Peter Gray calls it a moral panic; Jean Twenge panics over teenage depression; Haidt and Rausch panic over TikTok; Corbin K. Barthold panics over age-verification laws
The big difference I see between concern over social media and concerns over horror comics is that the kids themselves agree that social media has been a negative for them. Kids who read horror comics didn’t say that.
Interestingly, per Wikipedia, the decline of penny dreadfuls was the result of competition. Better material came along and captured the audience. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful. It remains to be seen, however, whether US culture is capable of producing anything other than drek.
The debate over social media is mostly focused on kids, but it seems to me like the core question is roughly: is this a new media, like metal music, cheap novels, movies, etcetera where older people think that the new things kids are doing is terrible because that's the nature of changing culture over generations, or is this more like "Bayer Heroin" where extremely potent and addictive things are being mass produced and sold by companies that profit heavily from downplaying their addictive qualities and harmful side-effects?
I am somewhat on the heroin side, based on what I've seen of how social media seems to affect *adults*, and while I think prohibition was a bad reaction and is a failed policy, I think that we might benefit from finding a sweet spot between "banned outright" and "mass produced and ubiquitous, one of the most profitable industries around, where many people become extremely wealthy" - a concept which we could perhaps backport to other things.
My wife gets up in the morning, removes her phone from the charger, and reads it on the toilet. I think of the addicts who get up and first thing light up a cigarette. But then, I can be pretty judgmental.
I actually disagree with this. I think the focus should be much more on phone use than social media per se.
Everyone around me is absolutely addicted to their phone and are less able to focus, read, interact, etc. Not all of these people are using social media (which I accept might have additional issues, especially for teens).
The problem is teens, more specifically liberal teen girls. I forget if liberal boys or conservative girls are affected more but both are much less and conservative boys are affected least of all.
Except maybe there are also problems with adults and phones. Joe C seems to say they make people "less able to focus, read, interact, etc." So for one, that "interact" suggests to me that phones are one of the many causes for the birth bust.
It seems on the face of it to me a very weak response. Like surveying the whole nasty scene and then saying, well, don't you remember how silly William F. Buckley sounded whenever he hated on rock and roll in the pages of National Review?
I guess comparison to Tipper Gore might be a little more apt.
But then, has enough time passed that we are *so* sure Tipper Gore was a *fool* in AK’s sense or any other? We are that clear-sighted of our own time?
And anyway, how quickly she was shut down - barely a blip.
Implicit in Peter Gray's argument is that the media children consume does not affect them and that previous restrictions on children's media consumption also had no effect. I do not know whether this is true, and Peter Gray does not address it. I wonder if he thinks boys should have access to pornography on the internet; maybe that worry is merely another moral panic. (In other words, does what you read have an effect on you? Funny that Peter Gray--in a written article--implicitly argues: no.)
I have a hard time making fun of the old moralizers, because everything they feared has come to pass. Maybe we *should* have drawn the line at dime novels. What ideas slowly but surely percolated so that in ~1970 American elites threw away promoting the nuclear family? The moral panics of yesteryear failed, but, if they had succeeded, maybe we could have avoided the Hansonian cultural drift which has led to plummeting TFRs.
The harm stemming from media see to be from intensive use. So why not tax intensive use with an excise tax on ad revenue that is progressive with use of a given platform from a given device. The algorithm would then figure out how to produce less "engaging" sites.
Sort of the same principle as taxing gambling, low tax for the first say $10 wager per site/device and increasing. Yes both can be evaded with effort of changing devices, but something is something.
Taxing the ad revenue received by the platform / pusher who engages the addict seems an excellent idea (which I also had but hadn't written down).
I actually think advertising should be seen as info pollution, and semi-disinformation. I'd like a lot less ads. Maybe also limit the tax deduction of ads to be 1% of the prior year's tax paid.
The TikTok case is about China - espionage, blackmail, cyber effect positioning, foreign influence campaigning, lack of cooperation with the US national security apparatus, and insulation from US law enforcement tools and tactics such as data and property seizures and subpoenas. It probably is bad for kids, but that's a very secondary motivation for public consumption, something the government stops caring about so long as everything is owned and run by an ""'American""" company, and so arguments about liberty vs harm are mostly a waste of time, taking the bait to perform in the sideshow.
I don’t know what the Chinese version looks like, of course, or if it is much the same - but I think that a few people have suggested that China has made a determination that what’s “good for” American youth is not good for Chinese youth? And that deserves consideration?
However, people either strenuously admire or fear/loathe China at present so I guess there’s no one to really take that question on and decide it one way or another.
The women fear marriage will be a Loss of Personal Freedom. And it has a negative impact on their career. And … maybe it makes men happier. They also fear sexual violence and harassment.
These young women were kids growing thru their teens beforevCovid-19.
Maybe they’re afraid now because of their depressing phone use then.
Maybe it’s much easier to share problems, fears, angers, injustices, and especially victimizations. Maybe our society needs to learn how to deal with the social tech in less negative ways, and only learns as more folk suffer from the current problems.
“100 bad days makes 100 good stories. 100 good stories makes me interesting at parties”. BoyWithUke most folk want some amount of supporting attention. The girls haven’t yet figured out how to use the social media on phones in mostly good ways.
Good parents will restrict smartphone use, as will good K-12 schools. It’s sad that those many who have a predilection for addiction will get addicted to doomscrolling. Or porn. Much much less problematic are video games with endings, tho it’s possibly very negative there, too.
Maybe those who get depressed will have a crisis that, when resolved, will make them more resilient. Actually I’m sure it be life positive for some, and life negative for others, and not so important for many. Unlike drunk driving, which kills innocents, phone addiction primarily hurts the phone addict. Of course, the kids are assumed to be innocent victims.
It’s good to have an open discussion of who is harmed, how much, and what can be done about, with what should be done properly being a subset of the can. Tho the most popular suggestions of should will most likely include some aspects that are not possible.
It seems like too much to expect to read condemnation of the internet - basically, that's what it really is, no need to miniaturize it to "social media" - on that internet, from people who have found success there, perhaps even a belated recognition.
"Online age-verification laws thus burden the First Amendment rights of adults, by hampering their ability to post and view material on the Internet in anonymity."
From what I've seen of Haidt's group, they are asking for restrictions under age 16. In at least some respects, that leaves a bit of latitude to avoid restricting adults.
Since when do adults have a right to post on the Internet in anonymity?
If adults have a right to internet anonymity, since when do social media sites have obligation to provide it? Since when do those sites have the obligation to allow free speech?
As for past harms to children, was the data anywhere close to as good as we have today indicating child suicide, or other harms, has increased significantly? Was the data correlated with those causes as closely as Social Media?
A long time ago I read about a number of clever ways to use encryption tech to interact on a network and prove one's membership in a credentialed class without revealing one's particular individual identity. Theoretically this could be done for the adult-child distinction, however, what tends to happen is those "credentials" are acquired and used by by non-members, and this is hard to police unless they can be tied to a particular individual, for verification or liability, and this defeats the whole anonymity-protective intent. Though, as I understand things, these days what appears to many people like "anonymous" online activity is already anything but, especially if one is doing it via smartphone.
The big difference I see between concern over social media and concerns over horror comics is that the kids themselves agree that social media has been a negative for them. Kids who read horror comics didn’t say that.
Interestingly, per Wikipedia, the decline of penny dreadfuls was the result of competition. Better material came along and captured the audience. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_dreadful. It remains to be seen, however, whether US culture is capable of producing anything other than drek.
The debate over social media is mostly focused on kids, but it seems to me like the core question is roughly: is this a new media, like metal music, cheap novels, movies, etcetera where older people think that the new things kids are doing is terrible because that's the nature of changing culture over generations, or is this more like "Bayer Heroin" where extremely potent and addictive things are being mass produced and sold by companies that profit heavily from downplaying their addictive qualities and harmful side-effects?
I am somewhat on the heroin side, based on what I've seen of how social media seems to affect *adults*, and while I think prohibition was a bad reaction and is a failed policy, I think that we might benefit from finding a sweet spot between "banned outright" and "mass produced and ubiquitous, one of the most profitable industries around, where many people become extremely wealthy" - a concept which we could perhaps backport to other things.
My wife gets up in the morning, removes her phone from the charger, and reads it on the toilet. I think of the addicts who get up and first thing light up a cigarette. But then, I can be pretty judgmental.
Maybe that's a problem too but we are talking here about something more than that. It is the content and the interactions, not simply the addiction.
I actually disagree with this. I think the focus should be much more on phone use than social media per se.
Everyone around me is absolutely addicted to their phone and are less able to focus, read, interact, etc. Not all of these people are using social media (which I accept might have additional issues, especially for teens).
The problem is teens, more specifically liberal teen girls. I forget if liberal boys or conservative girls are affected more but both are much less and conservative boys are affected least of all.
Except maybe there are also problems with adults and phones. Joe C seems to say they make people "less able to focus, read, interact, etc." So for one, that "interact" suggests to me that phones are one of the many causes for the birth bust.
No doubt there are problems. I was speaking to the most severe part where attention has been focused, especially by Haidt and cohorts.
Maybe it's part of the marriage issue but I'm doubtful it's a significant part for many reasons. Evidence might change that.
It seems on the face of it to me a very weak response. Like surveying the whole nasty scene and then saying, well, don't you remember how silly William F. Buckley sounded whenever he hated on rock and roll in the pages of National Review?
I guess comparison to Tipper Gore might be a little more apt.
But then, has enough time passed that we are *so* sure Tipper Gore was a *fool* in AK’s sense or any other? We are that clear-sighted of our own time?
And anyway, how quickly she was shut down - barely a blip.
Implicit in Peter Gray's argument is that the media children consume does not affect them and that previous restrictions on children's media consumption also had no effect. I do not know whether this is true, and Peter Gray does not address it. I wonder if he thinks boys should have access to pornography on the internet; maybe that worry is merely another moral panic. (In other words, does what you read have an effect on you? Funny that Peter Gray--in a written article--implicitly argues: no.)
I have a hard time making fun of the old moralizers, because everything they feared has come to pass. Maybe we *should* have drawn the line at dime novels. What ideas slowly but surely percolated so that in ~1970 American elites threw away promoting the nuclear family? The moral panics of yesteryear failed, but, if they had succeeded, maybe we could have avoided the Hansonian cultural drift which has led to plummeting TFRs.
The harm stemming from media see to be from intensive use. So why not tax intensive use with an excise tax on ad revenue that is progressive with use of a given platform from a given device. The algorithm would then figure out how to produce less "engaging" sites.
Sort of the same principle as taxing gambling, low tax for the first say $10 wager per site/device and increasing. Yes both can be evaded with effort of changing devices, but something is something.
Taxing the ad revenue received by the platform / pusher who engages the addict seems an excellent idea (which I also had but hadn't written down).
I actually think advertising should be seen as info pollution, and semi-disinformation. I'd like a lot less ads. Maybe also limit the tax deduction of ads to be 1% of the prior year's tax paid.
The TikTok case is about China - espionage, blackmail, cyber effect positioning, foreign influence campaigning, lack of cooperation with the US national security apparatus, and insulation from US law enforcement tools and tactics such as data and property seizures and subpoenas. It probably is bad for kids, but that's a very secondary motivation for public consumption, something the government stops caring about so long as everything is owned and run by an ""'American""" company, and so arguments about liberty vs harm are mostly a waste of time, taking the bait to perform in the sideshow.
I don’t know what the Chinese version looks like, of course, or if it is much the same - but I think that a few people have suggested that China has made a determination that what’s “good for” American youth is not good for Chinese youth? And that deserves consideration?
However, people either strenuously admire or fear/loathe China at present so I guess there’s no one to really take that question on and decide it one way or another.
Lots of young women have more fears. (HT Rob H) Because of social media.
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/fear-has-come-to-define-the-politics-and-personal-choices-of-single-young-women/
The women fear marriage will be a Loss of Personal Freedom. And it has a negative impact on their career. And … maybe it makes men happier. They also fear sexual violence and harassment.
These young women were kids growing thru their teens beforevCovid-19.
Maybe they’re afraid now because of their depressing phone use then.
Maybe it’s much easier to share problems, fears, angers, injustices, and especially victimizations. Maybe our society needs to learn how to deal with the social tech in less negative ways, and only learns as more folk suffer from the current problems.
“100 bad days makes 100 good stories. 100 good stories makes me interesting at parties”. BoyWithUke most folk want some amount of supporting attention. The girls haven’t yet figured out how to use the social media on phones in mostly good ways.
Good parents will restrict smartphone use, as will good K-12 schools. It’s sad that those many who have a predilection for addiction will get addicted to doomscrolling. Or porn. Much much less problematic are video games with endings, tho it’s possibly very negative there, too.
Maybe those who get depressed will have a crisis that, when resolved, will make them more resilient. Actually I’m sure it be life positive for some, and life negative for others, and not so important for many. Unlike drunk driving, which kills innocents, phone addiction primarily hurts the phone addict. Of course, the kids are assumed to be innocent victims.
It’s good to have an open discussion of who is harmed, how much, and what can be done about, with what should be done properly being a subset of the can. Tho the most popular suggestions of should will most likely include some aspects that are not possible.
It seems like too much to expect to read condemnation of the internet - basically, that's what it really is, no need to miniaturize it to "social media" - on that internet, from people who have found success there, perhaps even a belated recognition.
"Online age-verification laws thus burden the First Amendment rights of adults, by hampering their ability to post and view material on the Internet in anonymity."
From what I've seen of Haidt's group, they are asking for restrictions under age 16. In at least some respects, that leaves a bit of latitude to avoid restricting adults.
Since when do adults have a right to post on the Internet in anonymity?
If adults have a right to internet anonymity, since when do social media sites have obligation to provide it? Since when do those sites have the obligation to allow free speech?
As for past harms to children, was the data anywhere close to as good as we have today indicating child suicide, or other harms, has increased significantly? Was the data correlated with those causes as closely as Social Media?
I love your FOOL acronym. I've been using your 3 political language model for years.
A long time ago I read about a number of clever ways to use encryption tech to interact on a network and prove one's membership in a credentialed class without revealing one's particular individual identity. Theoretically this could be done for the adult-child distinction, however, what tends to happen is those "credentials" are acquired and used by by non-members, and this is hard to police unless they can be tied to a particular individual, for verification or liability, and this defeats the whole anonymity-protective intent. Though, as I understand things, these days what appears to many people like "anonymous" online activity is already anything but, especially if one is doing it via smartphone.