Anxiety, dispair, loneliness, depression -- all we need is a social media recession! A popular thesis is that All The Bad Things things are on the rise among adolescents because of social media, a view popularized in Jon Haidt's 2024 book The Anxious Generation. Haidt is calling for an end of the "phone-based childhood" and hoping that schools banish all screens for the benefit of its students.
But is it true than social media is causing this mental health crisis? Is it true that there even is a mental health crisis? We do a deep dive into Haidt's book to discuss the evidence.
We discuss
A weird citation trend in philosophy
Whether there is a mental health crisis among teens
Some inconsistencies in Haidt's data on mental health outcomes
Correlation vs causation, and whether Haidt establishes causation
Why on earth do the quality of these studies suck so much?
Whether Haidt's conclusions are justified
References
The Anxious Generation (https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic/dp/0593655036)
Jon Haidt's After Babel Substack (https://www.afterbabel.com/)
After Babel's main post (https://www.afterbabel.com/p/social-media-mental-illness-epidemic) attempting to establish causation, and the response to critics (https://www.afterbabel.com/p/why-some-researchers-think-im-wrong).
Collaborative review doc on adolescent mood disorders (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1diMvsMeRphUH7E6D1d_J7R6WbDdgnzFHDHPx9HXzR5o/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.rqnt07sjvlcd)
Collaborative review doc on social media and mental health (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-HOfseF2wF9YIpXwUUtP65-olnkPyWcgF5BiAtBEy0/edit?tab=t.0)
Matthew B Jane's criticism of Haidt's meta-analysis (https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-6.html)
Aaron Brown's criticism (https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evidence-that-social-media-is-causing-the-teen-mental-health-crisis/)
Stuart Ritchie's criticism (https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/dont-panic-about-social-media-harming-your-childs-mental-health-the-evidence-is-weak-2230571)
Peter Gray's criticism (https://petergray.substack.com/p/45-the-importance-of-critical-analyses)
Datasets
Unaggregated life satisfaction data for boys/girls ages 11/13/15 across 44 countries (https://data-browser.hbsc.org/measure/life-satisfaction/)
Australia hospital admissions due to self harm (https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/intentional-self-harm-hospitalisations/intentional-self-harm-hospitalisations-by-age-sex)
France hospital admissions due to self harm (https://drees.solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2024-05/ER1300EMB.pdf)
Canada (https://yourhealthsystem.cihi.ca/hsp/inbrief?lang=en&_gl=1*rtyvsz*_gcl_au*MTA5ODMwMzc5MS4xNzM3NTAyMTk0*_ga*MTM0Njk4MTc4MS4xNzM3NTAyMTk0*_ga_44X3CK377B*MTczNzUwMjE5NC4xLjAuMTczNzUwMjIwNi4wLjAuMA..#!/indicators/083/self-harm-including-suicide/;mapC1;mapLevel2;sex(F);trend(C5001,C300);/)
Ontario (https://www.cmaj.ca/content/195/36/E1210)
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Image credit: Is social media causing psychological harm to youth and young adults? (https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/social-media-causing-psychological-harm-youth-and-young).