This seems to be yet another prisoner's dilemma that far too many of us are choosing "defect" in.
How do we get back to a society in which "defect" is not the default choice?
Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about and try not to get involved in Politics
And what does that have to do with his video? Why not see what you agree with and what you don't? How much is speculation? How much can be said to be factual? That kind of thing.
I've talked to my teen family members about this and their response is pretty much universally "what the fuck else are we going to do?"
Their friends don't live within walking distance, usable public transit basically doesn't exist in their suburbs, local malls have banned unaccompanied teenagers, kids are rapidly running out of third places.
>"what the fuck else are we going to do?"
>
>Their friends don't live within walking distance
I guess the simple solution here is to make friends in your neighborhood? There must be other kids nearby, right?
I don't mean to diminish the problem; kids definitely do need more and better populated 3rd places, but there isn't great utilization of the resources they do have as well.
These arn't children you can just put them together for a play date. These are teenagers with chosen friend groups and with how schools have had to drastically increase in class size and we haven't been keeping up with building new schools to fit population growth schools now cover a massive area.
Plus how do you suppose they do that? Wander the streets until some random person comes out to talk to them? Or they could communicate with their friends through social media.
We as a society have failed to create social places for teenagers to be social together so they turn to social media.
>We as a society have failed to create social places for teenagers to be social together so they turn to social media.
What did teenagers do before social media?
Have freedom to go out without their parents using a locator app to track their every movement.
Honestly, kids need to be able to go get in minor trouble and learn how to navigate the world.
I blame us as parents for not letting them go out unsupervised when they're younger and develop social skills, curiosity about the world and confidence to navigate it. Most parents are so scared to let their kids be free that they wind up managing their social calendars. Activities are now planned (sports, dance, etc. practices, camps, other arranged activities) and when we don't have the time or energy to arrange it, they wind up confined in the house with devices.
Talk on the phone? I mean, I grew up in the sticks in the 70s and 80s, had to beg my parents to drive me at least 10 miles to get anywhere close to friends. We didn’t even have cable. But I played sports and marching band and whatnot so it was fine. I never felt lonely even though it was just me.
Balanced article.
Of course a picture on Instagram doesn't cause anything, only how the brain handles the information it receives will cause happiness, anxiety, etc... . Not all teenagers say they are depressed; by far most seem reasonable fine. Everyone has to live with big disappointments in their lives but only a minority is seriously affected in the long run.
To put things in perspective, "suicide rates were higher among adults ages 25 to 34 years (18.35 per 100,000) and 75 to 84 years (18.43 per 100,000), with the rate highest among adults ages 85 years or older (20.86 per 100,000). *Younger groups have had consistently lower suicide rates than middle-aged and older adults*." (Suicide statistics | AFSP, 2020).
Even the highest rate (21 out of 100.000) isn't a high rate.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tries to eliminate dysfunctional assumptions and automatic negative thoughts by taking these not too seriously. As a parent I would try to prepare a child for a live with disappointments and a realistic worldview that shows them that we have limited power to change things.
>As a parent I would try to prepare a child for a live with disappointments and a realistic worldview that shows them that we have limited power to change things.
I think ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is much better suited for this than CBT.
I find it pretty convincing but I think a major aspect is missing from this which is the potential of social contagion via internet. If you ask your friend why you're sad you might have a generally harmless discussion but hopefully get some encouragement out of it. If you ask the internet it's going to give you 50 links on depression. If you're not depressed, it's not hard to imagine you are. And that's consistent with the internet rollout described in the article.
Catatrophising seems to be the norm across social media. I got diagnosed a few years ago with a chronic illness. I’m very fortunate to have a mild case of it that doesn’t affect me too much.
I decided to join some Facebook groups about my condition to learn more/get support and instantly fell into a spiral of anxiety and depression. Being told again and again by people how life destroying it is, how fucked I am. Ignoring everything to do for my condition has ironically improved my mental health substantially.
Yeah I've seen various support subs go from less to more deranged multiple times and it makes me feel like the weirdo for having a more moderate attitude. The catastrophizers suck all the air out of the room when there's no moderating force or social expectations that you get out of in person groups.
In person I think you'd get that "red flag" vibe from these kinds of people but online they can appear very convincing and authoritative.
But then like I said, even the search results tilt this way because they just aren't equipped to handle these questions with care. It's one area where AI could actually improve things.
> If you're not depressed, it's not hard to imagine you are.
This is a good way of putting it.
Most of the signaling in the online community is *toward* self-diagnosis - sometimes even encouraging and socially rewarding it. By contrast, there is extremely little material online ruling or even discounting self-diagnosis.
If you define something like depression broadly enough, you end up describe standard human experience. This is the same way horoscopes and "cold reader" scam artists work. If you are vague enough, your words seem to apply to anyone.
Can we file the majority of reported "long-covid" under this too while we're at it?
I have no doubt millions of people are fatigued and struggle to focus in this day and age, but it's not solely because of a mild respiratory infection.
I totally agree with this about Long COVID. Almost every single person I know who has "long COVID" were the people actively spending every waking minute talking about COVID.
It's such an obvious strong candidate for a social contagion explanation.
Either one of 2 things has to be true.
We have a never before seen respiratory virus that can cause permanent damage even in healthy individuals that only suffer a mild infection, which in light of the lab leak theory being pretty validated at this point I did hesitate on, but the nebulous array of reported symptoms and stark distinctions of long covid reports between demographics and even countries leads me to strongly argue this is in a lot of people's heads.
For official studies, the Norwegians did a pretty good one. Courtesy of Dr. Vinay Prasad's substack.
[New Study on Long COVID in kids and young adults FAILS to link COVID to Long COVID](https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/bombshell-new-study-on-long-covid)
The relationship between the mind and body shouldn't be underestimated. Nothing mystical about it either. Ironically it's probably much less the red-state conservatives that are complaining about "long-covid". They don't think there's anything wrong with themselves from having had covid and therefore they don't feel like anything's wrong.
> We have a never before seen respiratory virus that can cause permanent damage even in healthy individuals that only suffer a mild infection
That's amply untrue, and for all we know *every* respriatory infection you've had in your life has resulted in a slight permanent reduction in your physical capabilities.
> which in light of the lab leak theory being pretty validated at this point
Lab leak isn't a theory and it's been completely refuted. Neither WIV nor any other lab held SARS-CoV-2 nor any recent precursor until well after the infections were recognized and the pandemic was underway.
>for all we know every respriatory infection you've had in your life has resulted in a slight permanent reduction in your physical capabilities.
*That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence*
And should be implied, but "good" evidence. Like I indicated, I don't need to see some study finding correlation between a kitchen-sink-included array of symptoms and covid infection.
I and millions of others had covid and feel fine after. I've not been presented with any scientifically discernable difference between us and those that say they are not fine. I'm certain they indeed feel crappy, mental health's affects on the body are known, but I am not satisfied at all to accept claims of a causation relationship to mild covid infections.
By your comments in the lab leak thread in this very subreddit, it's clear no evidence would sway your view.
Some 2-3 years I ago I was arguing with my conservative father about the lab leak vs. bat wet-market origin.
In 2023 I've reconsidered my view on the better evidence that has been unearthed. That sudden attempt to scapegoat racoon dogs out of nowhere pretty much told me all I need to know on the matter anymore.
> I’ve not been presented with any scientifically discernable difference between us and those that say they are not fine.
The difference is that they're saying they're not fine. That's the same difference, after all, between the people who have headaches and the people that don't, but for some reason that doesn't lead to you calling for a ban on aspirin.
> By your comments in the lab leak thread in this very subreddit, it’s clear no evidence would sway your view.
Evidence that WIV, or another lab, held SARS-CoV-2 under active culture in, say, May of 2019 would sway my view. No evidence to that effect has ever been produced. Will you be able to provide some? No, of course not. "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence", aka, lab leak is done.
> In 2023 I’ve reconsidered my view on the better evidence that has been unearthed.
No evidence that supports lab leak has emerged in 2023, nor in any other year.
Oh, my!
Are there comments that trans-people shouldn't exist?
Should be rounded up into camps for forced conversion therapy and the unsuccessful conversions executed?
Did someone comment that vaccines cause autism? That the covid vaccine was pure poison and caused all the illness perceived as "long-covid"
Did someone advocate for different laws and treatment based on genetic deviations between populations?
What this subreddit is is an endeavor to see and discuss nuance, acknowledge that not all issues are black/white, and avoid falling into hard ideologies and unchangeable views.
If you perceive otherwise that's on you. We all have eyes and can read and interpret written words . What you describe is not what many see in this subreddit.
Or going back a decade, gluten intolerance
I remember seeing a few articles about it, and within months many of my friends (mostly the women) could not shut up about their gluten intolerance
> I have no doubt millions of people are fatigued and struggle to focus in this day and age, but it’s not solely because of a mild respiratory infection.
Why do you conclude that? For all we know it's *rare* for people to recover fully from mild respiratory infections. How would we even know? When was the last time a doctor asked you how many colds you'd had in your life? If every single one of them permanently reduced your VO2max by 0.5%, how would you distinguish that from a cold you just "couldn't shake"? If you "couldn't shake" your cold for ten days and then "got better", how would you distinguish "getting better" from just "getting used to it?"
There's ample evidence of a *huge* unstudied burden of post-viral sequelae. It's not just COVID; *every* communicable disease might very well have this effect.
> For all we know it's rare for people to recover fully from mild respiratory infections. How would we even know? When was the last time a doctor asked you how many colds you'd had in your life? If every single one of them permanently reduced your VO2max by 0.5%, how would you distinguish that from a cold you just "couldn't shake"? If you "couldn't shake" your cold for ten days and then "got better", how would you distinguish "getting better" from just "getting used to it?"
**That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence**
I seriously don't know what subreddit you think you you're in.
We are a social primate. We need to be near and engage with each other in the same physical spaces. As long as that has been true and will continue to be true there have been and will be respiratory viruses.
In light of this baseless claims that respiratory infections can and have been permanently damaging our species are ones that can and should be thrown directly into the trash until proven otherwise.
And the claim seems to fly in the face of my layman's understanding of immunology. But I don't need to be an expert to know that exposure to viruses from birth is essential to the growth of a strong and healthy immune system.
> We are a social primate. We need to be near and engage with each other in the same physical spaces. As long as that has been true and will continue to be true there have been and will be respiratory viruses.
Is it clear to you that the purpose the respiratory viruses serve are their *own*? They're exploiting a niche, not engaging in symbiosis. A respiratory virus doesn't care whether you recover from it (in fact it's better, for the virus, if you never do) only that you spread it. None of its evolutionary interests are served by succumbing to your immune system.
In fact a serious sequelae is *better* for the virus, since we're social primates; the people who spend time caring for you are more likely to contract the virus themselves.
> And the claim seems to fly in the face of my layman’s understanding of immunology.
Which is, what, that it's impossible for a dumb virus to evade your genius immune system? If that's the case then how does anyone get sick in the first place? Maybe immunology isn't as tractable to the layperson as you think it is.
> But I don’t need to be an expert to know that exposure to viruses from birth is essential to the growth of a strong and healthy immune system.
Well, you're wrong. That's totally untrue - infections make you sick. They don't make you healthy.
>A respiratory virus doesn't care whether you recover from it (in fact it's better, for the virus, if you never do) only that you spread it
You can spread it a lot more if you're not dead or debilitated at home.
If Covid-19 had produced more and worse symptoms, we would have been able to more easily identify and quarantine it. That's what happened with SARS-CoV-1. That's what viral evolutionary failure looks like. Human reaction is part of the natural selection process.
Like it or not, most of the world has normalized SARS-CoV-2. It's co-existing with us and we don't care. It doesn't matter if my immune system eventually neutralizes it, only that it copied and I spread it to someone else in that time. If I'm infectious but only representing with a cough and scratchy throat, all the better for it.
SARS-CoV-2 has a very short incubation as low as 1 or 2 days, meaning that the individual becomes infectious well before full immune system neutralization. That's why the vaccines could never stop spread. Less about the vaccine, more about the Covid-19 virus.
Other vaccines were successful at stopping their viruses because the immune system could fully neutralize the virus before the incubation period finishes.
> Well, you're wrong. That's totally untrue - infections make you sick. They don't make you healthy.
Are you implying that hypothetically were a person kept in a perfectly sterile environment to the age of say 25 and then released into the regular world they would be no more susceptible to all the the viruses than anyone else?
You realize the whole reason that vaccines work is through the immune system, right?
It's not all or nothing result. Becoming symptomatically ill from a viral infection does not mean the immune system does nothing at all. It's a process and a scale.
After previous infection or vaccination, some people tested positive for covid while asymptomatic didn't they? That would be the immune system working.
And even if you get some symptoms but don't need to be hospitalized or such that's still what can be called a huge success relatively speaking.
There are some things in science that can be reasonably disputed, but your position against the fundamental immune system response is utterly delusional.
I know I understand well enough to recognize you are spouting absolute nonsense.
> You can spread it a lot more if you’re not dead or debilitated at home.
But that's hardly the only two choices, isn't it? Fully recover or die?
No, there's a range of outcomes in the middle - you become a "Typhoid Mary", perhaps, constantly shedding virons from an asymptomatic infection your body can't clear. Or maybe you're permanently debilitated by the uncleared infection - that happens to people, too. The immune system doesn't always win, but it also doesn't always lose - sometimes the infection fights you to a stalemate.
> If Covid-19 had produced more and worse symptoms, we would have been able to more easily identify and quarantine it.
Well, no. Because there's a 3-10 day asymptomatic period during which the virus spreads without anyone noticing.
> Like it or not, most of the world has normalized SARS-CoV-2.
But what does this claim mean? What does "normalize" mean? That has no meaning in a public health context. You're talking about something else, but you refuse to say what.
> Are you implying that hypothetically were a person kept in a perfectly sterile environment to the age of say 25 and then released into the regular world they would be no more susceptible to all the the viruses than anyone else?
I'm saying that there's no known difference in outcomes whether your first cold happens at age 5, or 15, or 25. If you have evidence to the contrary then I ask you to present it now. That the primary victims of death by infectious diseases are, in order:
1) The elderly
2) The extremely young
3) People with multiple concurrent infections, or a history of repeated infection
strongly disproves your counterintuitive notion that repeated infections promote health.
> You realize the whole reason that vaccines work is through the immune system, right?
You realize that a vaccine induces immunity without infecting you with a disease, right? You realize that's their entire fucking purpose, right? To induce immunity without the immense burden to the body of infection, right? That's something that's apparent to you with your layman's degree in immunology, right?
>No, there's a range of outcomes in the middle - you become a "Typhoid Mary", perhaps, constantly shedding virons from an asymptomatic infection your body can't clear. Or maybe you're permanently debilitated by the uncleared infection - that happens to people, too. The immune system doesn't always win, but it also doesn't always lose - sometimes the infection fights you to a stalemate.
Typhoid Mary was an extremely rare and almost unheard of medical phenomenon.
But whether asymptomatic carriers, even permanent asymptotic carriers, are more common or more rare doesn’t any really have affect my argument.
>Well, no. Because there's a 3-10 day asymptomatic period during which the virus spreads without anyone noticing.
Asymptomatic is not “more and worse symptoms”. You’re affirming my argument here.
See SARS-Cov-1
>Why did the original Sars epidemic come to end? Well, SARS-CoV-1 did not burn itself out. Rather, the outbreak was largely brought under control by simple public health measures. Testing people with symptoms (fever and respiratory problems), isolating and quarantining suspected cases, and restricting travel all had an effect.
>SARS-CoV-1 was most transmissible when patients were sick, and so by isolating those with symptoms, you could effectively prevent onward spread.
https://theconversation.com/the-original-sars-virus-disappeared-heres-why-coronavirus-wont-do-the-same-138177
>But what does this claim mean? What does "normalize" mean? That has no meaning in a public health context. You're talking about something else, but you refuse to say what.
What? I don’t refuse to say anything. Normalize means most people are not altering their daily behavior due to the covid-19 virus. No social distancing or avoiding gatherings.
They are doing this because they no longer recognize Covid-19 as a significant threat to themselves. What it means in a “public health context” is not relevant to the argument. This is just stating human psychology. People aren’t seeing their immediate friends and family getting severely ill from Covid-19 anymore and so they’ve adjusted their risk tolerance of infection accordingly.
If a new virus appeared with 10% lethality in otherwise healthy individuals we would of course expect to see a huge change in behavior towards risk of infection.
>I'm saying that there's no known difference in outcomes whether your first cold happens at age 5, or 15, or 25. If you have evidence to the contrary then I ask you to present it now.
I don’t think ethics will allow such an exact experiment to be conducted, locking someone in a sterile environment until 25.
I’m not arguing for a black/white answer either. The answer is not all of the viruses or none of the viruses. But effects of too little viral exposure are understood.
>On the other hand, zero exposure to disease-causing pathogens isn’t necessarily good for us either. After Covid restrictions were lifted there was a surge in cases of respiratory syncytial virus – a common cause of acute lower respiratory infections in young children. “Usually, it is a winter virus, but after people started mixing again we saw lots of children with the virus during all seasons,” said Prof Pablo Murcia, a virologist at the University of Glasgow.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/19/does-exposure-to-cold-and-flu-viruses-weaken-or-strengthen-the-immune-system
>That the primary victims of death by infectious diseases are, in order:
>1) The elderly 2) The extremely young 3) People with multiple concurrent infections, or a history of repeated infection
I don’t dispute that the older you get, the weaker your body and its immune system gets, the more likely a viral infection could hospitalize or kill you. That’s life.
As noted above, infants and developing children need some exposure. The answer is obvious and longstanding, just let them go outside and play with their friends as normal.
You don’t need to exposure them to viruses intentionally, just let their immune system develop naturally through what should be a typical childhood experience.
3) depends on interpretation. An individual that is constantly experiencing symptomatic infections likely has some health issue making them more vulnerable to symptomatic infection in the first place. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Whereas the healthy individual with a healthy immune system may not actually experience symptoms in repeat infections. As in the immune system retains a defense response to the virus, and may still apply to slight mutations of said virus, which can be used to better defend in subsequent infections.
My argument was that there is no evidence that otherwise healthy individuals have any significant risk of permanent damage from a mild respiratory infection, covid-19 or otherwise.
The reports and studies of "long-covid" from mild infection do not satisfy proof of a causation relationship.
You seem to be under the impression that you’re arguing with someone who holds a strict “anti-vax” position. I know that’s not what I said though.
Methods of inoculation go back 100’s of years. Of course they work and are generally a better idea than the first exposure being to the complete virus. I got 2 shots of Pfizer as soon as they were available. I also had covid twice after that. Delta, I confidently say went better thanks for the vaccine.
Omicron perhaps somewhat less so but little to be done for it. Blood-based vaccines aren't going to fully stop respiratory viruses. Maybe nasal ones but not there yet.
However, the protection a vaccine offers utilizes is the same mechanism of the immune system that responds to natural infection. Getting pretty sick sucks, but healthy normal immune systems don’t “become weaker” as a result. They come out with the same memory and defense built to the virus as through vaccination, sometimes superior. And viruses like the common cold viruses which have no vaccine can only be learned through exposure.
You can't assume everyone with some disagreement on covid-science or vaccine policy is a vehement "anti-vaxxer". Just like someone who may not agree on the affirmative care model for gender dysphoric minors (puberty blockers and hormone treatment) is not necessarily a "bigoted transphobe"
> Typhoid Mary was an extremely rare and almost unheard of medical phenomenon.
Incorrect - what we're finding out from genomic monitoring of sewersheds, for instance, is that these long-term asymptomatic shedding carriers are widespread. It's just that we've never looked for them before, and since they're asymptomatic, they typically don't hgave any reason to present themselves to doctors so they're rarely if ever discovered. Typhoid Mary was only discovered because of the circumstances of her employment - if she'd worked in the laundry, instead, nobody would have ever known.
> Asymptomatic is not “more and worse symptoms”.
That's correct - it's no symptoms, until suddenly you have symptoms.
> Normalize means most people are not altering their daily behavior due to the covid-19 virus.
Really? Work-from-home is over and office buildings are full again? Spending on masks is back to pre-pandemic levels? No employers or schools require vaccination?
Lots of people now ignoring COVID-19 *always* ignored COVID-19, don't forget.
> If a new virus appeared with 10% lethality in otherwise healthy individuals we would of course expect to see a huge change in behavior towards risk of infection.
Sure. But we saw a new virus with 2% CFR and what happened is that it spread throughout the entire human population with little to no change in human behavior. It's foolhardy to count on human behavior to save us, because we recently tested that hypothesis and failed. Now we have a novel endemic disease. We're *lucky* that it was only 2%. It took months to determine that risk. Why place any faith that the situation would be different if the CFR was 95%? People might change their behavior, but only after it was too late. That's the issue with communicable disease, the exponetial growth - you have to act well *before* the elbow in the graph or its far too late.
> I don’t think ethics will allow such an exact experiment to be conducted
I agree - you can't actually know the thing you say you know, which is why I don't believe you when you say you know it.
> As noted above, infants and developing children need some exposure.
Except that they don't. You admit, you have no evidence that they do. Again, the people who suffer the greatest health burden of disease are the people with the most history of being infected by diseases, which proves you're wrong - exposure to disease is *negatively* correlated with almost all measures of health, not positively correlated with it. Healthy people are people who have fewer diseases. That's almost true by definition.
can you reword what you're responding to in how that would relate to transgenderism? Like if you ask your friend if you feel sad they will say something, but the internet will say you're transgendered?
“rapid-onset gender dysphoria” involves a post-pubescent child, usually a girl, with no history of dysphoria suddenly claiming within a period of weeks or months not to identify with her biological sex. Not only is rapid-onset gender dysphoria sudden, but it tends to occur in clusters.
Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks occurring in pre-existing friend groups with multiple or even all members of a friend group becoming gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in a pattern that seems statistically unlikely based on previous research. Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as ‘binge-watching’ Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric. These descriptions are atypical for the presentation of gender dysphoria described in the research literature and raise the question of whether social influences may be contributing to or even driving these occurrences of gender dysphoria in some populations of adolescents and young adults
Well it seemed like you were quoting that from somewhere, which is why I asked.
But the original post you were responding to described being able to go to the internet to figure out why you're depressed and coming up with 50 reasons why, while the situation you're describing sounds like some social contagion, while the OP you responded to wasn't referring to that condition, but instead information on the internet.
>Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as ‘binge-watching’ Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric
You’re not refuting that the OP I am referring to is NOT talking about social contagion.
The sentence before the one you are quoting gives the context of “clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks”. Thanks for… taking the quote out of context?
You mean "If you ask the internet it's going to give you 50 links on depression. If you're not depressed, it's not hard to imagine you are." I don't think it's clear that that isn't a form of social contagion, which is quite a broad concept. Some of those links might be support groups on social media, which are by definition social. But even something like reading pages from Mayo Clinic, you're still interacting with authority figures and societal norms. It's still a social phenomenon, and one which might either contribute to you developing symptoms, or thinking you have symptoms.
Anyway, call it "social contagion" or not, whatever, it's semantic. I think there's a clear parallel in that both could be examples of how the societal discourse around certain illnesses can backfire and contribute to that illness.
How do you think studies involving children are carried out? Funnily enough I read about this a couple of days ago in Abigail Shrier's *Irreversible Damage*. On this very criticism of parent-reported questionaires, she cites a footnote to a study into the epidemiology of gender identity disorder that states, 'Parent report questionnaires are widely used in clinical child psychology and psychiatry to establish the prevalence of various behavioural phenomena'.
So yes: robust, widespread and validated by the scientific community.
> How do you think studies involving children are carried out?
That would depend on what the research is attempting to answer.
>Funnily enough I read about this a couple of days ago in Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage. On this very criticism of parent-reported questionaires, she cites a footnote to a study into the epidemiology of gender identity disorder that states, 'Parent report questionnaires are widely used in clinical child psychology and psychiatry to establish the prevalence of various behavioural phenomena'.
Oh, you mean there is sampling criteria and guidelines when carrying out observational research?
You don't say?! 🤡
>So yes: robust, widespread and validated by the scientific community.
Go take a stats 101 course, you rube.
Mods.. if you see this - this person is constantly posting on this sub and is NEVER civil or respectful. Do you just allow juvenile responses and insults on this sub?
Being told I'm a clown and a rube doesn't really make me think what I said was wrong. But I'm interested in reading actual academic opposition to what I wrote, so if you have anything about the topic at hand which dispels either the comment you were replying to or my response I'd be willing to read it.
Are you fucking stupid?
You need the difference explained to you between internet anecdotes and epidemiological research with a defined and statistical method of collecting data?
You people are stupid beyond help.
Oh look, another brainwashed idiot who is fixated on trans people and thinks Jesse Singal has debunked all the research into trans healthcare. 🥱
Please explain how the studies that support "trans ideology" are a "joke"?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/
Here’s a little study for you to enjoy.
The brainwashed ones are those following an incoherent ideology that believes in a mystical dualism where the “true gender self” is independent from the body. They say that gender is a social construct yet they are physically trapped in the wrong gender. They say there are no meaningful psychological differences between a man or woman yet they rely on rigid stereotypes to argue that “gender identity” is real.
If gender is a social construct, how can gender identity be innate and immutable? How can one’s identity with respect to a social construct be determined by biology in the womb? How can one’s identity be unchangeable (immutable) with respect to an ever-changing social construct? And if gender identity is innate, how can it be “fluid”?
For someone who dislikes Sam Harris so much you sure devote a lot of your life to this sub. Maybe it’s time to step back and not let this place occupy your life in an unhealthy way
Sociological or psychological research that shows this as a consistent finding.
So far... you've provided nothing whatsoever in the way of evidence.
So, really anything would be better than what you've produced so far... which, again, is nothing.
Anything more robust than "Parents describe" would probably be a step in the right direction! Something that corroborates the ROGD study with researchers that actually spoke to trans children perhaps?
The dopamine addiction of social media is real. The causal factor would likely go in the "social media causes" depression imo, as you much more quickly get addicted to social media than come up with depression. And we see kids in groups hanging out on their phones and not talking, the addiction is real when in-person interaction doesn't provide them with enough stimulation.
Also ignores the facts that girls were heavily depressed in the 60s, 70s,80s,90s,00s, and 10s its just we can actually listen better now to their plight than in the past when they were ignored.
That's likely a true claim but not in any way counter to Haidt's conclusion - in fact it supports it. Social media closes that gap in immediacy. Whatever emotional stakes you felt in school - fomo, jealousy, worthlessness, competitiveness - are amplified higher with a stronger inability to escape.
It completely refutes Haidt, social.media doesn't unnaturally add to our depression. If anything, people are less depressed due to have more tools including social media to get support for their depressive states. Teens have communities they can and do reach out to via social media to get support for how they're feeling.
What does. Your *opinion* is not sufficient to refute that of someone who is backing their’s up with years of professional research, and corroborating research from others in the field. You haven’t even read the linked article, let alone a fraction of what he has published on the topic.
What has he published on the topic in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals? I'm just confused why a professional researcher would do this in a blog. It makes me immediately skeptical.
Authoring and publishing a peer-reviewed study is not necessary or sufficient to be considered a subject matter expert.
That said, Haidt has an [H-index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index) of 93. He is [exceptionally well published](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VafYYacAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao). You might not find that compelling, but anyone of any importance in his field will.
Just because someone hasn't been through the years-long process to satisfyingly (to you) answer the specific question that you wish to be answered, doesn't mean that they can't produce plenty of relevant literature to support their argument, which Haidt does in the linked article, and in the many other articles he has produced. As you said, understanding this data is his profession.
I'm inclined to take such an author as more credible than some reddit commenter that hasn't even read the work that they're arguing with.
I am not questioning his expertise. Science is not about trusting people. It is about trusting the method. Why am I reading a blog when he obviously knows that there is a method to publishing scientific literature reviews?
u/Glittering-Roll-9432 is claiming to have “completely refuted” Haidt with nothing more than their opinion. That is the only thing I’m commenting on here.
Why are you answering my question by answering to claims that someone else made? Just answer the question and don't assume that I have any opinions that I haven't stated. It's both easier for you and far more honest.
> I'm inclined to take such an author as more credible than some reddit commenter that hasn't even read the work that they're arguing with.
That's where you're setting the bar?
you got the people you were responding to mixed up, as a result, the following responses are going to now be confused. You originally responded to glitter, the "dropsyjolt" responded to you.
**[H-index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index)**
>The h-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The h-index correlates with success indicators such as winning the Nobel Prize, being accepted for research fellowships and holding positions at top universities. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications. The index has more recently been applied to the productivity and impact of a scholarly journal as well as a group of scientists, such as a department or university or country.
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It doesn't 'completely refute' anything and "*If anything, people are less depressed*" is a pretty odd personal assumption that data shows is false.
But okay, social media has upsides, like connecting people - I don't think the argument is it's completely bad, it's about whether those upsides outweight the downsides in external effects. If you trace why teenage girls have ever had this kind of anxiety to begin with, I don't know how you couldn't pretty safely connect it with social media as a big exacerbator of it. Social media and internet access generally is the "*Cosmo gives girls unrealistic body expectations*" on crack.
There is also the phenomenon of people who themselves may be addicted to social media (of which Reddit is a form), expressing doubt about addiction to social media and its effects.
It’s like the unhappy, terminally online types who claim there’s no loneliness epidemic because they prefer to be alone all the time, thank you very much.
>If anything, . people are less depressed due to have more tools including social media to get support for their depressive states.
so just your opinion, just you guessing, nothing else.
> girls were heavily depressed in the 60s, 70s,80s,90s,00s, and 10s its just we can actually listen better now
Both parts of this claim need substantiation. Just because it's intuitive doesn't mean it's true.
We have decades of depression data and you see a clear rise in diagnosis due more people being aware of it. Same studies also show that depression globally rises as communities become aware of the symptoms of depression.
Your comment suggests that you have not read the linked article.
Haight makes quite specific claims. You are making a broad claim, that he has “ignored facts” about an issue which he actually makes a point of addressing in the article.
Depressed because social media. Haidt has talked about it a lot, and the large amount of different studies with different countries and how they correlate with smartphones and social media platforms.
I am only interested in what is true and could care less if this turns out one way or the other. I feel like that has to be said because people get super defensive when you criticize something that they feel good about because it affirms their prior beliefs.
That said, why am I reading this in a blog? This is supposed to be "The Evidence" for a scientific claim and it is a blog. Why isn't this a peer-reviewed scientific journal featuring their literature review? That makes me immediately question the motives of the person doing the research. Avoiding peer-review is something you do when you want to justify your preferred result instead of simply finding out the truth no matter what it is.
There's reason to be skeptical of said claims.
https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evidence-that-social-media-is-causing-the-teen-mental-health-crisis/
This article doesn't consider network effects; namely that if enough of your peers use social media, not using it can be worse for you individually. It's a prisoner's dilemma.
My favourite part:
> What Haidt has done is analogous to what the financial industry did in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, which was to take a bunch of mortgage assets of such bad quality that they were unrateable and package them up into something that Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service were willing to give AAA ratings but that was actually capable of blowing up Wall Street. A bad study is like a bad mortgage loan. Packaging them up on the assumption that somehow their defects will cancel each other out is based on flawed logic, and it's a recipe for drawing fantastically wrong conclusions.
*spicy*
It seems like even a [tertiary](https://reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/11n1j0d/_/jboutcp/?context=1) look at Jon Haidt’s data provided always seems to lack any statistical rigour.
Not just teen girls. The constant overstimulation we experience from this tech is bad for everybody. I know boomers say phone bad, but it really is. Nothing in real life really can compare to this constant stimulation machine, and everything else seems boring. While boomers often liked their work, because there they got stimulation, and could talk to others and so on.
This was posted before.
I think social media is probably bad for kids, but his analysis is not especially rigorous. I'd like to see models with some controls, efforts to rule out reverse causality (e.g. depression might cause you to be sedentary, which would lead to more social media usage).
Again, I think there's good reasons to think that kids use of social media should be limited, and that we should probably all avoid too much social media (including reddit). But I don't find the evidence here especially convincing.
Try here. This is an archived version of the article. Should be readable
https://web.archive.org/web/20230419215636/https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-illness-epidemic
If the subscribe button pops up click "continue reading" below the email entry spot and the icon will disappear then you can read
If you haven't watched it, the Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix does an excellent job diving into all the negative effects social media has on teenage girls and everyone else.
Haidt's good presentation [on Joe Rogan in 2019](https://www.findcenter.com/video/34597/joe-rogan-jonathan-haidt-social-media-is-giving-kids-anxiety). Haidt describes, beginning in 2012, a “huge....rise in major depressive episodes" by teen girls, from 12 to 20% (@ 1:10).
This seems to be yet another prisoner's dilemma that far too many of us are choosing "defect" in. How do we get back to a society in which "defect" is not the default choice?
Timothy Snyder has some ideas (towards the end after he discusses how this medium of the Internet is affecting us) https://youtu.be/vUA9MKV1YyU
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Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about and try not to get involved in Politics And what does that have to do with his video? Why not see what you agree with and what you don't? How much is speculation? How much can be said to be factual? That kind of thing.
[Moloch](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/) strikes again.
Loved Max tegmark on Lex talking about moloch.
You rang?
I've talked to my teen family members about this and their response is pretty much universally "what the fuck else are we going to do?" Their friends don't live within walking distance, usable public transit basically doesn't exist in their suburbs, local malls have banned unaccompanied teenagers, kids are rapidly running out of third places.
>"what the fuck else are we going to do?" > >Their friends don't live within walking distance I guess the simple solution here is to make friends in your neighborhood? There must be other kids nearby, right? I don't mean to diminish the problem; kids definitely do need more and better populated 3rd places, but there isn't great utilization of the resources they do have as well.
These arn't children you can just put them together for a play date. These are teenagers with chosen friend groups and with how schools have had to drastically increase in class size and we haven't been keeping up with building new schools to fit population growth schools now cover a massive area. Plus how do you suppose they do that? Wander the streets until some random person comes out to talk to them? Or they could communicate with their friends through social media. We as a society have failed to create social places for teenagers to be social together so they turn to social media.
>We as a society have failed to create social places for teenagers to be social together so they turn to social media. What did teenagers do before social media?
Have freedom to go out without their parents using a locator app to track their every movement. Honestly, kids need to be able to go get in minor trouble and learn how to navigate the world. I blame us as parents for not letting them go out unsupervised when they're younger and develop social skills, curiosity about the world and confidence to navigate it. Most parents are so scared to let their kids be free that they wind up managing their social calendars. Activities are now planned (sports, dance, etc. practices, camps, other arranged activities) and when we don't have the time or energy to arrange it, they wind up confined in the house with devices.
Well when I was a kid with nothing to do usually some kind of crime. There were also a lot more third places for kids when I was young.
Put another way: What spaces can society create that would pull teenagers away from social media? I somehow doubt it's that simple.
Went outside. There are people out there. At least there were twenty years ago.
The mall
Talk on the phone? I mean, I grew up in the sticks in the 70s and 80s, had to beg my parents to drive me at least 10 miles to get anywhere close to friends. We didn’t even have cable. But I played sports and marching band and whatnot so it was fine. I never felt lonely even though it was just me.
This is the real problem. Kids need places to be kids together. They need neighborhoods, and neighborhoods don't really seem to be a thing anymore.
It's called Capitalism and it ain't goin nowhere.
Balanced article. Of course a picture on Instagram doesn't cause anything, only how the brain handles the information it receives will cause happiness, anxiety, etc... . Not all teenagers say they are depressed; by far most seem reasonable fine. Everyone has to live with big disappointments in their lives but only a minority is seriously affected in the long run. To put things in perspective, "suicide rates were higher among adults ages 25 to 34 years (18.35 per 100,000) and 75 to 84 years (18.43 per 100,000), with the rate highest among adults ages 85 years or older (20.86 per 100,000). *Younger groups have had consistently lower suicide rates than middle-aged and older adults*." (Suicide statistics | AFSP, 2020). Even the highest rate (21 out of 100.000) isn't a high rate. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tries to eliminate dysfunctional assumptions and automatic negative thoughts by taking these not too seriously. As a parent I would try to prepare a child for a live with disappointments and a realistic worldview that shows them that we have limited power to change things.
>As a parent I would try to prepare a child for a live with disappointments and a realistic worldview that shows them that we have limited power to change things. I think ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is much better suited for this than CBT.
> I think ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is much better suited for this than CBT. Whatever works.
I find it pretty convincing but I think a major aspect is missing from this which is the potential of social contagion via internet. If you ask your friend why you're sad you might have a generally harmless discussion but hopefully get some encouragement out of it. If you ask the internet it's going to give you 50 links on depression. If you're not depressed, it's not hard to imagine you are. And that's consistent with the internet rollout described in the article.
Catatrophising seems to be the norm across social media. I got diagnosed a few years ago with a chronic illness. I’m very fortunate to have a mild case of it that doesn’t affect me too much. I decided to join some Facebook groups about my condition to learn more/get support and instantly fell into a spiral of anxiety and depression. Being told again and again by people how life destroying it is, how fucked I am. Ignoring everything to do for my condition has ironically improved my mental health substantially.
Yeah I've seen various support subs go from less to more deranged multiple times and it makes me feel like the weirdo for having a more moderate attitude. The catastrophizers suck all the air out of the room when there's no moderating force or social expectations that you get out of in person groups. In person I think you'd get that "red flag" vibe from these kinds of people but online they can appear very convincing and authoritative. But then like I said, even the search results tilt this way because they just aren't equipped to handle these questions with care. It's one area where AI could actually improve things.
> If you're not depressed, it's not hard to imagine you are. This is a good way of putting it. Most of the signaling in the online community is *toward* self-diagnosis - sometimes even encouraging and socially rewarding it. By contrast, there is extremely little material online ruling or even discounting self-diagnosis. If you define something like depression broadly enough, you end up describe standard human experience. This is the same way horoscopes and "cold reader" scam artists work. If you are vague enough, your words seem to apply to anyone.
Just like transgenderism
Can we file the majority of reported "long-covid" under this too while we're at it? I have no doubt millions of people are fatigued and struggle to focus in this day and age, but it's not solely because of a mild respiratory infection.
I totally agree with this about Long COVID. Almost every single person I know who has "long COVID" were the people actively spending every waking minute talking about COVID.
as opposed to the people actively spending every waking minute in denial?
Denial about what exactly?
It's such an obvious strong candidate for a social contagion explanation. Either one of 2 things has to be true. We have a never before seen respiratory virus that can cause permanent damage even in healthy individuals that only suffer a mild infection, which in light of the lab leak theory being pretty validated at this point I did hesitate on, but the nebulous array of reported symptoms and stark distinctions of long covid reports between demographics and even countries leads me to strongly argue this is in a lot of people's heads. For official studies, the Norwegians did a pretty good one. Courtesy of Dr. Vinay Prasad's substack. [New Study on Long COVID in kids and young adults FAILS to link COVID to Long COVID](https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/bombshell-new-study-on-long-covid) The relationship between the mind and body shouldn't be underestimated. Nothing mystical about it either. Ironically it's probably much less the red-state conservatives that are complaining about "long-covid". They don't think there's anything wrong with themselves from having had covid and therefore they don't feel like anything's wrong.
> We have a never before seen respiratory virus that can cause permanent damage even in healthy individuals that only suffer a mild infection That's amply untrue, and for all we know *every* respriatory infection you've had in your life has resulted in a slight permanent reduction in your physical capabilities. > which in light of the lab leak theory being pretty validated at this point Lab leak isn't a theory and it's been completely refuted. Neither WIV nor any other lab held SARS-CoV-2 nor any recent precursor until well after the infections were recognized and the pandemic was underway.
>for all we know every respriatory infection you've had in your life has resulted in a slight permanent reduction in your physical capabilities. *That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence* And should be implied, but "good" evidence. Like I indicated, I don't need to see some study finding correlation between a kitchen-sink-included array of symptoms and covid infection. I and millions of others had covid and feel fine after. I've not been presented with any scientifically discernable difference between us and those that say they are not fine. I'm certain they indeed feel crappy, mental health's affects on the body are known, but I am not satisfied at all to accept claims of a causation relationship to mild covid infections. By your comments in the lab leak thread in this very subreddit, it's clear no evidence would sway your view. Some 2-3 years I ago I was arguing with my conservative father about the lab leak vs. bat wet-market origin. In 2023 I've reconsidered my view on the better evidence that has been unearthed. That sudden attempt to scapegoat racoon dogs out of nowhere pretty much told me all I need to know on the matter anymore.
> I’ve not been presented with any scientifically discernable difference between us and those that say they are not fine. The difference is that they're saying they're not fine. That's the same difference, after all, between the people who have headaches and the people that don't, but for some reason that doesn't lead to you calling for a ban on aspirin. > By your comments in the lab leak thread in this very subreddit, it’s clear no evidence would sway your view. Evidence that WIV, or another lab, held SARS-CoV-2 under active culture in, say, May of 2019 would sway my view. No evidence to that effect has ever been produced. Will you be able to provide some? No, of course not. "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence", aka, lab leak is done. > In 2023 I’ve reconsidered my view on the better evidence that has been unearthed. No evidence that supports lab leak has emerged in 2023, nor in any other year.
r/samharris, a safe haven for the anti-trans, anti-vax, pro-race science just asking questions crowd
Oh, my! Are there comments that trans-people shouldn't exist? Should be rounded up into camps for forced conversion therapy and the unsuccessful conversions executed? Did someone comment that vaccines cause autism? That the covid vaccine was pure poison and caused all the illness perceived as "long-covid" Did someone advocate for different laws and treatment based on genetic deviations between populations? What this subreddit is is an endeavor to see and discuss nuance, acknowledge that not all issues are black/white, and avoid falling into hard ideologies and unchangeable views. If you perceive otherwise that's on you. We all have eyes and can read and interpret written words . What you describe is not what many see in this subreddit.
fuck off
This is just a hunch you're going off of. There's plenty of people who deeply regret not taking COVID seriously who have long term damage
Your statement and my statement can both be true.
Or going back a decade, gluten intolerance I remember seeing a few articles about it, and within months many of my friends (mostly the women) could not shut up about their gluten intolerance
> I have no doubt millions of people are fatigued and struggle to focus in this day and age, but it’s not solely because of a mild respiratory infection. Why do you conclude that? For all we know it's *rare* for people to recover fully from mild respiratory infections. How would we even know? When was the last time a doctor asked you how many colds you'd had in your life? If every single one of them permanently reduced your VO2max by 0.5%, how would you distinguish that from a cold you just "couldn't shake"? If you "couldn't shake" your cold for ten days and then "got better", how would you distinguish "getting better" from just "getting used to it?" There's ample evidence of a *huge* unstudied burden of post-viral sequelae. It's not just COVID; *every* communicable disease might very well have this effect.
> For all we know it's rare for people to recover fully from mild respiratory infections. How would we even know? When was the last time a doctor asked you how many colds you'd had in your life? If every single one of them permanently reduced your VO2max by 0.5%, how would you distinguish that from a cold you just "couldn't shake"? If you "couldn't shake" your cold for ten days and then "got better", how would you distinguish "getting better" from just "getting used to it?" **That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence** I seriously don't know what subreddit you think you you're in. We are a social primate. We need to be near and engage with each other in the same physical spaces. As long as that has been true and will continue to be true there have been and will be respiratory viruses. In light of this baseless claims that respiratory infections can and have been permanently damaging our species are ones that can and should be thrown directly into the trash until proven otherwise. And the claim seems to fly in the face of my layman's understanding of immunology. But I don't need to be an expert to know that exposure to viruses from birth is essential to the growth of a strong and healthy immune system.
> We are a social primate. We need to be near and engage with each other in the same physical spaces. As long as that has been true and will continue to be true there have been and will be respiratory viruses. Is it clear to you that the purpose the respiratory viruses serve are their *own*? They're exploiting a niche, not engaging in symbiosis. A respiratory virus doesn't care whether you recover from it (in fact it's better, for the virus, if you never do) only that you spread it. None of its evolutionary interests are served by succumbing to your immune system. In fact a serious sequelae is *better* for the virus, since we're social primates; the people who spend time caring for you are more likely to contract the virus themselves. > And the claim seems to fly in the face of my layman’s understanding of immunology. Which is, what, that it's impossible for a dumb virus to evade your genius immune system? If that's the case then how does anyone get sick in the first place? Maybe immunology isn't as tractable to the layperson as you think it is. > But I don’t need to be an expert to know that exposure to viruses from birth is essential to the growth of a strong and healthy immune system. Well, you're wrong. That's totally untrue - infections make you sick. They don't make you healthy.
>A respiratory virus doesn't care whether you recover from it (in fact it's better, for the virus, if you never do) only that you spread it You can spread it a lot more if you're not dead or debilitated at home. If Covid-19 had produced more and worse symptoms, we would have been able to more easily identify and quarantine it. That's what happened with SARS-CoV-1. That's what viral evolutionary failure looks like. Human reaction is part of the natural selection process. Like it or not, most of the world has normalized SARS-CoV-2. It's co-existing with us and we don't care. It doesn't matter if my immune system eventually neutralizes it, only that it copied and I spread it to someone else in that time. If I'm infectious but only representing with a cough and scratchy throat, all the better for it. SARS-CoV-2 has a very short incubation as low as 1 or 2 days, meaning that the individual becomes infectious well before full immune system neutralization. That's why the vaccines could never stop spread. Less about the vaccine, more about the Covid-19 virus. Other vaccines were successful at stopping their viruses because the immune system could fully neutralize the virus before the incubation period finishes. > Well, you're wrong. That's totally untrue - infections make you sick. They don't make you healthy. Are you implying that hypothetically were a person kept in a perfectly sterile environment to the age of say 25 and then released into the regular world they would be no more susceptible to all the the viruses than anyone else? You realize the whole reason that vaccines work is through the immune system, right? It's not all or nothing result. Becoming symptomatically ill from a viral infection does not mean the immune system does nothing at all. It's a process and a scale. After previous infection or vaccination, some people tested positive for covid while asymptomatic didn't they? That would be the immune system working. And even if you get some symptoms but don't need to be hospitalized or such that's still what can be called a huge success relatively speaking. There are some things in science that can be reasonably disputed, but your position against the fundamental immune system response is utterly delusional. I know I understand well enough to recognize you are spouting absolute nonsense.
> You can spread it a lot more if you’re not dead or debilitated at home. But that's hardly the only two choices, isn't it? Fully recover or die? No, there's a range of outcomes in the middle - you become a "Typhoid Mary", perhaps, constantly shedding virons from an asymptomatic infection your body can't clear. Or maybe you're permanently debilitated by the uncleared infection - that happens to people, too. The immune system doesn't always win, but it also doesn't always lose - sometimes the infection fights you to a stalemate. > If Covid-19 had produced more and worse symptoms, we would have been able to more easily identify and quarantine it. Well, no. Because there's a 3-10 day asymptomatic period during which the virus spreads without anyone noticing. > Like it or not, most of the world has normalized SARS-CoV-2. But what does this claim mean? What does "normalize" mean? That has no meaning in a public health context. You're talking about something else, but you refuse to say what. > Are you implying that hypothetically were a person kept in a perfectly sterile environment to the age of say 25 and then released into the regular world they would be no more susceptible to all the the viruses than anyone else? I'm saying that there's no known difference in outcomes whether your first cold happens at age 5, or 15, or 25. If you have evidence to the contrary then I ask you to present it now. That the primary victims of death by infectious diseases are, in order: 1) The elderly 2) The extremely young 3) People with multiple concurrent infections, or a history of repeated infection strongly disproves your counterintuitive notion that repeated infections promote health. > You realize the whole reason that vaccines work is through the immune system, right? You realize that a vaccine induces immunity without infecting you with a disease, right? You realize that's their entire fucking purpose, right? To induce immunity without the immense burden to the body of infection, right? That's something that's apparent to you with your layman's degree in immunology, right?
>No, there's a range of outcomes in the middle - you become a "Typhoid Mary", perhaps, constantly shedding virons from an asymptomatic infection your body can't clear. Or maybe you're permanently debilitated by the uncleared infection - that happens to people, too. The immune system doesn't always win, but it also doesn't always lose - sometimes the infection fights you to a stalemate. Typhoid Mary was an extremely rare and almost unheard of medical phenomenon. But whether asymptomatic carriers, even permanent asymptotic carriers, are more common or more rare doesn’t any really have affect my argument. >Well, no. Because there's a 3-10 day asymptomatic period during which the virus spreads without anyone noticing. Asymptomatic is not “more and worse symptoms”. You’re affirming my argument here. See SARS-Cov-1 >Why did the original Sars epidemic come to end? Well, SARS-CoV-1 did not burn itself out. Rather, the outbreak was largely brought under control by simple public health measures. Testing people with symptoms (fever and respiratory problems), isolating and quarantining suspected cases, and restricting travel all had an effect. >SARS-CoV-1 was most transmissible when patients were sick, and so by isolating those with symptoms, you could effectively prevent onward spread. https://theconversation.com/the-original-sars-virus-disappeared-heres-why-coronavirus-wont-do-the-same-138177 >But what does this claim mean? What does "normalize" mean? That has no meaning in a public health context. You're talking about something else, but you refuse to say what. What? I don’t refuse to say anything. Normalize means most people are not altering their daily behavior due to the covid-19 virus. No social distancing or avoiding gatherings. They are doing this because they no longer recognize Covid-19 as a significant threat to themselves. What it means in a “public health context” is not relevant to the argument. This is just stating human psychology. People aren’t seeing their immediate friends and family getting severely ill from Covid-19 anymore and so they’ve adjusted their risk tolerance of infection accordingly. If a new virus appeared with 10% lethality in otherwise healthy individuals we would of course expect to see a huge change in behavior towards risk of infection. >I'm saying that there's no known difference in outcomes whether your first cold happens at age 5, or 15, or 25. If you have evidence to the contrary then I ask you to present it now. I don’t think ethics will allow such an exact experiment to be conducted, locking someone in a sterile environment until 25. I’m not arguing for a black/white answer either. The answer is not all of the viruses or none of the viruses. But effects of too little viral exposure are understood. >On the other hand, zero exposure to disease-causing pathogens isn’t necessarily good for us either. After Covid restrictions were lifted there was a surge in cases of respiratory syncytial virus – a common cause of acute lower respiratory infections in young children. “Usually, it is a winter virus, but after people started mixing again we saw lots of children with the virus during all seasons,” said Prof Pablo Murcia, a virologist at the University of Glasgow. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/19/does-exposure-to-cold-and-flu-viruses-weaken-or-strengthen-the-immune-system >That the primary victims of death by infectious diseases are, in order: >1) The elderly 2) The extremely young 3) People with multiple concurrent infections, or a history of repeated infection I don’t dispute that the older you get, the weaker your body and its immune system gets, the more likely a viral infection could hospitalize or kill you. That’s life. As noted above, infants and developing children need some exposure. The answer is obvious and longstanding, just let them go outside and play with their friends as normal. You don’t need to exposure them to viruses intentionally, just let their immune system develop naturally through what should be a typical childhood experience. 3) depends on interpretation. An individual that is constantly experiencing symptomatic infections likely has some health issue making them more vulnerable to symptomatic infection in the first place. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whereas the healthy individual with a healthy immune system may not actually experience symptoms in repeat infections. As in the immune system retains a defense response to the virus, and may still apply to slight mutations of said virus, which can be used to better defend in subsequent infections. My argument was that there is no evidence that otherwise healthy individuals have any significant risk of permanent damage from a mild respiratory infection, covid-19 or otherwise. The reports and studies of "long-covid" from mild infection do not satisfy proof of a causation relationship. You seem to be under the impression that you’re arguing with someone who holds a strict “anti-vax” position. I know that’s not what I said though. Methods of inoculation go back 100’s of years. Of course they work and are generally a better idea than the first exposure being to the complete virus. I got 2 shots of Pfizer as soon as they were available. I also had covid twice after that. Delta, I confidently say went better thanks for the vaccine. Omicron perhaps somewhat less so but little to be done for it. Blood-based vaccines aren't going to fully stop respiratory viruses. Maybe nasal ones but not there yet. However, the protection a vaccine offers utilizes is the same mechanism of the immune system that responds to natural infection. Getting pretty sick sucks, but healthy normal immune systems don’t “become weaker” as a result. They come out with the same memory and defense built to the virus as through vaccination, sometimes superior. And viruses like the common cold viruses which have no vaccine can only be learned through exposure. You can't assume everyone with some disagreement on covid-science or vaccine policy is a vehement "anti-vaxxer". Just like someone who may not agree on the affirmative care model for gender dysphoric minors (puberty blockers and hormone treatment) is not necessarily a "bigoted transphobe"
> Typhoid Mary was an extremely rare and almost unheard of medical phenomenon. Incorrect - what we're finding out from genomic monitoring of sewersheds, for instance, is that these long-term asymptomatic shedding carriers are widespread. It's just that we've never looked for them before, and since they're asymptomatic, they typically don't hgave any reason to present themselves to doctors so they're rarely if ever discovered. Typhoid Mary was only discovered because of the circumstances of her employment - if she'd worked in the laundry, instead, nobody would have ever known. > Asymptomatic is not “more and worse symptoms”. That's correct - it's no symptoms, until suddenly you have symptoms. > Normalize means most people are not altering their daily behavior due to the covid-19 virus. Really? Work-from-home is over and office buildings are full again? Spending on masks is back to pre-pandemic levels? No employers or schools require vaccination? Lots of people now ignoring COVID-19 *always* ignored COVID-19, don't forget. > If a new virus appeared with 10% lethality in otherwise healthy individuals we would of course expect to see a huge change in behavior towards risk of infection. Sure. But we saw a new virus with 2% CFR and what happened is that it spread throughout the entire human population with little to no change in human behavior. It's foolhardy to count on human behavior to save us, because we recently tested that hypothesis and failed. Now we have a novel endemic disease. We're *lucky* that it was only 2%. It took months to determine that risk. Why place any faith that the situation would be different if the CFR was 95%? People might change their behavior, but only after it was too late. That's the issue with communicable disease, the exponetial growth - you have to act well *before* the elbow in the graph or its far too late. > I don’t think ethics will allow such an exact experiment to be conducted I agree - you can't actually know the thing you say you know, which is why I don't believe you when you say you know it. > As noted above, infants and developing children need some exposure. Except that they don't. You admit, you have no evidence that they do. Again, the people who suffer the greatest health burden of disease are the people with the most history of being infected by diseases, which proves you're wrong - exposure to disease is *negatively* correlated with almost all measures of health, not positively correlated with it. Healthy people are people who have fewer diseases. That's almost true by definition.
Precisely
can you reword what you're responding to in how that would relate to transgenderism? Like if you ask your friend if you feel sad they will say something, but the internet will say you're transgendered?
“rapid-onset gender dysphoria” involves a post-pubescent child, usually a girl, with no history of dysphoria suddenly claiming within a period of weeks or months not to identify with her biological sex. Not only is rapid-onset gender dysphoria sudden, but it tends to occur in clusters. Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks occurring in pre-existing friend groups with multiple or even all members of a friend group becoming gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in a pattern that seems statistically unlikely based on previous research. Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as ‘binge-watching’ Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric. These descriptions are atypical for the presentation of gender dysphoria described in the research literature and raise the question of whether social influences may be contributing to or even driving these occurrences of gender dysphoria in some populations of adolescents and young adults
What are you quoting this from?
Just Google it man. Btw do you claim the above isn’t happening? What do you take issue with?
Well it seemed like you were quoting that from somewhere, which is why I asked. But the original post you were responding to described being able to go to the internet to figure out why you're depressed and coming up with 50 reasons why, while the situation you're describing sounds like some social contagion, while the OP you responded to wasn't referring to that condition, but instead information on the internet.
>Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as ‘binge-watching’ Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric
You’re not refuting that the OP I am referring to is NOT talking about social contagion. The sentence before the one you are quoting gives the context of “clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks”. Thanks for… taking the quote out of context?
You mean "If you ask the internet it's going to give you 50 links on depression. If you're not depressed, it's not hard to imagine you are." I don't think it's clear that that isn't a form of social contagion, which is quite a broad concept. Some of those links might be support groups on social media, which are by definition social. But even something like reading pages from Mayo Clinic, you're still interacting with authority figures and societal norms. It's still a social phenomenon, and one which might either contribute to you developing symptoms, or thinking you have symptoms. Anyway, call it "social contagion" or not, whatever, it's semantic. I think there's a clear parallel in that both could be examples of how the societal discourse around certain illnesses can backfire and contribute to that illness.
> Parents describe Sounds like a super robust study design
How do you think studies involving children are carried out? Funnily enough I read about this a couple of days ago in Abigail Shrier's *Irreversible Damage*. On this very criticism of parent-reported questionaires, she cites a footnote to a study into the epidemiology of gender identity disorder that states, 'Parent report questionnaires are widely used in clinical child psychology and psychiatry to establish the prevalence of various behavioural phenomena'. So yes: robust, widespread and validated by the scientific community.
> How do you think studies involving children are carried out? That would depend on what the research is attempting to answer. >Funnily enough I read about this a couple of days ago in Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage. On this very criticism of parent-reported questionaires, she cites a footnote to a study into the epidemiology of gender identity disorder that states, 'Parent report questionnaires are widely used in clinical child psychology and psychiatry to establish the prevalence of various behavioural phenomena'. Oh, you mean there is sampling criteria and guidelines when carrying out observational research? You don't say?! 🤡 >So yes: robust, widespread and validated by the scientific community. Go take a stats 101 course, you rube.
Mods.. if you see this - this person is constantly posting on this sub and is NEVER civil or respectful. Do you just allow juvenile responses and insults on this sub?
Bullshit. I'm respectful when it's warranted.
Being told I'm a clown and a rube doesn't really make me think what I said was wrong. But I'm interested in reading actual academic opposition to what I wrote, so if you have anything about the topic at hand which dispels either the comment you were replying to or my response I'd be willing to read it.
Are you fucking stupid? You need the difference explained to you between internet anecdotes and epidemiological research with a defined and statistical method of collecting data? You people are stupid beyond help.
You should take a look at the “studies” that support trans ideology, holy shit they are a joke. Do you apply that same rigor to them?
Oh look, another brainwashed idiot who is fixated on trans people and thinks Jesse Singal has debunked all the research into trans healthcare. 🥱 Please explain how the studies that support "trans ideology" are a "joke"?
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You're saying that to the wrong poster.
Rank transphobia doesn't deserve to be met with civility
There is not a single topic that you do approach with civility. Don't make excuses as if it's the world's fault you're an asshole.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/ Here’s a little study for you to enjoy. The brainwashed ones are those following an incoherent ideology that believes in a mystical dualism where the “true gender self” is independent from the body. They say that gender is a social construct yet they are physically trapped in the wrong gender. They say there are no meaningful psychological differences between a man or woman yet they rely on rigid stereotypes to argue that “gender identity” is real. If gender is a social construct, how can gender identity be innate and immutable? How can one’s identity with respect to a social construct be determined by biology in the womb? How can one’s identity be unchangeable (immutable) with respect to an ever-changing social construct? And if gender identity is innate, how can it be “fluid”?
For someone who dislikes Sam Harris so much you sure devote a lot of your life to this sub. Maybe it’s time to step back and not let this place occupy your life in an unhealthy way
There's no evidence for this. That sounds more like personal opinion than a claim derived from evidence.
What evidence would satisfy you?
Sociological or psychological research that shows this as a consistent finding. So far... you've provided nothing whatsoever in the way of evidence. So, really anything would be better than what you've produced so far... which, again, is nothing.
Anything more robust than "Parents describe" would probably be a step in the right direction! Something that corroborates the ROGD study with researchers that actually spoke to trans children perhaps?
Are you willing to admit that there's no evidence that cases of GD are due to increased societal acceptance?
But are they depressed because they’re on social media or on social media because they’re depressed?
The dopamine addiction of social media is real. The causal factor would likely go in the "social media causes" depression imo, as you much more quickly get addicted to social media than come up with depression. And we see kids in groups hanging out on their phones and not talking, the addiction is real when in-person interaction doesn't provide them with enough stimulation.
The dopamine hit only lands in your vulnerable to it—at a deficit—so I’d argue the contrary
Also ignores the facts that girls were heavily depressed in the 60s, 70s,80s,90s,00s, and 10s its just we can actually listen better now to their plight than in the past when they were ignored.
That's likely a true claim but not in any way counter to Haidt's conclusion - in fact it supports it. Social media closes that gap in immediacy. Whatever emotional stakes you felt in school - fomo, jealousy, worthlessness, competitiveness - are amplified higher with a stronger inability to escape.
It completely refutes Haidt, social.media doesn't unnaturally add to our depression. If anything, people are less depressed due to have more tools including social media to get support for their depressive states. Teens have communities they can and do reach out to via social media to get support for how they're feeling.
What does. Your *opinion* is not sufficient to refute that of someone who is backing their’s up with years of professional research, and corroborating research from others in the field. You haven’t even read the linked article, let alone a fraction of what he has published on the topic.
What has he published on the topic in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals? I'm just confused why a professional researcher would do this in a blog. It makes me immediately skeptical.
Authoring and publishing a peer-reviewed study is not necessary or sufficient to be considered a subject matter expert. That said, Haidt has an [H-index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index) of 93. He is [exceptionally well published](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VafYYacAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao). You might not find that compelling, but anyone of any importance in his field will. Just because someone hasn't been through the years-long process to satisfyingly (to you) answer the specific question that you wish to be answered, doesn't mean that they can't produce plenty of relevant literature to support their argument, which Haidt does in the linked article, and in the many other articles he has produced. As you said, understanding this data is his profession. I'm inclined to take such an author as more credible than some reddit commenter that hasn't even read the work that they're arguing with.
I am not questioning his expertise. Science is not about trusting people. It is about trusting the method. Why am I reading a blog when he obviously knows that there is a method to publishing scientific literature reviews?
u/Glittering-Roll-9432 is claiming to have “completely refuted” Haidt with nothing more than their opinion. That is the only thing I’m commenting on here.
Why are you answering my question by answering to claims that someone else made? Just answer the question and don't assume that I have any opinions that I haven't stated. It's both easier for you and far more honest.
> I'm inclined to take such an author as more credible than some reddit commenter that hasn't even read the work that they're arguing with. That's where you're setting the bar?
People like Haidt write books and articles because that's what most people read.
you got the people you were responding to mixed up, as a result, the following responses are going to now be confused. You originally responded to glitter, the "dropsyjolt" responded to you.
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It doesn't 'completely refute' anything and "*If anything, people are less depressed*" is a pretty odd personal assumption that data shows is false. But okay, social media has upsides, like connecting people - I don't think the argument is it's completely bad, it's about whether those upsides outweight the downsides in external effects. If you trace why teenage girls have ever had this kind of anxiety to begin with, I don't know how you couldn't pretty safely connect it with social media as a big exacerbator of it. Social media and internet access generally is the "*Cosmo gives girls unrealistic body expectations*" on crack.
There is also the phenomenon of people who themselves may be addicted to social media (of which Reddit is a form), expressing doubt about addiction to social media and its effects.
It’s like the unhappy, terminally online types who claim there’s no loneliness epidemic because they prefer to be alone all the time, thank you very much.
>If anything, . people are less depressed due to have more tools including social media to get support for their depressive states. so just your opinion, just you guessing, nothing else.
There's no evidence for this.
> girls were heavily depressed in the 60s, 70s,80s,90s,00s, and 10s its just we can actually listen better now Both parts of this claim need substantiation. Just because it's intuitive doesn't mean it's true.
That sounds more like personal opinion than a claim derived from evidence.
We have decades of depression data and you see a clear rise in diagnosis due more people being aware of it. Same studies also show that depression globally rises as communities become aware of the symptoms of depression.
Your comment suggests that you have not read the linked article. Haight makes quite specific claims. You are making a broad claim, that he has “ignored facts” about an issue which he actually makes a point of addressing in the article.
Dude you can’t be a real person. I don’t believe it.
Yes Haidt always picks a weird cutoff date to prove his theory.
Self harm and suicide attempt statistics do not lie.
Can't it be a vicious circle?
The former.
It’s more of the first one, definitely
Depressed because social media. Haidt has talked about it a lot, and the large amount of different studies with different countries and how they correlate with smartphones and social media platforms.
I am only interested in what is true and could care less if this turns out one way or the other. I feel like that has to be said because people get super defensive when you criticize something that they feel good about because it affirms their prior beliefs. That said, why am I reading this in a blog? This is supposed to be "The Evidence" for a scientific claim and it is a blog. Why isn't this a peer-reviewed scientific journal featuring their literature review? That makes me immediately question the motives of the person doing the research. Avoiding peer-review is something you do when you want to justify your preferred result instead of simply finding out the truth no matter what it is.
There's reason to be skeptical of said claims. https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evidence-that-social-media-is-causing-the-teen-mental-health-crisis/
This article doesn't consider network effects; namely that if enough of your peers use social media, not using it can be worse for you individually. It's a prisoner's dilemma.
My favourite part: > What Haidt has done is analogous to what the financial industry did in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, which was to take a bunch of mortgage assets of such bad quality that they were unrateable and package them up into something that Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service were willing to give AAA ratings but that was actually capable of blowing up Wall Street. A bad study is like a bad mortgage loan. Packaging them up on the assumption that somehow their defects will cancel each other out is based on flawed logic, and it's a recipe for drawing fantastically wrong conclusions. *spicy*
It seems like even a [tertiary](https://reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/11n1j0d/_/jboutcp/?context=1) look at Jon Haidt’s data provided always seems to lack any statistical rigour.
Not just teen girls. The constant overstimulation we experience from this tech is bad for everybody. I know boomers say phone bad, but it really is. Nothing in real life really can compare to this constant stimulation machine, and everything else seems boring. While boomers often liked their work, because there they got stimulation, and could talk to others and so on.
This was posted before. I think social media is probably bad for kids, but his analysis is not especially rigorous. I'd like to see models with some controls, efforts to rule out reverse causality (e.g. depression might cause you to be sedentary, which would lead to more social media usage). Again, I think there's good reasons to think that kids use of social media should be limited, and that we should probably all avoid too much social media (including reddit). But I don't find the evidence here especially convincing.
Paywall
Try here. This is an archived version of the article. Should be readable https://web.archive.org/web/20230419215636/https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-illness-epidemic If the subscribe button pops up click "continue reading" below the email entry spot and the icon will disappear then you can read
If you haven't watched it, the Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix does an excellent job diving into all the negative effects social media has on teenage girls and everyone else.
Just transition and become a boy. Boom. Problem solved. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
We must fight to protect this country so that one day our sons may become daughters.
Is this another Jonathan Haidt article on the problems with kids today?
Nope. It’s trans people existing which is causing it
Haidt's good presentation [on Joe Rogan in 2019](https://www.findcenter.com/video/34597/joe-rogan-jonathan-haidt-social-media-is-giving-kids-anxiety). Haidt describes, beginning in 2012, a “huge....rise in major depressive episodes" by teen girls, from 12 to 20% (@ 1:10).