Mental Health And Social Media: Is There Really A Link?

When Mark Zuckerberg was testifying recently in front of a US Senate Hearing on the media, he was asked if he thought the media was a factor in children's mental health, he responded that the science doesn't support such. Click on the link below for support of his statement:

Just Because You Don't Like Zuckerberg Doesn't Mean He's Wrong

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THEN, there is this:

Reducing social media use significantly improves body image in teens, young adults

Media and mental health

Mounting research documents the harmful effects of social media use on mental health, including body image and development of eating disorders

Pros & cons: impacts of social media on mental health

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Social Media, Conspiracy Theories, And Quackery

"Tesla Biohealing, which has no connection to the car company, is part of a growth industry marketing unproven cures and treatments to conspiracy theorists and others who have grown distrustful of science and medicine. Experts who study such claims say they’re on the increase, thanks to the internet, social media and skepticism about traditional health care.

"'There have always been hucksters selling medical cures, but I do feel like it’s accelerating,' said Timothy Caulfield, a health policy and law professor at the University of Alberta who studies medical ethics and fraud. 'There are some forces driving that: obviously the internet and social media, and distrust of traditional medicine, traditional science. Conspiracy theories are creating and feeding this distrust.'

"Blending the high-tech jargon of Western science with the spiritual terminology of traditional and Eastern medicine, these modern salesmen claim their treatments can reverse aging, restore mental acuity or fight COVID-19 better than a vaccine. They promise better health, but what they’re really selling is the idea of insider information, the promise of a secret known only to the wealthy and the powerful.

"So-called medbeds are one of the flashiest, most expensive, and least credible. 'Medbeds are coming,' exclaims a woman in one TikTok video. Similar videos have been seen millions of times on the platform.

"According to believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, medbeds were developed by the military (in some versions, using alien technology) and are already in use by the world’s richest and most powerful families. Many accounts claim former President Donald Trump, if he wins another term in the White House, will unveil the devices and make them free for all Americans."

Click on the link below for more:

Miracle cures: Online conspiracy theories are creating a new age of unproven medical treatments

Children Today Have Different Issues Than Most Of Us Did

"Today, we take a look at the trials and tribulations facing the youth today as men and boys are being surpassed academically by women and girls, and girls are suffering disproportionately under the weight of the toxic forces of social media."

Click on the link below for a podcast exploring the new reality for today's youth:

The Kids Are Not Alright (Boys, Girls, Culture, And Social Media)

Social Media And The Profit Motive

"From national security threats to a business sustained by turning our attention into a commodity to profit from, Chuck Todd delves into how big tech has disrupted our democracy."

There's an eery similarity between the beginning of cigarette advertising in the media in the 1950s and the present disinformation allowed on social media. Click on the link below for the 1/1/2023 episode of "Meet The Press" with Chuck Todd:

Anger generates clicks; clicks generate profit

An Evidence-Based Look At Fake News

"Does fake news spread better than true news? Do bots spread fake news? What can we do against fake news? Does social media increase political polarization? Is it true that we all live in political echo chambers? In this video, we look at what scientific studies have found and what we can learn from that."

Click on the link below for the scientific details "Without The Gobbledygook:"

Fake News, Echo Chambers & Polarization: How Bad Is Social Media?

Media Bias In Favor Of Liberals?

There is much heat and not enough light on the subject of media bias. From my perspective, which is that the truth has a liberal bias, the conservatives are projecting and deceiving the public. Click on the links below for the truth on the subject:

Social media: Is it really biased against US Republicans?

Why the right-wing has a massive advantage on Facebook

The Myth Of Anti-Conservative Bias

The History Of US Oligarchy

 "Thom Hartmann, progressive radio host joins David to discuss his new book 'The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class.' Get the book: https://amzn.to/3pNdyzK"

An oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. Click on the link below for a 17-minute video history lesson of a major societal problem that we are dealing with today in spades.

How Did America Become an Oligarchy?

Also: don't overlook social media within this topic (link), and how the Republicans need bigots to hold power (link).

It's Not Just Facebook

"It occurred to me recently that the problem with Facebook’s omnipotent algorithm is very similar to a problem we see with scientific publishing. In scientific publishing, we also have a widely used technique for filtering information that is causing trouble. In this case, we filter which publications or authors we judge as promising.

"For this filtering, it has become common to look at the number of citations that a paper receives. And this does cause problems, because the number of citations may be entirely disconnected from the real-world impact of a research direction. The only thing the number of citations really demonstrates is popularity. Citations are a measure that’s as disconnected from scientific relevance as the number of likes is from the truth value of an article on Facebook.
"Of course, the two situations are different in some ways. For example on social media, there is little tradition of quoting sources. This has the effect that a lot of outlets copy news from each other and that it is extra hard to check the accuracy of a statement. Another difference is that social media has a much faster turnover-rate than scientific publications. This means on social media people don’t have a lot of time to think before they pass on information. But in both cases, we have a problem caused by the near-monopoly of a single algorithm."

The trouble with Facebook and what it has in common with scientific publishing

Another Example Of How The Brain Can Fool Us

"For 99 percent of hominid history, social communication consisted of face-to-face interactions with someone you’ve hunted and foraged with most of your life. But then the recognition and familiarity components got pried apart by modern technology. By “modern technology,” I mean a newfangled invention that came along a few millennia ago—you could communicate with someone by putting scratches of ink on a piece of paper, and then sending that paper a great distance where they’d decode it. Wait, you know someone by their microexpressions, their pheromones, their totality—not by implicitly assessing word frequency in their letter or the scrawl of their signature. This was a first technological blow to the usual primate sense of familiarity. And the challenges have accelerated exponentially from there."

A long article, but very interesting if you are into brain science.

To Understand Facebook, Study Capgras Syndrome