[midtake]

You are probably at least 30 years old and you have forgotten how disruptive social media is for young people. We are not talking about a degradation of a high trust society here.

With social media, we are talking about kids doing the bare minimum on homework in order to get back on social media faster. We are talking about large swaths of the population preferring to be entertained by social media then to engage in activities that would promote their success. We are talking about the same symptoms as addiction manifesting in kids because they are exposed to too much social media.

Your litmus test for generational effect is also flawed. Let's assume an inverse test as a mental exercise, where we introduce social media to a young population previously unexposed. Kids who are able to reject the pull of social media will replace the ones who cannot, the numbers will shuffle. After such a test is concluded, you will tell yourself you're right because on a macro-economic scale everything looks the same, but to an individual prone to social media overuse, his or her life will be different (likely worse).

That said, the issues you bring up are more important, and no one seems willing to tackle them. Perhaps a middle ground here is that the problems you listed are masking the problem of social media overuse, but that social media overuse is still a problem. It is not an innocent messenger.

[stetrain]

> A dangerous disease appeared to afflict the young, which some diagnosed as reading addiction and others as reading rage, reading fever, reading mania or reading lust. Throughout Europe reports circulated about the outbreak of what was described as an epidemic of reading. The behaviours associated with this supposedly insidious contagion were sensation-seeking and morally dissolute and promiscuous behaviour. Even acts of self-destruction were associated with this new craze for the reading of novels.

> What some described as a craze was actually a rise in the 18th century of an ideal: the ‘love of reading’. The emergence of this new phenomenon was largely due to the growing popularity of a new literary genre: the novel. The emergence of commercial publishing in the 18th century and the growth of an ever-widening constituency of readers was not welcomed by everyone. Many cultural commentators were apprehensive about the impact of this new medium on individual behaviour and on society’s moral order.

https://archive.ph/ihoyg

[joenot443]

> kids doing the bare minimum on homework in order to get back on social media faster

This was me for much of high school, but with Team Fortress 2 or Dota instead of social media.

Comic books, video games, television, skateboarding, fidget spinning - the list of things kids would rather do than homework is endless. I think a kid spending 4h+ on one activity is unhealthy either way, and it really comes back to the parents to be the arbiters. Speaking from experience, children (generally) aren't very good at predicting how best to spend their time, which is why involved parents are so important.

[brailsafe]

> Speaking from experience, children (generally) aren't very good at predicting how best to spend their time, which is why involved parents are so important.

I don't disagree, but adults aren't either, they just have clearer incentives. Disconnect the incentives from the desired behaviour, or make the reward any more ambiguous than not being rained on, getting more currency, or preventing their kid from being deceased, and adults are just as lost much of the time.

Case in point, the tendency for people to consider skateboarding an unoptimal use of time, but (often) simultaneously be confused about why they're lonely and fat in midlife. Kids look to their parents as models for success, but haven't yet had their judgement manipulated, and can see right through all the bullshit while they watch them rot away commuting by car and sitting in front of the TV. There's no convincing argument these people have against social media, because they're telling their kids not to poison themselves with degenerate laziness and addiction while engaging in degenerate laziness and addiction, in addition to not being able to offer the incentives otherwise that they'd have had not to do that.

"Don't play videogames, you'll get bad grades"

"What do grades mean?"

"They'll let you get into a good school"

"What will a good school do for me?"

"It'll help you get a good job"

"What does it mean to get a good job?"

"Well, back in my day, you'd eventually get a house and maybe have some kids"

"Ya but what about now or 10 years from now?"

"I guess... you'll be able to rent more videogames.. run along then"

[jatins]

The question is whether social media is closer to candy or cocaine.

You are right that kids will chose anything other than homework but how do you explain adults spending 8 hours a day on short form platforms? Don't think TV had this kind of a hold on people. Some gamers did tend to develop obsessive tendencies over gaming but now that seems much more widespread with social media

[46493168]

Which items on the list have engineers dedicated to rapid A/B testing running 24-7 to amp up the engagement numbers?

[dtdynasty]

I was also one who spent their time playing dota in high school. In my experience one can learn more from playing dota than the average social media experience. Understanding team dynamics and emotional regulation to negative experiences outside your control. If you take the game seriously even prioritization and deliberate practice.

Of course not everyone learns from playing dota but at least it's a focused experience that doesn't steal focus away like short form videos.

[direwolf20]

We're talking about five very biased and not completely sane people deciding what the whole country sees every minute of every day, too.

If Larry Ellison owned every TV channel, I would not have a TV. (Rupert Murdoch does, so I don't)

[quest88]

I think your second paragraph is too broad. The same could be said for kids doing the bare minimum to play video games, or even go outside to play with their friends all prior to social media. Many people long spent too much time watching tv, and still do, instead of pursuing what you think success is. Also, let people be content, we don't always need to engaging in activities for success

[brendoelfrendo]

I think that on the whole, you're right in that these issues, where social media can provide support to young people, are not often addressed, but I also think that the larger framing that seems to pop up in these threads, where we assume social media is a negative influence that might sometimes facilitate a positive interaction, is backwards, and not really supported by evidence. Far more research, especially research that actually talks to kids about their social media use seems to indicate that, on the whole, kids experience social media as a largely neutral thing that sometimes has good or bad outcomes. Importantly, I think talking to kids reveals that they're usually aware of the harms of social media and they work to mitigate those influences in their lives.

I really blame "The Anxious Generation" for somehow successfully setting the tone of conversation around social media by feeding into the larger moral panic despite being a poorly researched pile of dreck.

[braincat31415]

I think most of what you said is incorrect. You need to chat about this with high school teachers. From my personal experience and that of my friends who have teen kids right now -- Talking to kids about these issues is useless; they will say anything to keep the opium coming. They might be aware that spending a lot of time on social media and cell phones might result in slipping grades and homework not done, but they will spend hours on both, regardless of consequences. A lot of emotional anguish will come from social media, and kids on social media are generally a lot more nasty to each other than in person. There are so many tears because of what he/she said on discord... especially girls, being more emotional, cannot mitigate anything at all. These things suck them in like a drug, and parents' action is often the only way out. A blocked social media and kids' cell phones on my desk until homework and chores are done was the most important factor that helped to turn their grades around, and I know a lot of other parents who gravitated towards the same thing.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I'm well older than 30 and couldn't disagree with GP more. I think social media has been an absolute disaster not just for young people, but for society at large.

And, importantly, I don't think it needs to be this way, but is designed to be this way to increase engagement. I remember when I first got on Facebook in the mid 00s and I loved it, and I was able to meaningfully connect with old friends. I also remember when the enshittification began, at least for me, when there was a distinct change in the feed algorithm that made it much more like twitter, designed for right hand thumb scrolling exercises and little actual positive interactions with friends.

[LoganDark]

Social media is not the problem here. It is a problem, but it's not the cause for what you're describing.

I got my career (programming) from social media and online social interaction in general. Sure, I did the bare minimum on homework for efficiency, because I disliked the extra steps and writing that teachers wanted of me (I probably have dysgraphia and can't write well), and preferred just to get the answer. It was never explained that they weren't scoring or teaching the answer, and that they were instead measuring the method. (That was a failure of the school system. Big problem in general. I digress.)

Social media allowed me to meet others like me I otherwise never would've met. Allowed me to learn things from others like me I otherwise may never have learned. Allowed me to find the people that I could get along with rather than trying to make do only with the people physically close to me.

Sure, TikTok and whatever didn't exist back then. They're terrible, even if they manage to deliver some goods. I don't have a TikTok account, don't have a Facebook account, etc.

I do have a Discord account. I did have a Cohost account, before they shut down. I have Reddit and Hacker News. Those are where I feel I spend most of my non-work, non-hobby time. I use Discord almost entirely for private communications. I used Cohost almost entirely for making connections on Discord. I use Reddit to offer advice to and receive advice from others. I use Hacker News for some sample of current events and to offer my thoughts and discussion on them.

I do have some bad habits. I scroll Twitter every once in a while, though I do find many memes and other posts to share with friends and relate over.

And social media has done some bad for me. I won't elaborate on this but I had a few very major traumas through social media when I was 12-14, and some lesser ones more recently.

But it's been a major driver of good in my life for a long time; fulfillment and connection I never could have had otherwise; and of course hard lessons I would've eventually needed anyway.

There's an argument to be made that I just wasn't the type of young person that social media is particularly harmful to, but it's done me some major harms, some exactly the type of harm that's used to protest against it, and yet none of the harm was social media's fault. All of it was interpersonal interaction. All social media did was reduce the friction to that interpersonal interaction.

[direwolf20]

I think you're conflating social networks with social media