March 5, 2021 - 8:50am
If you’re a parent, imagine that someone comes up to you and offers you two choices. One, your daughter will become a regular user of social media. Or two, she will become a regular user of heroin. Which would you prefer?
Obviously you answered “social media”. Many millions of girls around the world use social media, and while it would be silly to say that there aren’t negative consequences to it, most of those girls seem to have grown up all right. Some people have been using Instagram for 11 years; there will be people, just about, who started in their teens and are now in their 30s. Twitter and Facebook have been around longer still, and while they were not at their present level of ubiquity 15 years ago, millions have used them for years.
Of course, lots of people take heroin too, and some of them have happy productive lives, but a large fraction of them suffer severe negative consequences. (At least partly as a result of prohibition, I’d say, but still.) If social media had large negative impacts with anything like the regularity heroin does, it would be staggeringly obvious.
Which is why I was startled to see the New Statesman tweeting that “heavy use of social media, for adolescent girls, is correlated more strongly with depression than [is] the use of heroin”.
The piece is by Louise Perry, an esteemed UnHerd colleague, and I don’t want to suggest for a moment that she’s wrong to be concerned about social media. There probably are real things to worry about for a subset of users, and yes, it does seem to be girls who suffer the most.
But the “heroin” claim is unfortunate. It comes from a study by the psychologist Jean Twenge, itself a response to an earlier piece of research by Amy Orben and Andy Przybylski which I’ve written about here (I won a Royal Statistical Society award for that piece, if I’m allowed to brag). Orben and Przybylski showed that the correlation between social media use and mental wellbeing was extremely small and uncertain; negative, but only as negative as the correlation between well-being and wearing glasses. They also showed that you could find more negative correlations, but only by chopping the data up to cherry-pick bits out.
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SubscribeSocial media is not the same as the internet. Also we don’t all ‘rely on social media’. I’d have thought a Royal Statistical Society award-winning author would be able to understand this.
Well said: Social Media and the Internet are too completley different things. As a full time web developer I have a greater dependency on the Internet than others, so I speak with some small authority on this.
The distinction between “the web” and the Internet is a battle that has already been lost due to the media being uninterested or incapable of understanding the difference between the two.
It would be a sad state of affairs if that lack of nuance, no lack of basic understanding in how the modern world works, was extended to blur the lines between the Internet and Social Media.
As I said, my livelihood is dependent on the Internet and the Web, but I do not have any social media accounts, and do not use them – aside from watching the odd tutorial video on YouTube (I have to do this as people seem to have lost the ability to communicate instructions in one short sentence, and instead prefer a 15 minute video)
So we don’t all rely on Social media, particularly to do school work.
I say, give this writer an Emmy.
‘Of course, lots of people take heroin too, and some of them have happy productive lives, but a large fraction of them suffer severe negative consequences. (At least partly as a result of prohibition, I’d say, but still.)’
The Liberal way. If you have no background in drug addiction then maybe a simple look into one part of history may enlighten you. China during the Opium years. Not Prohibition, so should have been great – but instead the ideal of the small business owner class, the most sensible of all people, became a wish to get his affairs in order and family to take over the business, and thus he could sink into a cloud of opium till death. Workers consumed any excess cash they could get on the pipe. Such was the way it took over society that it was destroying not just lives, but society. The opium wars – which I suppose the writer would say were reactionary attempts to limit freedom of choice on the part of the Chinese government, and a wish to allow the people to chose what they put into themselves by the enlightened British..
So the writer supposes two destructive forces, at least that is how his article is set up, and so says pick the lesser one. Is that really the answer? Not maybe chose, AND, try to mitigate, the lesser bad one?
In fairness, you’re making that claim in a comments section of a website and have racked up 10 likes for it 😉 There’s no real difference between commenting BTL on the article webpage and commenting on a reshare on Twitter or Facebook.
Sure we don’t rely on it in a pedantic technical sense, but here we are, talking to strangers using it. Obviously it meets some sort of need.
Would the excessive use and negative consequences of social media use be more fairly compared with other behavioural compulsions like gambling, shopping and porn?
“heavy use of social media, for adolescent girls, is correlated more strongly with depression than [is] the use of heroin”.
We already have increased talk of mental health issues among young people during the pandemic and its lockdowns, so why would a sewer like social media not contribute? Social media involves their friends, and various non-friends, all of whom can decide to target someone over an errant tweet, an odd picture, or whatever else. Heroin tends to be a solitary problem and we have found ways of helping people break the habit.
Social media is vital at the moment.
That’s exactly what the addict says, too. No, it’s not vital. It may be useful and the idea that someone in this industry cannot do his job without it goes a long way in explaining the eroding standards within journalism.
It does, yes. But it is there and it is a fad of youth. All generations go through these things.
I don’t think the kids are growing up alright.
As a father with three daughters, given the choice between heroine and social media, I would choose neither. But, if you put a gun to my head, I would still choose neither.
I wouldn’t know about social media or heroin, not having tried either of them. (I always say that Gaja is my heroin). But I have taken the New Statesman once or twice and I can say that it is probably the most damaging substance one can ingest.
I have never tried either but I guess people would see me as a strong person in that I don’t feel the need to ‘follow’ people to get kicks. There will be zillions of young people who feel that they have to be on social media or, effectively. not exist.
Which takes us back to Cancel Culture.
I will swear that contributors to The New Statesman actually get bonusses for the number of times they can squeeze ‘fat cats’ into their articles. I don’t even think the NS supports the Left in today’s world.
Stephen Bush is a notable exception – writes some of the most insightful articles on UK politics.
I am currently reading a collection of Hugh Trevor-Roper’s letters to Bernard Berenson. Trevor-Roper was a frequent contributor to the New Statesman in the 1950s, but it’s been all downhill since then.
There will be zillions of young people who feel that they have to be on social media or, effectively. not exist.
Indeed. There is this thing called FOMO, or fear of missing out, and it’s approaching psychosis levels. People believe they have to be constantly glued to that screen or something “important” might happen without their knowledge.
I can believe the comparison – ever had heroin tell you:
etc etc etc
On the other hand, social media doesn’t depress your respiration rate and thereby kill you if you happen to overdo it.
that’s true…social media simply allows friends or strangers to say the nastiest things imaginable about you, or to post your address for the world to see, or attempt to ruin your reputation. Those are helpful to one’s mental health, especially in this lockdown era when more young people are having suicidal thoughts even without being targeted.
I find the author’s lack of logic somewhat obvious. He is positing the idea that if we consider that Social Media has a correlation to depression similar to relationship that Heroin has with depression, then we must assume that Social Media is a bad as Heroin.
He is either an idiot or another media face trying to manipulate the public. Either way he has insulted my intelligence.
He was commenting on a piece that posited that idea. Don’t think he intended you any insult.
I’m compiling (in my head for now) a list of
Non- woke things that wind up anti-woke people as much as woke things do. ‘The evil of social media’ is one.
My theory is anti- woke people are angry about lots of things – some of which happen to be woke.
I think they are mainly old. Once upon a time I worked in Italy for a year and every morning the cafes were full of old retired people putting the world to rights. They were very angry and their voices were very loud.
One day, something new will replace social media. It will be considered a path to perdition and people will look back at the “social media age” as one of enlightenment and wisdom.
A few years ago I saw a play called The Nether. I recommend those who see the web, internet, social media as something to be controlled and rationed, to read about it.
Social media, unlike heroin, is just as ‘bad’ or ‘good’ as one’s own social circles. I’m not on social media, simply because i’m too lazy / can’t be ar$ed with it – and i know that i miss out on some good valuable stuff by not being on social media.
Then again, i’m not a teenager in the process of trying to build a personality, i can imagine it could be a minefield for them to navigate. The world got way too much ‘social’ since i was a teen.
I think Dr. Twenge made a mistake in doing her study. Common sense is my criteria. Small usage of social media.