Speaking as a parent my current opinion on internet age verification laws is that after the state starts putting the Epstein class in prison en masse then maybe we can start taking anything else they say about protecting children seriously.

@mhoye To be completely honest. My take here is that creeps like Epstein have been around for 100s of years. Be it in churches or a variety of other institutions.

The mental health of young people (and beyond, to some extent, but let's stick to young people for now), by any objective standard that I am aware of, has taken an incredible plunge since the age of social media.

@mhoye (To be clear, I'm not sure age verification laws are the solution here.

I strongly suspect social media are just as bad for mental health in adults, they just take longer to really have a measurable impact there.

I don't actually know what the solution to the problem is. But I do think that it's important to acknowledge the body of evidence that social media, unlike the Epsteins of this world, poses a unique, unprecedented threat to mental health.)

@fluffykittycat @mhoye Presumably you are talking about Jonathan Haidt here? Is there any evidence here for a connection between Haidt and Epstein? I'm not aware of any.

@mhoye this is an argument that has come up but this is the most succinctly put I've seen it

@Schouten_B @mhoye https://transnews.network/p/epstein-backed-prominent-anti-trans-figures

@Schouten_B @mhoye I'm pretty sure that Epstein and his ilk pose a real threat to *my* mental health.

@mhoye Seeeriously. I consider unaccountable superrich predators who run sex & snuff trafficking rings without fear to be a far greater threat to my child than (checks) web browsing.

@Schouten_B @mhoye are there actually any studies that establish a causal relationship between internet access and worsening mental health? Afaik the direction is the opposite, mental health issues shape internet usage

@Schouten_B @mhoye could that possibly be coincidentally because at the same time the planet has been dying and all hope of economic prosperity has been MISSING for several generations ? like, i feel strongly that social media is just a scapegoat for the ruling class’s failings

@bri7 @Schouten_B @mhoye I mean, *algorithmic* "social" media is deliberately designed to be a brain worm. But instead of banning the slot machine like algorithms that are harming kids and adults alike, they're depriving kids of wholesome online communities while allowing corporate parasites to continue feasting on the adult populace.

@fluffykittycat @mhoye I see a single mention of Haidt there, which is for an event that features a whole host of prominent folks (and many scientists). It also wasn't hosted by Epstein, the invite list was mentioned in an e-mail exchange. It isn't obvious to me that this connects Haidt to Epstein in any meaningful way.

@confuseacat @mhoye Really? Any more than the Catholic church child abuse crisis. The wide-spread abuse of Canadian Indian children, i.e. countless abuses that have been happening in the open for centuries? I don't really see anything new or shocking in the Epstein case. Some powerful people, from Diddy to JFK and Chaplin, to the 'casting couch culture' in Hollywood have always abused their power to take advantage of young people.

@paranormal_distribution @mhoye Certainly correlation and causation are hard to distinguish. And doing experimental studies forcing someone into social media use is morally questionable. However some of the higher quality studies have studied the inverse, the -improvement- in mental health from social media 'detoxes'. Just a random selection:

- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35512731/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41294782/
- https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/13/12/1004
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230614220707.htm

@bri7 @mhoye I understand the sentiment, and it's difficult to separate different causes of mental health issues in our day and age. The particularly strong body of evidence in this case focuses on the -improvement- people experience in mental health, while the whole rest of our planetary shitshow stays constant, when cutting back on social media.

- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35512731/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41294782/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38481298/
- https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/13/12/1004

@bri7 @mhoye (To be clear, there are -some- studies and metaanalysis that have less clear conclusions on short term detoxes, an example here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40038410/ so definitely more research to be done. But generally early studies indicate the likelihood of significant effect)

@pmdj @bri7 @mhoye While I generally agree algorithmic filtering and recommendations make things worse, and have seen some papers that confirm that, I think the problem is larger than that.

Social media, even non algorithmic ones, give unprecedented capabilities for applying similarity bias and filtering, which has been shown to reduce diversity of thought and emotional resilience. This type of self-applied filtering is present even in social media not driven by external algorithms.

@pmdj @bri7 @mhoye Humans are just not meant to carefully curate the information they're exposed to in order to match their pre-established ideas. Of course such selection has existed to some extent in various forms through sports clubs, churches, etc. But all of those had strong regional containment which meant a certain amount of diversity of thought is statistically almost guaranteed.

The lack of geographical barriers means groups with far less thought diversity are easily formed online.

@Schouten_B @mhoye I found this meta-analysis of 60 peer-reviewed studies, and the results look pretty heterogenous. There clearly isn't a scientific consensus on this, so I don't think we know enough to legislate it. If child protection is the actual goal.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291125005212

@paranormal_distribution @mhoye Many of the studies cited here are observational, rather than experimental. I'd say the most important studies to look at when thinking about policy decisions are probably experimental. Also many of these studies don't focus on young people, and particularly not on young women where the most significant mental health decline is observed.

If you focus on those studies you get a much more homogeneous result. This meta-analysis is rather broad.

@paranormal_distribution @mhoye (And digging into some of the things in the PC1 'positive outcomes' section, aren't even describing net positive outcomes, they're really not even studies at all, an example is this one, https://www.mdpi.com/2254-9625/13/6/78 it is in itself a qualitative reading of a selection of papers.

But to be clear, even in somewhat more focused areas there -do- exist meta-analysis which give mixed results: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40038410/)