Is Social Media Causing Childhood Depression? (bbc.com) 131
General practitioner Rangan Chatterjee says he has seen plenty of evidence of the link between mental ill-health in children and their use of social media. "One 16 year-old boy was referred to him after he self-harmed and ended up in A&E," reports BBC. Dr. Chatterjee was going to put him on anti-depressants, but instead worked with him to help wean him off social media. "He reported a significant improvement in his wellbeing and, after six months, I had a letter from his mother saying he was happier at school and integrated into the local community," says Dr. Chatterjee. That and similar cases have led him to question the role social media plays in the lives of young people. From the report: "Social media is having a negative impact on mental health," he said. "I do think it is a big problem and that we need some rules. How do we educate society to use technology so it helps us rather than harms us?" A 2017 study by The Royal Society of Public Health asked 1,500 young people aged 11-25 to track their moods while using the five most popular social media sites. It suggested Snapchat and Instagram were the most likely to inspire feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. YouTube had the most positive influence. Seven in 10 said Instagram made them feel worse about body image and half of 14-24-year-olds reported Instagram and Facebook exacerbated feelings of anxiety. Two-thirds said Facebook made cyber-bullying worse.
Consultant psychiatrist Louise Theodosiou says one of the clearest indications children are spending too long on their phones is their behavior during a session with a psychiatrist. "Two or three years ago, it was very unusual for a child to answer their phone or text during an appointment. But now it is common," said the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital doctor. She has seen a rise in cases where social media is a contributing factor in teenage depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. These problems are often complex and wide-ranging -- from excessive use of gaming or social media sites to feelings of inadequacy brought on by a constant bombardment of social media images of other people's lives, to cyber-bullying.
Consultant psychiatrist Louise Theodosiou says one of the clearest indications children are spending too long on their phones is their behavior during a session with a psychiatrist. "Two or three years ago, it was very unusual for a child to answer their phone or text during an appointment. But now it is common," said the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital doctor. She has seen a rise in cases where social media is a contributing factor in teenage depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. These problems are often complex and wide-ranging -- from excessive use of gaming or social media sites to feelings of inadequacy brought on by a constant bombardment of social media images of other people's lives, to cyber-bullying.
What's going on...? (Score:4, Interesting)
A few generations ago, 16 year olds lied to Army recruiters to be able to parachute into Nazi-occupied Western Europe during WWII.
Could you image all these youtube/emo/facebook kids doing that shit today?
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A few generations ago, 16 year olds lied to Army recruiters to be able to parachute into Nazi-occupied Western Europe during WWII.
Could you image all these youtube/emo/facebook kids doing that shit today?
Today we have better records and it is much harder to lie to recruiters. But right now there are 18 and 19 year old "kids" among the 11 thousand American soldiers in Afghanistan.
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Why do you romanticize child slavery? Btw, I know someone who 10 years ago faked her id to get into a tech job (she was 17 and lied she is 20)
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"Child slavery" that made it possible for your country to come into existence...
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Note that GP was posting from Israel.
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I'm old enough to remember the draft. Some people do consider conscription to be a form of slavery. I'm also old enough to have known people who were desperate, or whose families were desperate enough, to lie to get into military service with food, clothing, and housing as part of the agreement. And there have been people throughout history who willingly entered indentured servitude for personal goals.
Re:What's going on...? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first job I had was at 9 picking rocks out of a farmers field before planting, that was in the 1980's. In the 90's it was expected that most kids by the age of 14 already had a PT job of some kind, hell at 12 I was already on the 2nd year of my mechanics apprenticeship. Fake ID for a job at 17...no wonder people think kids are coddled.
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Not really. More a good 50-70 MILES away from whatever urban hell you grew up in.
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Sounds like wherever you lived was a good 50 - 70 years behind in development. I grew up in Texas in the 90s and it was definitely not normal for kids to start gainful employment at age 9.
You mean an area that was heavily industrialized, and had a solid medium and heavy industry manufacturing base that at one time supplied 12% of the province of Ontario's GDP? That's very backwards I guess. I never said it was "gainful employment" but it shows just how little you know about farming. Maybe you should go work on one for a while? I'll explain how this all goes down for you. First you do a deep till, then you pick rocks so you don't damage equipment, then you do a shallow till. Then you pl
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To honest mate, you just sound like you were an easily exploited little retard.
You really don't know what it's like to be that poor do you? Good job of showing just how easy you've got it now.
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Let me try to answer the question "Is social media causing childhood depression?"
Firstly I do not have empirical data, so I have to use intuition, common sense, etc.
My opinion is that social media and indeed the whole power of the internet "causes" or leads to people in general, not just kids, being smarter, more knowledgeable, more ambitious, more inspired, etc. In this line of thought, people have greater desires. The desires are broader, more conflicted, more sophisticated, and so on. Naturally, people a
Re:What's going on...? (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be conflating social media with the whole of the internet. And your post is mostly baseless drivel with any logical reasoning, you need some more of that common sense that you speak of.
The downsides of social media are outweighing the few upsides. The downsides are: .....Plenty more
Full of memes and false information, a very bad place to learn.
Confirmation bias.
Attention span destroying
Anti-social
Propaganda
Advertising aka brainwashing
Herd mentality
Bullying
Gambling (loot crates)
Whilst I'm not saying some of your points are outright wrong, you are vastly overstating the level of affect.
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These are all problems inherent in human society as a whole. Social media just amplifies these problems, rather than creating them.
Let's try using social media to push human interaction in more desirable directions, supposing that we can even agree on what those directions should be.
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These are all problems inherent in human society as a whole. Social media just amplifies these problems, rather than creating them.
Let's try using social media to push human interaction in more desirable directions, supposing that we can even agree on what those directions should be.
We can't even agree that saying "Black lives matter" or "it's OK to be white" is acceptable, so I'm not optimistic about us finding a common direction. When America abandoned the melting pot analogy and started emphasizing tribes the seeds of strife were sown. We're just reaping the rather expected results now.
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Back in 1928, my father did this to escape a crappy home life and was shipped to the Middle East, which was a military problem area even then. In the country known then as Mandatory Palestine, his job was to maintain a nervous truce between Arabs and Jews. He took it as an opportunity to learn engineering, and in 1940 was sent to the war front in Libya. He ended the war running a motor pool in northern Italy.
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Today we have better records and it is much harder to lie to recruiters. But right now there are 18 and 19 year old "kids" among the 11 thousand American soldiers in Afghanistan.
We had good records back then too, on top of that we used dental exams to determine if the person was lying. A friend of mine's uncle enlisted at 13, he lied and wheeled his way through it all. How did it slip by? He looked like he was 16, even passed the dental exam, he managed to successfully forge his birth certificate. By the time they figured out he was under age he was already legal age and let him stay in the service. The only places where records get spotty in that era is where they were destroy
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As with most "kids today" posts, you're assuming "kids today" are a monolithic bunch who all act the same way and have the same beliefs and priorities.
Well there, why don't we explore the current state of higher education right now. Where you've got droves of young adults aka kids in the current vernacular, who demand safe spaces, protest against free speech. And claim that the white gay who loves black dick, and is married to a black man is a white nationalist and neo-nazi. Or the 5'9" manlet(as an insult used by them) and is a practicing jew, is so dangerous that his speeches must be banned. That's Milo Yiannopoulos, and Ben Shaprio for your own res
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Better read those 'indepth' facts before trying to push anything, you misread it. On top of that, you fail to understand that the people teaching 'social justice rhetoric' has long since moved out of women's studies and so on. You can find it being pushed in even STEM courses. You remember that professor at yale that was driven out of his job by the little socjus kids over him telling them to grow the fuck up on halloween costumes? Yeah...bet you didn't remember until I reminded you.
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A few generations ago, 16 year olds lied to Army recruiters to be able to parachute into Nazi-occupied Western Europe during WWII.
Today 16 year olds parachute into Nazi-occupied Western Europe in online games.
There is no need for the real thing.
And you could try to convince the Germans to go all Nazi again and occupy Western Europe with polluting diesel tanks, but they couldn't be bothered with it because they can do that online.
Hey, but our 16 year olds today will put in an extensive effort to lie their ways into online games that are only allow for folks older than 18.
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Could you image all these youtube/emo/facebook kids doing that shit today?
Some of them, yes, absolutely. In fact you do know that we have an all volunteer military, right?
Remember, generations are populations. Boiling them down to a stereotype throws out most of the actual information about them.
You do know the reason they did that (Score:2)
My bro skipped the army and opted for college (I'm got hip problems (real ones, as in I'll need a hip replacement someday), so it was never an option) but I s
Re: You do know the reason they did that (Score:2)
wasn't genreally because of how tough and patriotic they were but because they had no options and were dirt poor, right?
Wrong. Military pay back then was shit even by the standards of the time, and nobody in their right mind would sign up to go fight in trenches and storm beaches just to make a few bucks. With the war in full swing there were plenty of jobs to be had back home which didn't come with a high probability of a quick and messy death.
Imagine your kid 8 or 10 on a farm, that the farm is failing because of a few bad seasons and your parents can't afford to feed your brothers and sisters when this nice man from the army says he'll take you away and give you grub.
I've spoken to several vets who lied about their age in order to join; none of them were actively recruited so your whole scenario there is just a strawman.
If you look at our volunteer army, it's almost entirely the poor
This is just a lie. All
Re: What's going on...? (Score:2)
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And today we have a president who got five deferments and whose father paid off a NY draft board to reclassify his son as 4-F after he had been classified 1-A.
Technology that helps us (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd be hard-pressed to think of technologies available to a young child that would "help."
Keep your kids off of social media.
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Tried that. Confiscated my daughter's phone for having an SJW snowflake meltdown for calling a trans person I've never met "her" instead of "him" when I referred to the time before they took hormones. Her mom found a completely untrained and unlicensed therapist to decide I'm "abusive" and a whole Facebook community of "oh, my god, people who punish children are abusive!!!! the lack of buy-in to this week's transgender etiquette proves it! get away, get away!!!"
You have to control it for the whole family
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You think those are comparable, facebook omnipresence vs comic books and led zeppelin? Do you really.
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Facebook isn't a work of art. It's a manipulation engine. Big difference.
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You just described school, pre-internet. Possibly also, life.
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Assholes, bullies, predators and generally a very toxic environment with a high potential of causing depression? The first thing I thought of was Slashdot's comments-section, to be quite honest :S
Yes CNN news said it was the Best10 [bahis-bonuslar.com] causing depression because of social media.
Exacerbating, not causing. (Score:1)
People are shitty, especially people during childhood.
It just used to take you longer to figure out, because they didn't used to air their dirty laundry on their fucking social media profile.
The difference today is there are a lot more ways to catch people in their social lies than waiting to hear it from a friend of a friend who tells it to you confidentially.
If may in part be that more cliques are starting earlier now that people can social network more outside of school, rather than fewer of them until k
yes (Score:1)
get rid of it.
It enables, not causes (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was growing up, kids were just as shitty as they are now. Bullies were just as prevalent. Of course, kids who got bullied only had to deal with it while at school.
With social media, these asshole kids are able to stock their targets whenever they want. So nowadays the kids who get bullied don't get an escape from the mental bullying.
Of course I know a lot of people no this site do not believe that mental suffering is a real thing and people should just shut up and stop being snowflakes. Naturally, the people who think this way grew up in their middle class white suburbs without a single obstacle in their live.
While I was fortunate enough that I never had to deal with that stuff as a kid, I know a number of people who did. 25 years on, these people are... different than other people today.
I could easily see how social media could drive a person to depression. Constant pressure, constant negative imagery and the kid feels there is not escape. Remember... Kids can be super assholes.
Don't forget trying to be 'socially mobile'. (Score:1)
I got off that treadmill between 6th and 7th grades, before finding myself without friends and finally leaving high school early (ducked out just before Columbine sent everything to shit.)
I had a number of friends who tried to climb the social ladder, something I had been trying to do when I was younger because it was supposed to be important to being successful later in life (something I actually believe is true, but I've become happy I didn't do it, since I avoided a lot of really superficially nice but r
Re: It enables, not causes (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why it's important that kids primarily attach emotionally to emotionally mature and caring adults in their lives. If you care more what your loving parents think about you than about your social standing with people just as immature as yourself, you will be protected from most of the hurt they could otherwise inflict.
Despite protestations to the contrary, nearly every child reaches a point in his/her development where social standing and peer acceptance is more important than the parent/child relationship. The remedy you suggest is reminiscent of the abstinence-only sex education programs to combat teen pregnancy.
It's interesting how few people admit ever being bullied. Everyone outside of a bubble has experienced bullying at some point in their life, generally because there was always a bigger kid, a big brother, cousin, or sister (sometimes a group of them).
No matter how much we would like to protect the next generation of children, particularly our own, the importance of social standing among one's peers and bullying are intertwined... it seems we may not be as evolved as we'd like to believe.
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When I was growing up, kids were just as shitty as they are now. Bullies were just as prevalent. Of course, kids who got bullied only had to deal with it while at school. ...
With social media, these asshole kids are able to stock their targets whenever they want. So nowadays the kids who get bullied don't get an escape from the mental bullying.
I could easily see how social media could drive a person to depression. Constant pressure, constant negative imagery and the kid feels there is not escape. Remember... Kids can be super assholes.
It seems to me that their bad behavior online could be used to improve society by making it easier to identify and isolate bullies. I'm not saying that they should just be banned because that just drives them to either bypass the ban or take it out on someone else via another service. Instead, I'm suggesting that their online behavior should have real consequences that would lead to correcting their antisocial behavior.
Naturally, identifying antisocial behavior can't be as simple as a single offensive pos
Does it enable? (Score:2)
To be honest what changed was Columbine. Bullied kids suddenly had to be paid attention to. Even the gym teachers stopped the bullying since y
Liberals are causing depression in people. (Score:1, Insightful)
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
It's a fact. Google it up.
But... (Score:2)
it also causes them to drink, do drugs, have sex, and do other potentially irresponsible things less frequently than previous generations of kids.
Basically it is replacing other forms of abuse and addiction.
Is this a net benefit? Who knows?
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it also causes them to drink, do drugs, have sex, and do other potentially irresponsible things less frequently than previous generations of kids.
Basically it is replacing other forms of abuse and addiction.
Is this a net benefit? Who knows?
How can things online be irresponsible? Previous generations... climbing trees without safety net, playing with fire, chainsaws, going by bike in public traffic alone, diving in the swimming pool below the cover that prevents evaporation, ... been there, done that, and was allowed to. And parents today worry that their offspring can see/do something online. Sissies.
Re: But... (Score:2)
Dislike button. (Score:2)
Correlation is not causation (Score:2)
I suspect it can also be the opposite, depression causes people to spend more time in social networks.
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I suspect it can also be the opposite, depression causes people to spend more time in social networks.
It's just progress. There is a stigma attached to seeking mental health care, but these kids don't care about that. We're just hearing about more depressed kids. They've always been around. One of my best friends as a kid killed himself via OD when he was sixteen. One of my exes told me she tried the same thing at about the same age, got a free hospital visit and everything. Maybe we've just been treating kids like shit and ignoring them all along.
Increasing Awareness? (Score:2)
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Consultant psychiatrist Louise Theodosiou says one of the clearest indications children are spending too long on their phones is their behavior during a session with a psychiatrist.
Do I even need to explain why that's a conclusion leading its premise?
What actually happened is that they felt like their time was being wasted so they answered their phone, and she felt slighted so she said cellphones were bad. It's a fit of pique, which is the kind of thing we expect from psychiatrists and psychologists. People overwhelmingly get into the field because they have their own problems they're trying to cope with. Everyone I've known who's been in a psych program has said that you'll never see a more fucked up group of individuals. It's not surprising when they
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There are things to fault them on - many of the medically-practicing ones are blind to problems that exist outside of the rigidly-defined codes of the DSM and the ICD, for example - but they're still way better diagnostic manual
Re:Childhood depression? (Score:4, Informative)
What's up is that child psychology, adult psychology and geriatric psychology are all distinct areas of research focus. You wouldn't expect a researcher who normally publishes papers on children to includes adults in his or her study.
The impact of Internet use on adult mental health hasn't been ignored. You just have to look at different studies. In fact there are journals devoted to it.
It depresses me. (Score:1)
And I don't even use it.
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I think everybody needs positive social regard. It doesn't make you weak somehow. But we all need it in different ways. Extroverts thrive on attention and big groups, they literally can't get enough. But that doesn't mean introverts don't need people, we just prefer them in small groups and have a limited capacity for even that. For us attention is like vitamin A: we need it, but too much is toxic.
When I sold my company I went from leading a small team to working for two years by myself as the new owner
Causation (Score:2)
Instant Gratification Society (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look at the "whole picture", you can see the pattern from infancy.
Child cries, gets attention (varied).
Boredom = video put on.
Teens plug into social media:
- instant "friends" that aren't really friends
- feedback on social activities
- suggestions for other interactions that are minimally inclusive on a physical level
- advertising bombardment
- tailored interest grouping that "fits" whatever whim they have (good or bad): If the comments stream doesn't completely match what they Want to hear, they filter the comments (mentally) to only see what brings them the attention they were seeking, which results in deepening whatever they were feeling in the first place.
It's all about being little attention junkies: Give them what they want and they're happy. The problem is, it's only a temporary hit, and they want more.
Because it wears off so fast, the cycle is rather steep and intense, with a serious downward spiral.
As many of us have seen, it's not the positive expressions that get the most attention, but the negative ones. After all, the "train-wreck watchers" want to see just how far the mess will spin out, and will even be there on the sidelines with more wrenches and grease to add to the situation. Good feelings and Warm Fuzzies are nice and all, but don't hold the collective interest like a good old fashioned emotional spinout that leads to a suicide attempt.
If teens want the negative attention, Heaven knows the internet has negative reinforcement in Spades available 24/7/365.
I just wish the same could truthfully be said for Positive attention.
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It's like Dr. Jordan Peterson says: [youtube.com]
"...Aim at something that's worth aiming at. And how do you determine what's worth aiming at?
Well you think: Okay, here I have my miserable, wretched life. Under what conditions would it justify itself, as far as I'm concerned, personally?
So you think. What sort of future would I have to have so that I could say 'This is worth it.'?
And that's what you aim for.
And technically that works in part because we know most of the systems that mediate positive emotion in hu
It would be stranger if it didn't (Score:4, Insightful)
We already know it's causing depression in pretty much every other group. It would be more newsworthy if it didn't cause depression in children.
The true face of our culture... (Score:2)
Social Networks are only a tool. A tool that enables people to be in constant contact and share their inner thoughts and interests with everyone. It removes some filters people have when talking face to face with someone else, which is a powerful thing both for good and bad.
The problem here is that Internet culture, specially western Internet culture is just this bad.
What happened with Internet tools such as social media is that the inherent culture that has been growing up for decades now is unleashed at p
DNRA (Score:2)
I read the title and the answer is "no."
There are so many other causes of childhood depression (wrong school system, etc.) and the fact that childhood depression existed long before desktop computers of any kind existed that no, social media, as such, is such a small part. Indeed, social media is sometimes the only connection left a depressed person has with the world at large (and if this is you, seek help *right now*^`1) that removing access to it (because parents are going to only read the title) would
Well of course social media is bad! (Score:2)
So-called 'social media' should not be allowed for kids, at all, period. Make them interact in person, get properl
Causes? No. (Score:2)
Makes it worse, yes.
You either have a chemical imbalance or you don't - social media doesn't cause the imbalance. Social media will certainly make a huge contribution to what a person feels as a result of the imbalance.
Take away the social media, the "bad feels" will certainly diminish, but there will still be something there, it's just the way a lot of us are wired.
Pogues (Score:2)
Anyone have kids during the Pogues phenomenon? It turned into gambling. Schools and parents had to shut it down.
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I'd vote for 10 more Trumps just to see you suffer.
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Let's start a new party and get rid of the libs all together.
Yeah, but maybe trying to divide the population into mutually exclusive categories like left and right, conservatives and liberals, or democrats and republicans isn't a very good start.
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That doesn't sound like it's good, for anybody.
Things we do out of spite (Score:2)
I burned my house down just to piss of solicitors.
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Hard to break this to you, kid.... they don't care about Trump.
They only want to see you libs all triggered. That's all.
Mercury in the air? (Score:2)
Probably a reference to known by products when burning coal, oil or wood [epa.gov]
The Earth isn't flat either, sorry if that comes as a shock.