"Has the introduction of social media in the past 10-15 years caused the increase in prevalence of mental health problems in teens?
At this point, most of what I'm reading and hearing is a resounding yes (especially for girls).
I don't necessarily disagree with this. Just to level set: I think there is a very good chance (my current number is probably around 75%) that social media has contributed to the teen mental health crisis. At the same time, I think large-scale mental health crises are complex phenomena, that there are likely multiple causes, and that we need to make sure we're approaching the data with the scrutiny it deserves. It's this nuance that, I think, has been missing from the conversation."
"Taken as a whole, it shows strong and clear evidence of causation, not just correlation. There are surely other contributing causes, but the Collaborative Review doc points strongly to this conclusion: Social Media is a Major Cause of the Mental Illness Epidemic in Teen Girls."
"Playing video games can be good for your mental health, a study from Oxford University has suggested, following a breakthrough collaboration in which academics at the university worked with actual gameplay data for the first time."
"The research concludes that mentally demanding tasks are more difficult to handle at home than when physically present at a workplace. Based on the chess players' performances, excessive use of homeworking can hurt productivity, the three researchers believe."
"Research suggests more than half of adolescents are on screens right before bedtime, and that can keep them from getting the sleep they need. Not only is poor sleep linked to all sorts of downsides, including poor mental health symptoms, poor performance in school and trouble regulating stress, Prinstein said, but "inconsistent sleep schedules are associated with changes in structural brain development in adolescent years. In other words, youths' preoccupation with technology and social media may deleteriously affect the size of their brains.""
"To start we need a new human right to "cognitive liberty", which would come with an update to other existing human rights to privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. All told it would protect our freedom of thought and rumination, mental privacy, and self-determination over our brains and mental experiences. It would change the default rules so we have rights around the commodification of our brain data. "
"Teenagers who engage with social media during the night could be damaging their sleep and increasing their risk of depression and anxiety, research shows."
"The hive mentality is inspiring the latest advances in technology and the US military is already experimenting with swarms of robotic boats and aircrafts"
"Social media sites are increasingly informing employees of the negative effects of moderation jobs following several reports on harrowing working conditions, including long hours viewing violent and sexually exploitative content with little mental health support. Before accepting a job with Accenture, a subcontractor that works with several social media companies and manages some YouTube moderators at a Texas facility, employees had to sign a form titled "Acknowledgement", the Verge reported."
"Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to its content moderators as compensation for mental health issues caused by their work. The internet is already generally a cesspool of filth and cruelty, so one can only imagine the incredibly horrific things its moderators are forced to witness every day."
"WHEN 14-YEAR-OLD MOLLY Russell died in 2017, her cell phone contained graphic images of self-harm, an email roundup of "depression pins you might like," and advice on concealing mental illness from loved ones. Investigators initially ruled the British teen's death a suicide. But almost five years later, a British coroner's court has reversed the findings. Now, they claim that Russell died "from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content"-and the algorithms themselves are on notice."
"Ellie may be a computer simulation, but she's incredibly perceptive. By reading the body language and vocal inflections of real live humans, she can engage in surprisingly meaningful exchanges, and even evoke emotional openness from her conversation partners. Her creators believe her receptivity to human emotional cues could revolutionize the field of mental health. Watching Ellie in action, it's not hard to see why."
"Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients - including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits - once a single English database of medical data has been created."
"The information sharing is on an opt-out basis, so if you don't want your "clinical records, mental health consultations, drug addiction rehabilitation details, dsexual health clinic attendance and abortion procedures" shared, along with your "GP records, HS numbers, post-codes, gender, date of birth," you need to contact your doctor and opt out of the process. "
"The bill will now allow police to access all web browsing records in specific crime investigations, beyond the illegal websites and communications services specified in the original draft bill.
It will extend the use of state remote computer hacking from the security services to the police in cases involving a "threat to life" or missing persons. This can include cases involving "damage to somebody's mental health", but will be restricted to use by the National Crime Agency and a small number of major police forces."
"But, for a growing number of users - and mental health experts - the very positivity of Instagram is precisely the problem. The site encourages its users to present an upbeat, attractive image that others may find at best misleading and at worse harmful. If Facebook demonstrates that everyone is boring and Twitter proves that everyone is awful, Instagram makes you worry that everyone is perfect - except you."
"Based on data from over 17,000 teenagers, the study "casts doubt on the widely accepted notion that spending time online, gaming or watching TV, especially before bedtime, can damage young people's mental health.""
""Urban legends are projections of society's anxieties, hopes, fears, and worries," says Blank. "In today's society we have societal anxiety about what our kids are doing on the internet, the amount of control and information that's available to kids nowadays, societal fears about cyberbullying and how people are managing their mental health online, especially for kids."
"The Momo story reflects that anxiety of what is it our kids are doing online," continued Blank."
How long before this is used without our knowledge in facial recognition systems? "Through the use of the data from this lab study and a formula Kim and Yang applied called "fractal dimension," Kim and Yang discovered a negative relationship between the fractal dimension of pupil dilation and a person's workload, showing that pupil dilation could be used to indicate the mental workload of a person in a multitasking environment."