Transcript

Mark, last week, the US Senate had a hearing on the dangers of social media in preparation of the legislation to improve child safety online. In this hearing, meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that it has not been scientifically proven that social media causes mental health problems in adolescence. Mr. Zuckerberg, let me start with you. Did I hear you say in your opening statement that there's no link between mental health and social media use?

Senator, what I said is, I think it's important to look at the science. I know people widely talk about this as if that is something that's already been proven, and I think that the bulk of the scientific evidence does not support that. This offset a lot of people who think that the link is obvious, but I'm afraid Zuckerberg is right. Let's have a look. Contrary to what some headlines have claimed, we don't have a global mental health crisis. I discussed this at length in an earlier episode. By and large, mental health globally has been remarkably stable. However, the mental health of one demographic group has been suffering in the past decade, and that's adolescent girls in some countries, and to a lesser extent, also boys. This is evident in data from the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries where self reports also correlate with self harm in other countries, such as Sweden, this mental health trend is primarily found in self reports from girls difficult to interpret and does not correlate with self harm statistics. Still, many put the blame on the increased use of social media, and that includes the affected young people themselves. It's a topic I care a lot about because I have two children who just got their first smartphones. The most vocal critic of social media use for children has probably been the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt. His major argument is that there isn't any other hypothesis, which is also what string theorists are about, the existence of strings and generally, not how science works. Now look, I'm not saying that Hyde is wrong. I don't know what's going on, but I do know that the studies on the topic have been inconclusive. I don't expect you to believe what I say, but Hyde has been criticized by his own colleagues for jumping to conclusions. And again, it's not that they say he's wrong. They point out that to the extent that studies have found any influence of social media on young people's mental health, it's been a small effect. For example, a study from 2019 followed about 13,000 adolescents in the UK between the ages of 10 and 15, though not all of them participated in all parts of the study. 

They were asked how many hours a day they were interacting with friends through social media and to rate their well being. But they were also asked about their life at home, the correlation between social media use and life satisfaction was very small and in many cases, almost compatible with zero. A similar conclusion was reached in 2020 by a group of researchers who followed a group of 500 adolescents in the United States for eight years, from age 13 to 20, they found that more time spent on social media was not associated with more mental health issues. The authors conclude basically that research should move on. However, then there's this study from 2022 by researchers from the UK and the Netherlands. They looked at the mental health of over 20,000 kids in the UK in the age range of 10 to 15, they found that for girls, between the ages of 10 and 13, increases in social media use predicted a decrease in life satisfaction ratings. One year later, something similar happened to boys, but at ages 14 and 15, so this seems to show that there is both an effect and the causation. Indeed goes from social media use to decreases in life satisfaction, and not the other way around. Then again, there's a recent study by researchers from the UK, published in the journal Nature mental health. These researchers followed over 12,000 British teenagers, they found that while social media does have a negative impact on mental health, it's one of the least influential factors. The authors say that it makes no sense to act as if social media use is such a big reason for adolescent mental health problems, and that other factors such as bullying or lack of family support should be the focus of attention instead, quite possibly, the reason is similar to the issue with the supposed problem of political polarization and echo chambers, which Jonathan Haidt has also previously been going on about, and that I discussed at length in yet another episode.

Upon closer inspection, it turns out that while these problems of polarization and echo chambers do exist, their strength and prevalence depends on the medium and the country and on exactly what question you ask. Basically, the issue is that psychology and sociology are very context dependent. Not every field of science is as nice as physics, where you have universal laws and Einsteins, whose theory still hold up a century later, my reading of the literature on the subject of social media and mental health is that some psychologists are a little wary and worry that blaming social media for whatever problems children have might paper over other issues, and just so we're on the same page. It's not like I'm saying social media is no problem for children or anyone, really, or that the law which the Senate is working on isn't needed. Actually, much of the Senate hearing focused on other issues, such as privacy concerns, or children being able to buy products they shouldn't get their hands on, or being exposed to content that's unsuitable for their age, such as deep existential problems posed by quantum mechanics. It's a wild world out there, so stay safe. Well, I'm trying to keep saying by reminding myself that I'm on social media for professional reasons, and that helps to some extent, but what helps even more is to have access to a community of people like me from whom I can learn how to be professional. I found this community on Skillshare, who've been sponsoring this video.

If you do any creative work, whether professionally or as a hobby, go and have a look, because I really like the place. Skillshare is the largest online learning community for and by creatives, with 1000s of classes covering everything from film and design in particular to freelancing and productivity in general. I especially appreciate the spirit of the platform. It's a friendly and welcoming place, and all about personal growth and discovery and learning new skills. There's so much content on Skillshare, it can be somewhat overwhelming at first, but Skillshare helps you out with specially chosen learning paths. They help you to gradually build your knowledge from beginner to expert like this one on creative productivity. It's a great course from people in a number of different professions, including video creation, and it's much helped me to organize my workflow, how to reliably come up with new ideas, how to become better at time management, how to break down big projects into manageable chunks. Yes, workflow and management sound somewhat dull, but it's really at the heart of being professional about anything, and it makes a big difference if you pay attention to it. If you're looking to expand your creative skills, have a look at Skillshare, because there isn't any place like it. The first 500 people to use our linker get a one month free trial of Skillshare, so go and check it out. There's no better day to start something new than today. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow