[d2049]

For this interested in topic, you might enjoy reading The Anxious Generation, which has been on the NYT nonfiction bestseller list for a while. It goes into the data on how teen mental illness rates greatly increased when smartphones (apps + the front-facing camera) and social media algorithms were developed. The harmful effects are obvious to anyone who ever interacts with kids. The book also proposes several basic changes like delaying when kids are given smartphones and disallowing phones in schools, as well as advocating for play-based schools.

[guywithabike]

A lot of the content of that book has been thoroughly debunked. A good starting point if you’re curious: https://www.platformer.news/anxious-generation-jonathan-haid...

[joenot443]

That’s a pretty poor starting point if you expect the reader to leave with the position that Haidt’s been discredited.

I’m curious, have you read the book?

[crazydoggers]

Debunked isn’t the correct term here. That would imply that the data is false or it’s misinformation. Instead the article you linked states:

    On the other hand, data on this issue is mixed, and some studies contradict one another.

So a better way to talk about it is that the data doesn’t yet make a cut or dry case one way or another.

Another quote from the article you linked

    Haidt argues that waiting for stronger evidence could be even more dangerous. He writes: “If you listen to the alarm ringers and we turn out to be wrong, the costs are minimal and reversible. But if you listen to the skeptics and they turn out to be wrong, the costs are much larger and harder to reverse.” … as a mother, as someone who writes about the harms of tech and tech companies, I see his point.

So even if we don’t take the data to be 100% convincing, it’s by no means “debunked” and something that we should just completely ignore.

[heavyset_go]

Books were published that said the same things about video games, the last moral panic.