For anyone interested: watch "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix. They show stats on mental health and suicide and how they may be related to the introduction of the smartphone.
I was just curious because I keep hearing how younger people are committing suicides but nobody wants to explicitly break out the statistics.
As for the documentary, although friends have recommended I see it I am up to my neck in propaganda from every which way from news about this, a documentary about that, so-called expert said so-and-so, et cetera. Just the stupidity on HN is enough for me to call it a day sometimes. I'll sit this one out.
>Between 2009 and 2017, rates of depression among kids ages 14 to 17 increased by more than 60%, the study found. The increases were nearly as steep among those ages 12 to 13 (47%) and 18 to 21 (46%), and rates roughly doubled among those ages 20 to 21.
>Among young people, rates of suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts all increased significantly, and in some cases more than doubled, between 2008 and 2017, the study found.
>These findings were based on data collected from more than 600,000 people by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual nationwide mental-health survey conducted by a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
>What’s causing today’s young people so much anguish? “This is always a tough question to answer, as we can’t prove for sure what the causes are,” Twenge says. “But there was one change that impacted the lives of young people more than older people, and that was the growth of smartphones and digital media like social media, texting and gaming.”
Note 1: The person quoted above is one of the study authors. Note 2: The modern smartphone (iPhone 1) was first released in 2009 (edit — correction: 2007).
> >Among young people, rates of suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts all increased significantly, and in some cases more than doubled, between 2008 and 2017, the study found.
This tells me that there wasn't a significant increase in the rate of actual suicides, or they would have mentioned it.
I found it interesting because they were interviewing former managers and engineers of google, facebook, twitter etc. They were not saying "This is the cause because X and Y.". Often they were not even able to formulate the "problem" with social media. Because it is not that black and white.
Well, obviously. Part of the story is that in fact a bunch of white men in their mid-to-late-20s were directing how the lives of billions are affected, just by designing notifications and apps.
Addiction plays a big role here, and the fact, that many people in the industry never seemed to care about how addictive software can be.
