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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   29504 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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Tiktok being banned won't solve much, there are 50 other apps ready to jump in and replace it, but maybe, just maybe someone will produce reliable research to measure the impact of these apps and finally get towards some policy proposals aimed at cutting out the most harmful elements while retaining the benefits. I can dream, right?

Jonathan Haidt is trying. But he’s getting the entire academy screaming at him for it. There’s certain forces deeply invested in ensuring teens stay addicted to their phones, and to my eyes it appears to be leftists primarily who desire to keep the status quo, who will try to argue you that it’s “alarmist” to be concerned at all about the massive societal rot and atomization occurring all around you. Phone addiction is politics addiction and a massive opportunity for political brainwashing of young impressionable kids. It’s done wonders for their movement. The moment people stop being addicted to their phones is the moment the trans movement and other adjacent movements wither and die. So it’s not just capital set against you - it’s woke capital.

You seriously think social media is making teens more liberal? That sites known for right-wing QAnon conspiracy rabbit holes are somehow increasing support for trans rights?

The media has been talking about how surprisingly conservative Gen Z is (that is, the people young enough for social media / smartphones to be a major part of their teenage years but old enough to actually be 18+ for a survey). Wikipedia references social media as an influence making them more conservative.

  • -10

Sorry but there’s no way you can convince me that Tumblr or Communist controlled TikTok are making kids more conservative. If they are more conservative (dubious) it’s due to other forces, the media can freak out that they haven’t completely turned every kid into democratic socialists all they want

Social media is a mixed bag politically but it’s hard to argue with it being a major driver of increasing social liberalism in our society. I mean it does go both ways, but trans is more spread through social media than trad- most people know how their grandparents lived(even if they really don’t) and can see the appeal of that lifestyle if they squint.

I assume there’s more than one filter bubble at play. Twenty years ago MSNBC and Fox watchers were already getting two completely different spins. Now they can be siloed even within a single website. Boomer Facebook is not Zoomer Facebook, let alone Reddit or Livejournal.

I’d say the OP is overselling it. He’s ascribing way too much coherence and agency to “their movement.” This is something that’s followed organically from unprecedented access to information.

Look at it this way. Before the spread of printing, you might never have thought about contemporary religious schisms. Before the Internet, it was possible to go your entire life without ever being asked about preferred pronouns. As we grow more connected, we are asked to take sides on any number of previously invisible issues. These crystallize along existing fault lines with convenient labels like “personal liberty” or “traditional values.” Then the usual tribalism kicks in and the facts themselves melt into the background.

You seriously think social media is making teens more liberal?

Look up Redit from 10 years ago and tell me if it got more or less liberal.

There's certainly liberal content on most (if not all) social media websites. But the impact of their algorithms is almost universally to push users in the direction of right-wing content. Reddit's algorithms are theoretically transparent (i.e. officially what is highlighted is controlled by the votes of real people but there's regular claims of fake accounts being used to mess with the vote counts), so it may be one of the ones least affected by this.

But also, the nature of social media being a customized feed for every user means that it's very difficult to judge how liberal the median (or whatever) view of a site is. From my perspective, Tumblr is very woke, but I somewhat often see discussions of the conservative views being espoused elsewhere on the site.

10-ish years ago Reddit collectively bullied Ellen Pao out of being the CEO. Today anything mildly non-progressive gets dowvoted, removed, and the user gets banned. Twitter from a decade ago was also uncomparably more friendly towards right-wing thought than it is even now, after Elon bought it.

It is also very disputable whether the algorithms move people to the right (or to the left for that matter), rather than towards an establishment-friendly worldview within one's political wing

The algorithms give you more of what you like to engage with, so perhaps either everyone likes right wing content (doubtful) or you’re wrong about what the algorithms are doing

The algorithms give you more of what you like to engage with,

Almost every platform manipulates the algorithm to steer it's users towards what the company wants, rather than what the users want organically.

Reasonable hypothesis.

It gels with my general model that scared/anxious citizens are more conformist and easier to sway by simply telling them what to be afraid of and how they can alleviate their anxiety by voting the 'right' way come election time. It failed to produce the desired outcome in 2024 but there are plenty of folks who still think we're about to collapse into a fascist dictatorship.

Phone use and anxiety and similar disorders is very strongly correlated in the research, so that's one way to 'produce' your loyal voters.

Phone use and anxiety and similar disorders is very strongly correlated in the research, so that's one way to 'produce' your loyal voters.

Is it? My understanding is that the correlations are fairly weak but that there may be methodological limitations

Yeah. I should have specified that the strong correlation is found among the young, not the older groups.

https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/chronic-smartphone-use-linked-to-teen-anxiety-depression-and-insomnia/

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/teenagers-problematic-smartphone-use-are-twice-likely-have-anxiety

Note this study where anxiety disorders among adolescents are generally decreasing over decades in the 'developing' world (smartphones less common!) and INCREASING in developed countries:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11002340/

Yes but my understanding is that adolescent mental health is only declining in anglophone countries not western countries generally

Also an interesting side note is that black teen suicide rates have for the first time outpaced white suicide rates

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