Is There a Problem With Social Media and Impacts on Mental Health?

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Any time there's a new technology that the young people use, older people freak out about it. This was true for novels in the eighteenth century. And so especially once the iphone comes out in two thousand seven, the touch screen technology is so much more addictive. So understandably, people point their finger at social media. Well, kids are doing a lot of things on their eye phones, not just social media. I don't think jean twangy made up the title, or smart phones ruining a generation,. That was something that the the eders made up.

We are in the midst of a teen mental health crisis. Since 2011, the rate of U.S. hospitalizations for preteen girls who have self-harmed is up 189 percent, and with older teen girls, it’s up 62 percent. Tragically, the numbers on suicides are similar — 151 percent higher for preteen girls, and 70 percent higher for older teen girls. NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has spent the last few years trying to figure out why, working with fellow psychologist Jean Twenge, and he believes social media is to blame. Jonathan and Jean found that the mental health data show a stark contrast between Generation Z and Millennials, unlike any demographic divide researchers have seen since World War II, and the division tracks with a sharp rise in social media use. As Jonathan explains in this interview, disentangling correlation and causation is a persistent research challenge, and the debate on this topic is still in full swing. But as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and the next big thing fine-tune the manipulative and addictive features that pull teens in, we cannot afford to ignore this problem while we sit back and wait for conclusive results. When it comes to children, our standards need to be higher, and our burden of proof lower.