Facebook and Instagram Don't Wreck Kids' Lives, Claims New Study (zdnet.com) 68
A new study from the University of Oxford claims screen time doesn't have a detrimental impact on young people's brains, like so many researchers have claimed. Instead, it says family, friends and school life all had a greater impact on wellbeing. An anonymous reader shares the report from ZDNet: The researchers' skepticism was based on the Grand Theory of Chicken and Egg. As one of the lead researchers, Amy Orben explained: "The previous literature was based almost entirely on correlations with no means to dissociate whether social media use leads to changes in life satisfaction or changes in life satisfaction influence social media use." Quite. Does social media make kids -- or anyone else, for that matter -- miserable? Or do miserable people turn to social media in search of, well, something?
These researchers spoke to 12,000 UK teens and concluded that the effect of social media on their life satisfaction was tiny. Indeed, as another of the lead researchers, Professor Andrew Przybylski told the BBC: "99.75 percent of a person's life satisfaction has nothing to do with their use of social media." Nothing has really changed, he said. Family, friends and school life are still the dominating factors in teen happiness. Moreover, Przybylski took the time to completely contradict Apple CEO and his pained worries about screen time. Przybylski put it quite baldly: "Parents shouldn't worry about time on social media. Thinking about it that way is wrong." For perfect measure, he added: "We need to retire this notion of screen time."
These researchers spoke to 12,000 UK teens and concluded that the effect of social media on their life satisfaction was tiny. Indeed, as another of the lead researchers, Professor Andrew Przybylski told the BBC: "99.75 percent of a person's life satisfaction has nothing to do with their use of social media." Nothing has really changed, he said. Family, friends and school life are still the dominating factors in teen happiness. Moreover, Przybylski took the time to completely contradict Apple CEO and his pained worries about screen time. Przybylski put it quite baldly: "Parents shouldn't worry about time on social media. Thinking about it that way is wrong." For perfect measure, he added: "We need to retire this notion of screen time."
"It just makes them grow up to be dumb cunts" (Score:1)
TLDR, FTFY
Wrong metric (Score:2)
It's not "life satisfaction" I'm interested in, it's objective quality and accomplishments. If you made a fully immersive VR game where you could fuck the screen star of your choice, the "life satisfaction" would be really high... but all you'd accomplish is run up a high electric bill and have a lot of cleanup to do.
Social media is far more insidious. It co-opts our inherent drive for self-affirmation and turns it into addiction. Every post is a release. Every reply is a dopamine hit. Your online life beco
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Now don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming the social media companies for this - they do what they're going to do for profit. It's just the society hasn't grown emotionally to use social media in a healthy manner.
"Don't blame the dealers, it's just that society hasn't learned how to use meth in a responsible manner."
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Socrates believed that learning to read and write made people weak-minded, because there was no longer any need to memorize stuff.
Since then, every generation has felt like the previous generation has been dumber and lazier than they were.
Social media is just an excuse for yet another moral panic.
Prediction: The next generation will have a moral panic over AI chips embedded in brains, so that the "real" brain no longer has to think about hard stuff.
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Look the study is as idiotic as can be. Here is how it works children whose most important contact is direct contact from family and friends wont have a problem with facebook because it is their dominant contact, like, obvious. So for children whose dominant contact form is facebook where they do not have good direct contact with family and friends, yes, Facebook is a problem because it is their dominant form of contact.
Family and friends have a greater impact on well being, only where they are the greater
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The summary and article may be ambiguous, but the study is about social media use, not "screen time".
And the methodology of the study is about "asking" or "surveying" kids aged 10~15. What is the implication of "survey"? Yes, honesty. I'm interested in how truthful kids are. Anyway, the study is still not trustworthy and is ambiguous.
Furthermore, the author seems to publish so many publications [google.com] each year. The link doesn't even include this new study. Thus, I don't feel comfortable about his work quality because of the quantity he does a year.
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I think that it's not the use of social media (which changes every few years as new companies and options enter the fray), as much as it is olds complaining about how social media is affecting the youngs while (they think) they're staring down the barrel of climate change and other global issues that will affect them in *their* lifetime, and that the olds with the resources aren't doing enough to fix it. I bet the mode of technology use is much lower down on the youngs' list of concerns.
Get off my lawn. (Score:1)
There has probably always been a devilish corruptor of the young, and for virtually every generation.
Pool. Dancing. Rock and Roll. Pinball. Television. Video Games.
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I really could have gone for a little corrupting when I was young.
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Spend more time hanging around with the wrong people. That helps a lot, I hear.
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Social media isn't "corrupting" anyone exactly, it's commoditizing them. It's turning them into coddled, fragile cattle who spend their every waking moment being analyzed and marketed to and are so incapable of coping with non-algorithmically-curated reality that they think being verbally insulted is a reason to call the police.
The other things were just distractions and bad (allegedly) influences; social media is rewriting and exploiting basic human psychology in ways that - so far - seem very destructive
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Of course the teens themselves think itâ(TM)s good. The study Iâ(TM)d fundamentally flawed!
These are the same teens who think gender can be changed on a whim. I wouldn't put too much stock in their opinions.
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At least until they're old enough to start codifying their opinions into laws. Seriously, who's going to stop them once they use social media to start organizing and voting en masse?
This study paid for by Facebook (Score:1)
This study was... (Score:1)
...brought to you by Facebook and Instagram
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Re:This study was... (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the link to the actual paper [doi.org]. It was published in PNAS, a high impact and reputable journal. Various government grants are cited in the acknowledgements, so I have no reason to think it was supported by Facebook or its ilk.
As usual, actual claims and content of the paper are lost in the media's reporting. From the abstract: "..social media effects are nuanced, small at best, reciprocal over time, gender specific, and contingent on analytic methods." Screen time is not studied or mentioned in the paper.
Also worth remembering: this is an observational experiment (for obvious reasons). Considering the large number of other peer reviewed papers showing effects, it should not be considered authoritative. I think its getting special mention because it is heterodox.
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My mother ... (Score:2)
"Can she make me one too? How much yarn does she need?"
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Fortnite Does (Score:2)
Actually, no, that's not true at all.
The only thing that is to blame here are the parents who don't set the rules about what their kiddos are allowed / disallowed to do.
If YOU ( as a parent ) let them spend 99% of their free time on Fortnite, Facebook, $whatever, it's your fault. Parents don't want
to be parents so they turn to the great digital baby sitter to keep their kids from bugging them and, most of the time, can't even
be bothered to see what's going on online.
You're basically letting folks like Fac
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And the study is not worthless because it didn't look at what you wanted. Maybe they'll do that next, don't be such a baby.
Grand theory (Score:2)
... of "Chicken and Egg". What precisely is this grand theory? Are they referring to the philosophical dilemma? When did it get upgraded to a "grand theory"?
Like Smoking (Score:2)
It really does have Vitamin C in it.
Facebook and Instagram don't wreck kids' lives? (Score:2)
Facebook and Instagram don't wreck kids' lives, claims new study commissioned by Facebook and Instagram?
We know! (Score:2)
"Facebook and Instagram Don't Wreck Kids' Lives, Claims New Study "
Sure enough, the kids left some time ago.
They now wreck the lives of meemaw and peepaw.
Here's the real problem with social media: (Score:2)
To clarify - The ZDNet article being summarized doesn't contain any links to the study. Not a one. What it has is a link to Science
Delete Facebook (Score:2)
Facebook are known liars, privacy invaders and a left-wing propaganda machine. I will not touch any of their products.
This message brought to you by... (Score:1)