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Preying on Adolescent Girls
One of my sons was working as a youth pastor during the years before and after the introduction of the iPhone. He can tell interesting stories, as someone working on the front lines of youth culture, about how the iPhone’s introduction totally altered the group social dynamics of adolescents.
Over the next few years, as social media use began to really saturate the relationships and mind space of young people, observers began to notice some unsettling changes emerging within the adolescent community. Depression, self-hatred, and harm, along with other psychiatric pathologies, seemed to be ever more prevalent in the lives of young people.
For a while, though these pathologies correlated with the rise of social media use, people were cautious about concluding that social media itself was the actual cause of the uptick in psychiatric problems.
Now, Jonathan Haidt and his collaborators are making the case from the data that it has become painfully clear: social media is actually a major cause underlying the epidemic of mental health problems in adolescents, and this is most pronounced where adolescent females are concerned.
For at least two generations we have been conditioned not to speak of distinctions between males and females. We have been hectored and gaslighted against ever noticing that men and women are something other than interchangeable parts. We must not notice any social, emotional, or psychological differences, we are constantly warned. If we do notice them, above all things we must never openly acknowledge or comment on any differences we may have observed.
Now, at this very moment, we are under pressure to pretend that even differences between male and female biology do not exist. And to prove it, young women – especially but not exclusively – are being encouraged and enabled to quite literally carve their anatomical womanly distinctives away.
The reticence to speak openly of male/female differences, something that has been propagandized incessantly, has, in this horrible instance, contributed to adolescent girls being left unprotected and exposed. By denying obvious and easily observable characteristics of young females, we have blinded ourselves to their danger and been derelict in their time of need.
It isn’t that boys are not also negatively affected by social media use, but the data suggests a highly differentiated susceptibility. Boys, according to the data, are more resilient up to a point. Girls seem to have little resilience at all to social media exposure. Awkward, but that seems to be what the data shows.
For the safety of our daughters, we are going to have to recover the ability to speak openly and honestly about how the emotional/psychological sensibilities of girls varies from that of boys. We must openly acknowledge how those differences create elevated vulnerabilities for girls in certain contexts. Girls are on average more attuned and sensitive to social dynamics, more relational and observant in social contexts. We should stop leaving them unprotected and uncared for merely because acknowledging unique female vulnerabilities would be politically incorrect.
For Judeo-Christian believers, one would almost think that the origin story found in the Bible’s book of Genesis, had we pondered it more deeply or remembered what it said, might have provided insights into why such differences between males and females exist. It might have even pointed to the possibility of the sexes having unique and distinctive roles — different contributions to make as together they bear God’s image and exercise dominion in the world. Maybe the designer of the human race crafted men and women in ways that are suitable and unique to the purposes for which God created each respective sex. Maybe the sexes are both desperately needed in all their distinctive and separate affinities, but are not completely overlapping in orientation and sensibility. And, just maybe, that’s a very good thing.
Maybe the differences between men and women are deep and profound and *gasp* intentional. And maybe a petulant refusal to acknowledge all of this has contributed to devastating the lives of millions of young women. Maybe getting over any reticence to openly speak the truth about the differences between sexes, in our churches and schools and communities, is a helpful first step toward offering actual protection to young women at risk. And maybe silence on these differences amounts to moral cowardice.
Woke egalitarianism is harming young women because men and women are just not the same.
Social media is to emotional health as cigarettes are to physical health. Social media accounts should be made illegal for anyone under the age of 21. Write your congressman.
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I don’t get this. What is it about social media that makes teenage girls depressed? Woman love to talk. Land line telephones used to be commandeered by the females in households because they like to communicate so much with each other. If I had not heard the statistics I would have assumed that the girls who use social media sites the most would be the most mentally healthy and well adjusted. So what is it specifically that is driving these girls nuts?
Telephone calls have some inherent limitations such as not being able to be talking to multiple people at the same time. “Social media” has really widened the pipeline, so to speak, and unleashed far more of a gusher.
Again, why is that so detrimental for girls?
Because they’re far more sensitive to criticism, especially, and they also seem more likely to dish it out.
In the past, girls might have been ostracized by other girls at their school, now they can be ostracized by the whole world.
I gave this a little thought and it occurs to me that conversations over the Internet (especially with anonymous people) are far more rude than conversations between people face-to-face. Maybe that is a main factor disturbing the girls?
Social media also adds a visual component to all this. Looking at the airbrushed, filtered, and carefully edited photos or videos others share online can give people a distorted view of how perfect everybody else’s lives or looks are compared to their own.
Maybe that’s a factor, but we’ve also lived with that from magazines and television for the last 70 years.
[Edit] I socialize and interact a great deal with the Orthodox Jewish community. They generally don’t watch television (often not even owning one) and their children’s access to Internet and social media is greatly curtailed compared to the rest of society. And I’ve never ever heard of depression as being a “thing” among their teenage daughters. I’ve rarely seen one that even showed outward appearance of sadness.
And again, what’s available now is a gusher by comparison.
Also, it was more commonly known that the people photographed in magazines and television were special. Girls (and boys) may have aspired to be like the people shown, but most knew that was a dream. Social media provides the impression that everyone (especially ordinary girls just like you!) has the magazine or television look. Everyone always looks fantastic, has amazing experiences, and is surrounded by spectacular stuff. If you don’t look fantastic, have amazing experiences, and aren’t surrounded by spectacular stuff you are missing out because it is all within your reach.
And there’s something wrong with YOU if you don’t.
Reticulator to the rescue, doing the work Americans won’t do.
Hey, if I’m not an American I’m in big trouble!
Go on YouTube and look for tiktok videos. Swim in that cesspool for an hour and get back to us. You sound like you are arguing the premise, which (premise) to me is ridiculously apparent having seen what is on display. The most vapid opinions are reinforced, while common sense is shouted down. Teenagers now live with their phones next to their pillows, always connected to an uncaring but critical arena (and “children are the most cruel”), while tugged ever further away from the human connections which would reinforce the messages that their own humanity offers (conscience, self-worth, accomplishment, promise).
I’m not arguing anything. I’m asking questions about what is destroying these girls. I have no idea what goes on in teenage social media. Please fill me in.
I’ve heard of tiktok but didn’t know tiktok videos were on YouTube. I think I’ll take your word as to any redeeming social value.
Some of them get “cross-posted” and you don’t have to be “on TikTok” or download the Chinese-made app, to see them on youtube.
Well, you’re already being told, and you want more explanation. Go see for yourself.
I don’t have a free hour to spend on Tic Tock. I was hoping some of you more informed people were going to give me some details. But I suspect that you don’t know many more details than I do.
Have it your way.
More on this subject.
Early on the guy says that his assumptions were that wokeness is the cause of teen misery but that the data suggesting social media is the cause is very compelling.
But I say that the message is the media or whatever – social media is where most woke battles are fought and the wounded have nowhere to turn.