The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness? The evidence is equivocal on whether screen time is to blame for rising levels of teen depression and anxiety.
The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness? The evidence is equivocal on whether screen time is to blame for rising levels of teen depression and anxiety.
The evidence is equivocal on whether screen time is to blame for rising levels of teen depression and anxiety — and rising hysteria could distract us from tackling the real causes.
I feel like it's more likely the dawning realization that the earth may not be suitable for human life in their lifetimes and that the economy and housing market may never support them owning a home or retiring. But yeah surely it's tik tok's fault.
As a middle schooler I was afraid that Al-Queda would carry out a terrorist attack in my hometown or that Saddam would use his WMDs on the US. In high school, my grandparents got laid off and lost the farm during the great recession. And yet I just had the local news that was telling me the bad news of the day.
My point being, it can't be healthy being bombarded with hours and hours of bad news every day doomscrolling as opposed to a 15 minute news broadcast in the evening. Especially for kids who don't have the perspective and experience to know its gonna be OK.
the e earth may not be suitable for human life in their lifetimes
Oh come on, that's a little exaggeration. There is less chance of that now than when we were kids and the USSR was going to blow up the USA and vice versa.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/video-climate-spiral-1880-2022/
https://whyy.org/articles/un-ipcc-climate-change-report-uninhabitable-planet-code-red/
"By 2050, a billion people will face coastal flooding risk from rising seas, the report says. More people will be forced out of their homes from weather disasters, especially flooding, sea level rise and tropical cyclones.
If warming exceeds a few more tenths of a degree, it could lead to some areas becoming uninhabitable, including some small islands, said report co-author Adelle Thomas of the University of Bahamas and Climate Analytics."
I'm sure social media is having an effect on our kids. I'm also sure they're more tuned into the state of the world than I was when I was a teenager, and they see just how utterly broken everything is.
I suspect the total mental illness isn't significantly changed since the 1950s now we are just more aware of it and seeking help. That's a good thing.
I don't think that's a popular assertion amongst lemmy commenters!
I honestly don't know. The pressures of today are many and varied, but growing up in the 50s world have had its own challenges to be sure.