I hate that the "social media is bad for teens" myth will not die. In this little rant, I tackle one part of this puzzle: the obsession with "harms" (thanks lawyers) and the implications of not thinking through how to respond coherently to risks.
danah: Have been a fan ever since reading your MySpace vs Facebook work back in 2007. And I think the risk/harm distinction you make in this article is an important one, and I really appreciate the link to the Alice Marwick (and team) "primer." Just spent a half an hour or so reading it quickly and plan to dive deeper into it later and to review some of the research papers it cites as well. And I wish I had discovered your Substack earlier; I live in San Mateo and would love to have attended your talk at the Computer History Museum.
Having said all that, I strongly think this piece (and your earlier pieces on KOSA and moral panics) are wrong in important ways. At root, I think you're arguing with Haidt and Twenge, and I think they clearly have the better of the argument. That's partly based on my experience (as both a parent and someone who has worked on social software for almost 30 years) and partly because I find the arguments you're making when you disagree with them extremely unconvincing. I'll come back later and make a fuller comment as to why when I have more time, but I'll preview three points for now:
- I actually agree with you about past moral panics about TV and video games (largely) proving to be unfounded, so I was initially skeptical about the problems with social media as well (and didn't limit my kids' access). But the combination of the data on teen mental health, seeing my own kids' (ages 17-21) experience, and what I've seen professionally has convinced me that there is something different this time around and that social media has become uniquely pernicious (not only, but especially, for kids).
- I found this paragraph in your KOSA piece shockingly unpersuasive:
"People keep telling me that it’s clearly technology because the rise in depression, anxiety, and suicidality tracks temporally alongside the development of social media and cell phones. It also tracks alongside the rise in awareness about climate change. And the emergence of an opioid epidemic. And the increase in school shootings. And the rising levels of student debt. And so many pressures that young people have increasingly faced for the last 25 years. None of these tell the whole story. All of these play a role in what young people are going through."
To me, the alternative causes you cite here are so obviously wrong that it's clear evidence that you're not even really bothering to grapple with Haidt and Twenge's arguments, but are simply restating beliefs you have always had without thinking critically about them.
- It's certainly true that things are always complicated (and I just ordered your book on the subject) and not mono-causal but that doesn't mean that specific causes aren't important and shouldn't be addressed. And I think you underestimate the way that social media is likely undermining some of the more positive ways that teens could be spending their time that I think you (rightly) see as experiences that would lead to better teen health.
Anyway, I'm bothering to write all this, partly as a way to think through these issues myself, but also because I think you have an important constructive role to play. I'm very normie (and I'm guessing that Haidt and Twenge are as well), which I think informs the way we think about these issues. I think your personal experience and professional interest in alternative culture can help inform the work on improving the impact of social media on teens and society and make it more likely to be successful and less likely to be harmful. But at the moment, my sense is that you're using "it's complicated" as an excuse to simply push back against change.
Have been a fan since the early 2000s, and really appreciate your work. You're right in that tools are neither inherently good or evil, but I think that advertising has had its clutches so tightly on the internet as a whole that intent has become built into these tools and platforms we are talking about. I also wrote a quick rant here: https://tribolum.com/how-advertising-shapes-social-media-324a34457749
danah: Have been a fan ever since reading your MySpace vs Facebook work back in 2007. And I think the risk/harm distinction you make in this article is an important one, and I really appreciate the link to the Alice Marwick (and team) "primer." Just spent a half an hour or so reading it quickly and plan to dive deeper into it later and to review some of the research papers it cites as well. And I wish I had discovered your Substack earlier; I live in San Mateo and would love to have attended your talk at the Computer History Museum.
Having said all that, I strongly think this piece (and your earlier pieces on KOSA and moral panics) are wrong in important ways. At root, I think you're arguing with Haidt and Twenge, and I think they clearly have the better of the argument. That's partly based on my experience (as both a parent and someone who has worked on social software for almost 30 years) and partly because I find the arguments you're making when you disagree with them extremely unconvincing. I'll come back later and make a fuller comment as to why when I have more time, but I'll preview three points for now:
- I actually agree with you about past moral panics about TV and video games (largely) proving to be unfounded, so I was initially skeptical about the problems with social media as well (and didn't limit my kids' access). But the combination of the data on teen mental health, seeing my own kids' (ages 17-21) experience, and what I've seen professionally has convinced me that there is something different this time around and that social media has become uniquely pernicious (not only, but especially, for kids).
- I found this paragraph in your KOSA piece shockingly unpersuasive:
"People keep telling me that it’s clearly technology because the rise in depression, anxiety, and suicidality tracks temporally alongside the development of social media and cell phones. It also tracks alongside the rise in awareness about climate change. And the emergence of an opioid epidemic. And the increase in school shootings. And the rising levels of student debt. And so many pressures that young people have increasingly faced for the last 25 years. None of these tell the whole story. All of these play a role in what young people are going through."
To me, the alternative causes you cite here are so obviously wrong that it's clear evidence that you're not even really bothering to grapple with Haidt and Twenge's arguments, but are simply restating beliefs you have always had without thinking critically about them.
- It's certainly true that things are always complicated (and I just ordered your book on the subject) and not mono-causal but that doesn't mean that specific causes aren't important and shouldn't be addressed. And I think you underestimate the way that social media is likely undermining some of the more positive ways that teens could be spending their time that I think you (rightly) see as experiences that would lead to better teen health.
Anyway, I'm bothering to write all this, partly as a way to think through these issues myself, but also because I think you have an important constructive role to play. I'm very normie (and I'm guessing that Haidt and Twenge are as well), which I think informs the way we think about these issues. I think your personal experience and professional interest in alternative culture can help inform the work on improving the impact of social media on teens and society and make it more likely to be successful and less likely to be harmful. But at the moment, my sense is that you're using "it's complicated" as an excuse to simply push back against change.
Have been a fan since the early 2000s, and really appreciate your work. You're right in that tools are neither inherently good or evil, but I think that advertising has had its clutches so tightly on the internet as a whole that intent has become built into these tools and platforms we are talking about. I also wrote a quick rant here: https://tribolum.com/how-advertising-shapes-social-media-324a34457749
The best ski risk poster I ever saw was actually an advert for the private orthopaedic hospital in St Moritz, Switzerland.
It showed a picture of a guy snowboarding fast on a beautiful sunny day. Beneath it just said:
"Wetter schön, Tempo hoch, Klinik Gut".
("Weather beautiful, speed high, Clinic Good" - Klinik Gut being the name of the hospital).