[jancsika]

> This may prove out if after 5yr+ of it being banned or limited, nothing changes in the youth (et al.) -- that would be my prediction.

You're speculation here could be a counterargument to Jonathan Haidt's meta studies on the effects of social media on teenage girls, if you can supplement your speculation with a better explanation for the increase in major depressive episodes in the time range he cites than the correlation with Instagram use.

For this article, however, all the participants are aged 18-30. Using it as a jumping off point to paint all concern over social media as a "moral panic" is reductive and unhelpful.

[mjburgess]

Granting to you for the moment that the issue is with technology -- if instagram is removed, what is it replaced with? Presumably youtube? Or more passive kinds of tech?

Is the issue social media, or mass media? Who knows.

If we don't grant that, then the rise of instagram correlates heavily with everything i've mentioned. I'd suppose if you look at the physical places of social interaction for teenagers, where they'd have to move around and meet people -- these have all disappeared, and extremely, with the rise of instagram.

Removing the gramme hardly brings them back. Maybe, maybe not.

[jancsika]

A sibling comment with a bunch of ostensible counterarguments to Haidt appeared earlier, with at least seven annotated footnotes. I was about to dig into it, but they deleted it!

In an attempt to summon the comment back, I'll just close by saying the negative effects are significant and there is no good reason to doubt Haidt's research. :)