New Yorker’s ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ Article Waits 71 Paragraphs To Admit Evidence Doesn’t Support The Premise
New Yorker’s ‘Social Media Is Killing Kids’ Article Waits 71 Paragraphs To Admit Evidence Doesn’t Support The Premise
These days, there’s a formula for articles pushing the unproven claims of harm from social media. Start with examples of kids harming themselves, insist (without evidence) that but for social media…
This is a pretty clickbaity counter-article that doesn't review the original in good faith. The New Yorker article is not titled 'Social Media Is Killing Kids' but rather 'Has Social Media Fuelled A Teen-Suicide Crisis?' with a lead of:
Mental-health struggles have risen sharply among young Americans, and parents and lawmakers alike are scrutinizing life online for answers.
So the implication that the premise of the article is to demonise social media is completely wrong, since it's actually an investigation into the issue. That's also the reason it's long (another strange complaint from a guy whose 3000+ word response is only ever his opinions).
The "moral panic tropes" are testimony from real parents whose real children killed themselves. And these real parents think social media was responsible. It strikes me as pretty low to hand wave away the grief of these real people because it inconveniently feeds into a narrative you have some instinctual problem with.
The author tries to frame the balance of the New Yorker article as some kind of gotcha. Like it's somehow a bad thing that this other writer took the time to consult with and quote experts who provide a different opinion. Personally I would much rather read that then something like this which was basically the equivalent of a reddit eXpOsEd thread.
66Yeah. My parents, teachers, ministers, police officers, etc were glad to blame Dungeons and Dragons for my major depression and suicidality in the 1980s, because none of them wanted to look at systemic social problems that are even worse today.
So if those kids are genuinely suicidal, that means the home is not a place where they feel safe. That implies parental dysfunction.
Remember we also were quick to blame vaccines for ASD because it was too hard on parents to suggest childhood upbringing factors.
7I can tell you for a fact that if I were to unalive myself today my parents would blame it on social media, the school system being woke, queer people "confusing" me, vaccines, or whatever else
But they'd never look at themselves and think that maybe how they treated me as a child led to consequences that still heavily affect me today. Where their "parenting" led to mental health issues that I struggle with even still decently into my 20s
(And in case you're worried, no I won't kill myself, don't worry)
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It strikes me as pretty
lowreasonable to hand wave away thegriefanecdotes because they're not scientifically meaningful.-3Common thing said but pretty stupid. Most scientific discoveries are grounded in figuring out anecdotal phenomenon. This is even more true for social sciences
7
Commercial social media is a cancer on society. Facebook has convinced adults to commit atrocities. There is no doubt it's harming children.
11The thing that shocked me is some kids have anxiety merely walking from class to class if they aren't with a friend then they need to be on their phones, sometimes even pretending to be messaging people or commenting because they feel judged by kids around them for not being popular enough or something
5Yes, facebook should be shut down.
The oppression of children is a gross attack on a defenseless population that's not actually going to improve anything.
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The desperate need to try to wave away any possible negative effects from social media by people heavily dependent on social media comes as no surprise. It's like trying to criticize fast food to a fat person.
Some will acknowledge it's bad for them and eat it anyway, but most will just get extremely defensive about it and try to rationalize or downvote. It has vitamins! If you only eat the unfried vegetables and only drink water, it's actually good for you!
3That's a particularly buried lede
0That’s particularly scummy of the New Yorker, what I used to think was a pretty great publication.
Although it is true that social media is not good for children, I’m sure it’s not actually killing them.
-4I'm not sure social media is good for anyone, but I understand that "for the kids" is really the only way people feel confident in regulating anything. But it's all very condescending when the real issue is that social media is causing society to become worse due to Skinner's Box style human impulses -- I do a thing, that gets me attention, so I'll keep doing it regardless of if it's right or wrong.
We shouldn't blame social media as a blanket villain, but simply request that all web services have transparent suggestion algorithms (preferably open source) and provide tax incentives for companies that help promote verified educational content over made up bullshit (as it's the only way to get companies to do the right thing, unfortunately)
8I can’t really argue with anything you said. But I will say that in the grand scheme of things that are bad for society and bad for kids, social media is merely one in 1000 different things. You were right about that, too, but I just wanted to clarify my point earlier that I wasn’t just using the “for the kids“ argument. Social media is, indeed, very bad for everyone. Just, particularly, kids.
Of course, I also believe that these things could be improved about social media. It’s just that the profit motive behind social media means that the sorts of improvements to the betterment of society will likely never be explored unless they are the most profitable option.
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