Depression and Suicidality Surge Among Teenage Girls and This Correlates With Smartphone Usage.
Internet Addict Taylor Lorenz Says It's Just "This Late-Stage Capitalist Hellscape" That's to Blame, Not My Precious TikTok!

Evidence is mounting that people, and young girls in particular, experience very negative psychological outcomes when they use social media.

I would say "too much social media," but I think any amount of social media is too much social media for kids.

Supposedly one in three girls have "seriously considered" suicide, up 60% from ten years ago, and three in five teenaged girls say they have been or are so depressed multiple weeks in a row that they suspend normal daily activities.

Mollie Hemingway talks about that here on a Fox show, stating that parents need to love their children enough to keep them off of social media.

John Sexton wrote a couple of weeks ago that cognitive psychologist Jonathan Haidt noticed that this sudden rise in psychological problems among young people just happened to coincide with the mass adoption of the smartphone.

Nearly all researchers now agree that there are correlations between (crude measures of) time spent using social media and (crude self report measures of) mental health problems, but there is heated disagreement about the size and significance of these effects. Some researchers believe the correlations are in the ballpark of r = .04, and are of no practical significance; others find that the correlations are between r = .10 and r = .20, which is the size of many other public health threats.

...

The authors find curvilinear effects in which one or two hours a day is associated with better outcomes than is zero usage, yet after that, outcomes become worse. The lowest "goldilocks point" and sharpest drop is for "using smartphones," which is the category likely to include most social media use.

It is due to claims like these that the Surgeon General general has warned that parents must not let children use social media until they're older.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned that children join social media too early and believe they should only be allowed to access the platforms once they're between 16 and 18.

Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter currently allow users to join as long as they are at least 13 years old.

Murthy believes this can cause adolescents to have a "distorted' sense of self during their crucial developmental years.

"I, personally, based on the data I've seen, believe that 13 is too early," Murthy said on CNN. "It's a time where it's really important for us to be thoughtful about what's going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children."

Murthy says parents should do their best to keep their children off these platforms until they reach their mid- to late teenage years.

Murthy suggested that teenagers on social media will become "hypersensitive" to criticism as adults.

Really? You don't say? I haven't seen any evidence of that!

Most of us probably all use the internet too much, and most of us are aware we use it too much, and most of us probably think about reducing our internet usage from time to time.

Personally, I'm looking into blocking out my time during the day and limiting my consumption of YouTube videos to when I'm exercising. If should have to pay for my indulgence, or something.

Hardcore addicts will never admit they're addicted, though. If you suggest there's a problem with using so much of their drug of choice, they will begin screaming and cursing and making up reasons why they have to use the drug.

And if you bring up negative consequences of the drug, they'll claim those aren't due to the drug, but due to something else entirely.

Taylor Lorenz is obviously an internet addict. Her sickly, sallow complexion is enough to tell you that the only light she gets is from LEDs.

Taylor Lorenz doesn't want anyone talking about restricting kids' access to social media because she makes her money off kids' access to social media. She wants kids to be crazy and depressed and suicidal -- as long as they keep using the social-contagion app she loves so much and which is her main "beat," TikTok.

So, as John Sexton reports, of course Taylor Lorenz had to defend the Social Contagion Madhouse TikTok, and say that girls aren't depressed and suicidal because of her drug of choice, Internet Addiction, but just because of all this Late Stage Capitalism Hellscape we're experiencing.

I'll refer you to Sexton's link for more, like the objection, "When in human history has it been better to be a teenaged girl?" In other words, this "late stage capitalist hellscape" is delivering medicine and riches to current year girls that have never been seen in all of history.

So that's why they're depressed? From having it too good?

That's absurd, of course. If "capitalism" is to blame here, it's comparative capitalism, looking at what other people have and feeling envious, and that is especially possible in current year because of... social media, with influencers fast-talking their way on board a private plane for five minutes just to take a selfie and then to later lie and claim they'd chartered it.

One guy points out that Taylor Lorenz, who is most definitely not a teenager and is approaching 50, seems to be reading her insecurities into teenaged girls.

She claims that teenaged girls aren't depressed due to gossip and bullying and comparing -- things all made easier and ubiquitous by the cell phone -- but due to hair pulling about global warming and having... "0 job security"?

Teenage girls are worried they might get laid off from Cinnabons, huh?

Joel Wertheimer @Wertwhile

People confuse their own outlook for objective reality way too much. Say what you want but "zero job security"?

Taylor Lorenz is obviously speaking on behalf of 15 year old girls -- by offering up her perspective as a neurotic near-50-year-old spinster.

People argue with her, rebutting her stupid, self-interested, self-justifying claims one by one, Taylor insists that her Boyfriend, TikTok, isn't responsible for the depression and suicidality of teenage girls.

Her status, her income, and her carefully-curated image depend on social media! Stop saying bad things about her Boyfriend!

Sexton links a couple of creepy TikTok videos by Taylor Lorenz, in which this middle-aged woman clearly presents herself as a near-teenager. I won't link them -- go to the end of this article to see them, and decide if you want to click on a TikTok link -- but Sexton's description is accurate:

Finally, Lorenz' exact age remains a mystery but she's probably about 40 years old [or older-- ace] and yet she really makes an effort to portray herself as if she's about 21, which is deeply weird. It's not just these tweets. She has a whole persona online in which she is clearly trying to be a 20-something.

She's mentally ill and one of those new breed of mentally ill people who are proud of their mental illness and want to recruit -- groom -- children into their mental illness.

She is a truly rancid person.

posted by Ace at 04:28 PM

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