smartphones
"correlation does not imply causation." Needless to say I only read the first
few paragraphs before determining this wasn't a well reasoned article.

------
umanwizard
dang : can we change the clickbait title?

------
cwyers
Let's look at the OECD stats for teenage suicide worldwide:

> Teenage suicides rates have, on average, declined slightly over the past two
> decades or so (Chart CO4.4.A). While in 1990 there were, on average across
> the OECD, 8.5 suicides per 100 000 teenagers (15-19), by 2015 this rate had
> fallen to 7.4. Much of this decline occurred during the 2000s. Between 1990
> and 1999 the OECD average teenage suicide remained fairly stable at around
> 8.4 suicides per 100,000, but this average fell across the 2000s before
> reaching a low of 6.3 per 100,000 in 2007. With the exception of 2008, the
> average rate remained lower than 7.0 until 2014, although it increased
> slightly in 2014 and 2015.

[https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO_4_4_Teenage-
Suicide.pdf](https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO_4_4_Teenage-Suicide.pdf)

------
johnvega
Subtle accumulative micro attention brain hijacking that turns into
detrimental habits. Overtime, it can be catastrophic. Perhaps it's less than
50 percent, but it's happening in a massive scale, so the actual number can be
staggering.

[http://www.timewellspent.io/problem](http://www.timewellspent.io/problem) Our
society is being hijacked by technology

[https://youtu.be/C74amJRp730](https://youtu.be/C74amJRp730) ... tech
companies control billions of minds ...

[https://youtu.be/nay5w-FC08Q?t=5m](https://youtu.be/nay5w-FC08Q?t=5m) ... how
we're steering 2 billion people's thought ...

------
ineedasername
They took the results of a survey administered 6 years apart and applied their
pet theory to interpret the differences.

The survey is done every 2 years by the CDC, so their findings have a prima
facie lack if rigorous credibiltlity by ignoring the 2 administrations in 2011
and 2013.

------
saucymew
Would anyone with actual children who are living in the smartphone era care to
comment? Blanketing "access to information leads to nihilism" removes social
exclusion, FOMO, cyber-bullying, etc. from the conversation, imo.

------
xupybd
> For example, while conducting research for my book on iGen, I found that
> teens now spend much less time interacting with their friends in person.
> Interacting with people face to face is one of the deepest wellsprings of
> human happiness; without it, our moods start to suffer and depression often
> follows.

I think this is really the key. The lack of face time is really hard. Social
media is a poor replacement for real interaction. It's kind of like junk food.
It makes you feel good for a bit but long term use leaves you sick and fat.
You get too much of the stuff you don't need and too little of the stuff you
do need.

~~~
sologoub
> Interacting with people face to face is one of the deepest wellsprings of
> human happiness;

That varies from person to person. There are enough introverts around who are
completely drained by excess human interactions and need time to process and
recharge. As a blanket statement this is very misleading.

For those who tend more extroverted, it’s likely very true, but doesn’t make
it true for everyone.

~~~
xupybd
Introvert here. It took me a long time to realise the role that face to face
interaction had in my emotional well being. I was awkwardly shy and confused
by most social interaction. I'd also get down a lot.

Over time I learnt that I'd feel better if I made the effort to spend time
around people and develop relationships. I'm still not great at this and would
like to get better. But it's kind of like exercise yeah some people naturally
enjoy it and some hate it but most will feel better for it.

Perhaps this is not true of everyone. But I'd be surprised if it wasn't true
for a very significant proportion of the population.

------
djrogers
How can the author look at something as broad as ‘access to a smartphone’ and
not dive deeper? What are these kids doing on that phone that’s making them
miserable? I have my suspicions, and it’s not candy crush...

------
jrs95
There's a lot of discussion with social media in regards to the impact of
mobile devices on children, but I think the easy access to internet porn is
arguably just as harmful. There are teen boys with erectile dysfunction
because of this. I wouldn't be surprised if it had broader negative
psychological and social effects as well. At the same time, I don't think we
really have enough information about what the impacts of this really are. I
hope some more research is done on this topic.

------
redleggedfrog
It's very interesting to me to see the attack on the article/research and the
defense of the screen here. Reminds me very much of client change deniers.

------
earenndil
Obviously just a sample size of 1, but I -- a teenager -- am the only one out
of all my friends that isn't depressed, and I'm fairly sure I spend more time
on the computer/phone than all of them. Not to imply that the conclusion is
wrong, I could just be an outlier, but it's likely just a rule of thumb when
attempting to diagnose/identify potential causes of a problem.

------
lumberjack
Too quick to blame, "the screen". Is it really just the existence of social
media that caused this, or is it maybe a change of culture that emerged with
the spread of the Internet and social media?

For example, today a child from a religious community might encounter atheism
at 12 or 13 whereas previously they would encounter it when they went off to
college. Maybe that child happens to be suffering from depression and their
faith would have provided them with the hope that they needed to persevere,
but having discovered atheism at such a tender age, they are left hopeless and
desolate. Not mature enough to deal with their problems on their own and with
no reason to believe that things will get any better.

I am not saying that the rise of atheism is a factor. It is just one example I
came up with, on the spot, to explain how the change of culture due to the
Internet might be the actual cause powering this trend, rather than the usage
of the social media itself.

~~~
throwaway2801
> having discovered atheism at _such a tender age_ , _they are left hopeless
> and desolate_. (emphasis mine)

What??

As if atheists were monsters.

As an atheist (more agnostic actually - I cannot be sure no gods exist), your
answer feels interesting but also surprising, very saddening and actually
chocking.

Let's not make atheists look like evil people who make children depressed.
This is not OK.

I never needed to have any "faith" to be happy. Solving my problems actually
seems to be the solution to my happiness, not to believe or have faith in
anything. On the other side, a big part of many religions seems to involve
thinking about death and guilt. This can seem depressing and desolating from
the point of view of an atheist. Can you imagine an atheist child being
exposed to such a desolating way of seeing life? What happens when this child
learns that there have been wars about such things as religions when the claim
is that they are about tolerence? The child have rights to feel outright
disoriented (guess what: I have been such a child).

Fortunately, one people I know is very positive in their life (the most by
far) and also happens to be a believer, and most people (including believers)
I know are fine people and against wars, so I understand that believers do not
have to approach religions like this.

Anyway, though your example is insightful and enlightening, you could have
made your point with a way better example. Or your point was the wrong one.

~~~
abusoufiyan
>Let's not make atheists look like evil people who make children depressed.
This is not OK.

That's not what he's doing at all.

But it is also true that religion is largely the underpinning of morality for
most people in the world and early exposure to the idea that morality is
relative and malleable and that actually the only real motivator is self-
preservation is probably unhealthy for adolescents.

>Solving my problems actually seems to be the solution to my happiness, not to
believe or have faith in anything. On the other side, a big part of many
religions seems to involve thinking about death and guilt

A big part of religions is also charity work and the idea that you aren't just
doing things for yourself or solving your own problems but solving the
problems of others because they are your equals (at least in Abrahamic
traditions, I am familiar with these).

I don't see where you can pull that out of atheism.

>What happens when this child learns that there have been wars about such
things as religions when the claim is that they are about tolerence?

What a silly thing to say. Religions would not need to preach tolerance if
mankind were inherently tolerant, no? If mankind is not inherently tolerant,
why will a child be shaken to understand that that inherent intolerance causes
wars over nearly everything (from religion to culture to language to land).

~~~
watwut
> the idea that you aren't just doing things for yourself or solving your own
> problems but solving the problems of others because they are your equals

Equality really really does not describe views of hardcore christians I
personally know nor the content of sermons I personally heard not christian
journals articles I read.

Nor does tolerance, no matter how you define tolerance.

~~~
abusoufiyan
I am not a Christian but I grew up around very faithful Christians and my
experiences are not the same as yours. Just to put that out there. Many of the
devout Christians I knew took actions to rectify the wrongs around them that
people would be awed by.

------
intrasight
We should get some more research results from France now that phones are
banned in schools

------
snegu
I am curious whether there was an equal effect for boys and girls. Most of the
men I know are a lot less active on social media than women, but I'm not sure
if this is also true for teenagers.

------
tritium
Protip: It’s not the individual’s mobile device usage patterns that are the
problem. It’s the usage patterns of everyone else that turns out to be
distressing.

------
tw1010
[http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

~~~
sigmonsays
correlation does not imply causation. ALso, This page is hilarious.

------
m3kw9
Is the faux social networks that sells vanity and likes over real substance
and relationships

------
djsumdog
Before I even started reading, I knew it was going to be an attack at the
phone. A few centuries ago, they'd attack books. Look back at videos from the
1950s and people didn't talk to each other on the train back then either,
their noses were in books, magazines and newspapers. By the 80s, the nerdy
kids had headphones and cassette players. By the 90s, people had discmans.

The trouble with articles like this is they don't explore the other factors.
Maybe the simply access to information makes kids more nihilistic. And
nihilism isn't a bad thing. The universe is absurd, we have no meaning except
what we give to ourselves (through religion or belief of whatever). Maybe kids
are just realizing this, and it has nothing to do with technology? Maybe
they're realizing that because of technology.

Maybe they see a wold that's yelling at them, calling them entitled, where
they know they'll be in more debt and less paid than any other generation
before them. Maybe it's just the pure knowledge of our place as cogs in the
gears.

There are tons of factors for where we are today. The income gap is getting
wider, parents are struggling to give their kids a good standard of living.
Many parents can't pay for their kids educations like the previous generation
could because it's getting too expensive.

The article says "every region in the country." Are they _just_ looking at the
US? If you didn't find similar numbers in Europe, where they have the same
access to cellphones and technology, they you have to address the other issues
such as health care, better pubic welfare, freedom of transportation and high
standards of living.

~~~
jp555
“And nihilism isn't a bad thing.“

Becoming unwilling to manifest any faith in anything at all is absolutely a
bad thing.

~~~
abritinthebay
That... is not what Nihilism is though?

I mean someone who is a nihilist might think that but it’s not a logical
consequence of, or foundational feature of, nihilism.

~~~
jrs95
It sort of is, though. Nietzsche in particular didn't actually portray
nihilism as a good thing, but just an inevitable stage in human development,
which could be either very good or very bad depending on what kind of values
system (if any) arose from that nihilism. There are in my opinion some
similarities between the direction we're heading and what he called "The Last
Man", which was basically the worst possible outcome of nihilism.

~~~
abritinthebay
There is more - a lot more - to nihilism than Nietzsche.

~~~
jrs95
Of course there is. I was just trying to point out that the views on it, even
from the perspective of nihilists, isn’t necessarily that nihilism is a “good
thing”.

------
cyphunk
that is a cheap shot. while it could be screens, it could also be the
polarization of society. and while the polarization may also relate to the
decentralizatoin of media and it's arbitration (enabled by screens), this too
is more complex that just the screen.

------
randomdrake
Study: Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide
Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media
Screen Time

Citation: Jean M. Twenge, Thomas E. Joiner, Megan L. Rogers, Gabrielle N.
Martin. Clinical Psychological Science Vol 6, Issue 1, pp. 3 - 17. November
14, 2017.

Link:
[https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376](https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376)

DOI: 10.1177/2167702617723376

Abstract: In two nationally representative surveys of U.S. adolescents in
grades 8 through 12 (N = 506,820) and national statistics on suicide deaths
for those ages 13 to 18, adolescents’ depressive symptoms, suicide-related
outcomes, and suicide rates increased between 2010 and 2015, especially among
females. Adolescents who spent more time on new media (including social media
and electronic devices such as smartphones) were more likely to report mental
health issues, and adolescents who spent more time on nonscreen activities
(in-person social interaction, sports/exercise, homework, print media, and
attending religious services) were less likely. Since 2010, iGen adolescents
have spent more time on new media screen activities and less time on nonscreen
activities, which may account for the increases in depression and suicide. In
contrast, cyclical economic factors such as unemployment and the Dow Jones
Index were not linked to depressive symptoms or suicide rates when matched by
year.

~~~
davito88
correlation does not imply causation

~~~
pmoriarty
What does imply causation?

~~~
goalieca
It’s like shouting “fake news” when you didn’t even read the article

------
yakitori
Thank god for our daily "social media" is evil propaganda. I hope one day
someone looks into who is pushing this and why. It would be very interesting.
At this point, all the outrage and propaganda really comes off as manufactured
and fake.

Maybe it's a generational thing. When I was a child, it was south park,
simpsons and gangsta rap that was ruining kids mental health. And video games
were responsible for school shootings and all of life's ills.

For my parents generation, it was TV, rock and roll and marijuana.

Something always has to be wrong in order for the media to sell advertising to
us I guess.

If anything is leading to our collective mental health deterioration, it's the
constant media barrage on tv, newspapers and social media telling us that we
are depressed. But fear is what sells.

~~~
root_axis
Your comment feels like cynical contrarianism. Just because everyone says
social media is bad doesn't mean its not. The observed increase in suicide
rates among teens is real and this study presents evidence that social media
might explain this rise including careful controls for other factors. Is this
study the end of the story on social media? Of course not, but it shows that
there _is_ some there there.

