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Yes, Social Media Really Is a Cause of the Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness
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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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Even in extremely homogeneous societies, there is racism and, if there aren't other races enough, other forms of othering often around socioeconomic standing or even one's ancestors or even their ancestors' jobs (looking at you, Japan, and treatment of people who had the audacity to even live in an area with many burakumin, though this issue is getting better and there are more legal protections)
Ok but none of that is new, it is not relevant here.
Who cares if it’s new? It exists. That’s the entire point.
You've forgotten what we're talking about in the first place. To explain the rise in mental illnesses, you have to find what changed in people's environment that could affect the health situation. If nothing in the environment has changed, the expected result would be that there would be no change in the outcomes either. If the discrimination has been roughly the same for the last few decades, why would it suddenly start resulting in different rates of mental illnesses?
That’s an incredibly narrow and reductionist way of framing it that makes an absurd number of assumptions. I also haven’t forgotten anything. Just because somebody disagrees with you doesn’t mean they don’t have a grasp on the conversation
To add to my other comment, I noticed I failed to address this earlier comment of yours: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/954121/-/comment/6137667
Here you do exactly what Haidt criticises, IMO entirely correctly - focusing only and exclusively on the situation in the USA. Which absolutely looks narrow and reductonist.
What are some of those assumptions? Maybe it is reductionist, but I haven't seen you or the Nature article present a more nuanced approach (or an approach at all). And personally this isn't a topic that I find myself emotionally very invested in, and I'm far from an expert on sociology, so I really would be interested in learning about better approaches. Do your and the Nature article make fewer assumptions for your framing to work?
Haidt articulated his points and methods very clearly and you shifted away from them without any explanation, as far as I can see. This isn't just disagreement within the conversation, but a disagreement on what the discussion is supposed to be about. Only now have you actually addressed what is an essental part of Haidt's argumentation, but still very vaguely.
From another comment:
He is downplaying other social and economic factors putting incredible strain on American families in service of his explanation being the final, complete day on the matter, and his flippant remark about the Obama years is kind of ignorant.
Yes, the economy was steadily improving. But it was still terrible. Millions of people had just lost their homes, millions more lost their jobs as unemployment skyrocketed from 5% to over 10%, millions lost their life’s savings with some seeing as much as 30 or 40% of their entire nest egg wiped out in a matter of months. A few years of economic growth did not suddenly make all that go away, it just meant it was getting better. That doesn’t even begin to cover the two wars in the Middle East that were going terribly and drawing more and more concern from the American public as we sent countless young people to fight for a vague notion of democracy no one believed anymore in two counties that didn’t want us around.
Either he is being so reductionist as to be dishonest, or he is unaware of the financial and social realities of the Great Recession. Neither is a great look. His tone is also incredibly defensive and whiny.
What makes you think homogeneous societies would prevent racism? If anything it is the other way around, if there is extreme heterogeneity there is no real option to be racist.