Chapters Transcript Social Media/Parenting T. Eric Spigel, MD, discusses the link between psychopathology and social networking sites. I'm gonna talk a little bit about um social networking, um social media. Um It's something that I've been interested in for a while. I've actually given a couple of grand rounds on it. So II I look into it quite a bit. Um This may be less than practical, it becomes a little bit more um uh theoretical at times. So I, I apologize for that. I do have some practical tips towards the end. But uh and I also uh have a little bit of a review of the research um mostly focusing on Instagram's effects on mental health. Don't have any conflicts to mention. This is actually uh um uh the sort of a screenshot of a previous um uh grand rounds are, are rounds that I did uh about um you know, kind of trying to be balanced. What's good about it, what's bad about it, that sort of a thing. And in the intervening years I've become um sort of this meme of old man yelling at a cloud, uh which is uh iii I found there's not a whole lot of balance to my views on social media and Children. Um It's uh that there's not a whole lot of evidence on the good side. Um And I'll uh as you know, uh there is a mental health crisis going on for Children in this country and I truly believe that, that this is one of the, the big factors. So, um the, the, you know, second decade of the, the this century was uh sh showed a very high increase in um hospital admissions for fatal self harm and suicide rates in very young populations of people. And the youngest um really showed the biggest increase. And so, um really, when you think about this, we, I think about this 2009, 2010 kind of a uh range where things start to kind of go off the rails. Um And one of the things that um we see is that um you know, everybody's got a, a smartphone now uh or a small uh a, a cell phone of some kind. So that's definitely a change that's happened. Um And then uh 2009 was the first time that uh social media was available on mobile devices. And uh this year in 2012 was when likes and retweets uh things like that a little heart, whatever uh with other people's posts like that um were first introduced. So it really hasn't been very long. First of all that, this stuff has been around about a decade. And um uh I mean, obviously this is pure correlation but I, I'm gonna make some points about that as well. It's a concerning correlation to say the least. Here's another way of looking at it rather than um hospitalizations or uh anything like that. It was just look at the loneliness. So um um school, loneliness is higher when smartphone access and internet user are high and uh psychological well being of adolescents around the world began to decline after 2012. Um After we know that's what, what was going on, there was smartphone usage slash uh social media itself. I I'd argue that smartphones is a uh a bad way to look at this sort of a thing because really um a smartphone without social media on it is uh not as concerning to me um just throwing this in here like smartphones themselves and screen time or something to think about as well, obviously, and our old thoughts about not giving screens to very young Children seem to be bearing out. Um that uh it, it appears that um we even see a higher um a SD or autism spectrum disorder diagnosis at year three, whenever longer, screen time at, at one year of age. So basically babies with smartphones. Um now this is correlation as well, so it could be that they enjoy it more. Um But it's a significant association. So um and then we had this thing happened the pandemic and everybody was on their uh computers slash tablet slash phones, all the time. Um And in, in this study, they were kind of looking at that and, um, the, the Children who had the higher levels of screen time had higher levels of mental health symptoms during the, during the pandemic. So if that was the main thing they relied on or if they used it more, um, we saw lots and lots of symptoms from that. Um, so I got into thinking about this whenever the news came out in 2021 about Frances Haugen. Um And, you know, this is a while back now, but she left Facebook and became a whistleblower about the fact that this company did research now called meta. And uh there was a lot of research they were doing about lots of things, but it was showing uh the, the sort of negative impact of Facebook and Instagram on uh girls especially. And um she felt like that that was not being talked about, it wasn't being released. And really these are um these apps are made to influence people to change behavior to um make you think certain things and do certain things and we'll get into that. But um the fact that it was having negative psychological impacts that they knew about um uh made her quit and, and tell the media. And so that that was extremely powerful for me. Um There is a documentary if you want to know more about like kind of the people who have been in the indus who know about things. Uh some somewhat like Francis Hogan. You've got um these folks in this documentary, the social dilemma where, you know, um these are all, you know, former CEO S of uh places that we can all recognize. Um Tim Kindle in the top left. Um He was a president of Pinterest. Now, you may not think Pinterest is social media but you're wrong. Um It is. Um and uh he would come home from work knowing how Pinterest manipulates people doing that at work. Like, uh and then he would come home and he would still be addicted to Pinterest and like instead of playing with his kids, he'd be doing this uh this app um is a Raskin here at the bottom, right? He was writing software, he was coding stuff to try to figure out how to stop using Reddit all the time. He's trying to break of Reddit by writing a program. Um So, you know, it's not, it doesn't take uh intense science to see the negative impacts of these. I mean, people that are, are, are pushing it. No, and they, they quit essentially because they, they don't like that what they're doing. And a lot of those folks have a lot to say which is really interesting. Um um And then, so, so all of this is, is problematic. It's causing a lot of problems. Um If you wanna be, if you wanna catastrophize. Uh and III I will here for a second. Um It's, the problem is not like the, the technology is gonna get us in this case. It's really more the technology is bringing out the worst in us in society and the worst in society is a big problem so far. Uh uh So far that you could say that it's an existential threat and I'll explain what that means. Right. So, um here's the milky way, here's our set of stars, we see when we look up and then we might look up at the stars and we might think where, where is, where is, where is, why isn't anybody else around? Where is everybody? Um That's the Fermi paradox which uh um that it talks to a, a little bit about um why aren't there like all kinds of other species on different planets interacting with us, whatever? And the thing is, is like maybe all these other species um didn't make it past something called the Great filter, but we did. So we're one of the lucky people that made it through. Uh you know, like life started and then there's lots of things that can keep it from progressing evolutionarily. Um But it does seem like there are based on the Frank Drake equation, which, you know, I'm not gonna go into the math because I can't, but basically says, yeah, there are lots of these green lines in the world uh in the universe most likely. And uh maybe our filter is actually ahead of us. And this is a thing that, that most people do worry about. Right. Like, can we get control of this, uh, sort of a thing anyway. So, what could these filters be? Well, they could be, uh, climate change. I think a lot of people think of that, um, bioterrorism type weapons, a meteor could hit earth, a nuclear war. All these things are possible. Um, but I do think that more and more people are worried about artificial intelligence, right? And the reason that people are worried about artificial intelligence is that it's extremely powerful and it is poorly understood by most of us humans. Um And I'll give you an example of, of what people worry about. So uh those of you that had Microsoft word in the nineties, remember clip and clip here is a paper clip to, to represent something that uh scientist named Nick Bostrom says about uh what if we put to work in artificial intelligence just to make um paper clips and, and the instruction that we put into the A I is just make as many paper clips as you can. Now, this makes sense if you have run a paper clip company and that, that is your goal to make a lot of paper clips, but without any parameters, the A I will do so and it may uh enslave humanity to make more p paper clips or it may start making paper clips out of things that we like, like humans and things like that. Right. So, uh, the idea is if you take it to its furthest extreme, it's, it's, you know, gonna destroy the earth, make all these paper clips. Um, and, and that's the way to think about the, um, artificial intelligence like that. It, it, it's just powerful in the direction of whatever we point it towards, but it doesn't have any kind of um limits to it in, in that way, not in, you know, h human terms. So anyway, that's a pretty wild thought experiment. But um let's say that we unleash the A is to not maximize um paper clips because that nobody's doing that, but they are um maximizing use and time and engagement. Um uh So that's what uh the algorithms uh the artificial intelligence within these things. And you'll notice I do put Google up there. Um Those of you that have a Google app on your phone, if you pull it up, it will give you a random assortment of things that the algorithm thinks you'll be interested in based on your Googling habits. And so, um it's got a lot of uh the app itself as well as the software does um in common with these other things, in any case, they're trying to maximize engagement and then change your behavior. Um And then they're gonna sell that ability to change your behavior to the highest bidder. That's what they do, they, they're not storing all your information to bribe you, they're taking your information to try to um manipulate you in some way. Um So advertisers, that's the only way people are found to make money on these kinds of things. Um And they wanna make the advertisers as successful and as possible. So when you go online, when you're looking at a picture, reading an article, everything you click on everything you comment on. How fast do you scroll past things. Um uh I think people started to realize this with Tik Tok where uh it's how long you're looking at something uh before you flip away from it because everybody flips away from everything. So then it becomes, how long are you staring at something where you decide that you don't wanna look at anymore? And in case um they don't sell your data, they didn't sell all this stuff, but they funnel into an algorithm to kind of predict what you're gonna do and then uh use that information. So the, the algorithm people talk about essentially is like if you had Facebook originally, it would just be the latest things on your wall or whatever that would come up. But um they pretty quickly found out that the sorting posts based on relevancy to you um is much better than published time. Um because it prioritizes things based on your uh likelihood to engage with it. So they wanna keep your attention as long as they possibly can, right? So that's what they, you know, are giving you first. Um So the interesting thing when I say they, it's, they have turned on the paperclip maximizer to do this, no one is actually doing it. It's done by machine learning A I the algorithm. That's why people talk about it and, and in a lot of ways n no humans are involved in that. So the goal of any business is grow the business, right? And the goal goal of any SNS site is to keep your attention for as long as possible. And then they want to present you with content that's guaranteed to change your ideas and behavior. That's, that's what they're selling to advertisers. How do they do it? Well, when you pull down and refresh, there's always something new. So there's always something novel. Um You got intermittent ref positive, intermittent reinforcement. Um You have this unconscious habit like cigarettes. I'm gonna just grab them out of my, it didn't smoke one like in the 19 seventies. But now it's, we grab our phone out of our pocket and look at it. We didn't, we didn't get a text or anything. We're just doing it. Um, or on certain sites. If, if somebody else posts a picture of you and your tag, you'll get a notification, get notifications uh on your screen, even when the phone is off. Um even texting and in particular iphone, texting when somebody is reading your uh, text, you get to see the red and then if they, um, right back to you, you don't have to wait for them to write back to you. You can get the little bubbles that show you the ellipsis. Oh, they are writing back to me. So, engagement with the app is what's, uh, thereafter. So, the Francis Hagen whistleblower stuff was, uh, partially something called growth hacking where, uh, they were trying to get, you know, more people involved, more use and they're trying to hack, they called it hack people psychology. And they would just do a lot of different mini experiments to see what worked the best. Then they tried, OK, let's see if we can make people believe, blah, blah, blah. And there were massive contagion experiments to see, oh, can we change a lot of people's behavior? Um And they can change sort of that. Their goal is to change real world behavior and emotions without ever triggering your awareness that that's what's happening. So if you're easily, if, if, if you're aware, you're being manipulated like a television commercial, like, you know, shows you uh something and you kind of understand what's happening in this form of advertising or behavior changing. You really don't know what's going on. Um You think you're enjoying yourself essentially? So, um then it became a question to me like, so then what's my advice? Like, uh what do I give people to do about this? Um And the problem is, is that it's, you can't, it's hard to think yourself out of this problem. Um So, you know, we've got very powerful brains, you know, and uh we're, you know, pretty advanced species, but what if there's just like a ton of other people that are all smart and they're all working against you and they also have supercomputers, right? So it's, it's not a fair fight is essentially, um, it's, it's, it um it, it's hard to like will power your way past this, especially when you consider that computing power. Uh Here mentioned in what's called flops um has been exponentially increasing. Uh ever since. Look at that 2011 or 12, look at that. Um uh meanwhile, our brains have evolved more slowly um and maybe are not doing that anymore. Um And so it, it's not again a fair fight. I think all of us know the problems with the false information or so called fake news online. Um An interesting thing about fake stories or things that are not true is that uh falsehood moves faster. So it goes further, it goes deeper, it goes more broadly than the truth does in this situation. So online fake stuff goes faster. It's more powerful and the effects are more pronounced, they make people feel they make people believe much faster. Um Even um uh even if uh the the false, the false political, no, no news is even more powerful, which I think we've seen, um, and ones that, um, that inspire fear, disgust and surprise and replies are the ones that are the most powerful as opposed to the ones that make you sad or joyous or more trusting. Um, so this is a problem but it's not something that they didn't know. Um, this is another thing that came out of this whistleblower Facebook formula was that if you guys have been on Facebook recently and I highly recommend that you don't. Um These are the buttons that you click. Um Sometimes I don't know if that's still there anymore. Um I abstain but for a while there was the like button only or dislike and then they said, well, you kind of like it or love it or laugh or say wow or sad or angry and it looks like, well, I'm just using emojis, they're just giving me emojis to react to this um This thing, what they really did was capture this data. And if you said you were angry, look at that, it's right over to the right so easy to find and click. Um That's the kind of content that the A I is gonna give you more of because if you're angry, you're more emotional and you're more likely to keep engaged, you're more likely to keep using. So people will be in one mood and then pull out Facebook and 10 minutes of scrolling, puts them in an entirely different mood. Um and I think most of us have had this experience but like, it's very strange to see that they were doing it on purpose for me at least. So then you get, um, then you get, you know, this classic uh idea of, uh, you know, uh everybody having one portion of the elephant. Um, but, but, but when you're only getting a certain amount of information or a certain type of information, I believe that there is no elephant, it's just a tusk or it's just a tail or whatever and very, very strongly believe that. Um and the thing is is that thi this becomes your perception of reality, that's what cultivation theory is. And then you get kind of stuck in, this is my idea of what reality is. Um, bear with me for a second. Um In 1994 this is what it looked like. Um politically. So your, your Democrats and your Republicans kind of were um smooshed together in the same kind of place. Um There's definitely people that, you know, were on one side and, or on the other, but you know, that this mass of a lot of overlap, just an amazing amount of, of overlap. And uh in 2017, this is what that sort of thing looked like. Everybody is being pushed to the right and left pretty strong. Um And, and not only are they being pushed in their political beliefs, it's also this, this other side is is, is bad. So, um, I add my attitudes about the other party are very unfavorable. Um, they definitely have shifted on political values as well. Both parties. Um, and they're starting to think, well, not only is my party good, the other party is actually a threat which did not used to be what people thought and then you've got, um, a lot less views in common now. Um, and the thing is is that if you are at one of these folks in the political extremes, which much more now than one extreme or the other, you're more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. And this is another thing that happened over the course of uh the past 10 years is that uh conspiracy theories have become not only prevalent but um starting to um compete with truth for the ways that people think about the world. So people will say sometimes they fall down an internet rabbit hole. Um And uh that can be very enjoyable for some people. Um And if you're, you know, falling down the uh a rabbit hole of like learning about something or whatever that can work, and I'll tell you if it's a Wikipedia rabbit hole, you're probably unlikely to be manipulated because that's a tool, a tool is something you go to and you know what you can get out of it um and use it and you use it for that. Um So, um you know, like a book or in uh Wikipedia or whatever things that aren't Google essentially. So, so like PUBMED is a tool, right? That we all use. Um, but, um, the rabbit hole phenomenon with the ones that are manipulating you, like Google, they're really trying to just keep you engaged, like I said, so they're like, well, what about this conspiracy theory or this true crime thing? Scary stuff, things that are sort of seem, uh more interesting And so basically, the more um wild it is, the more you're gonna be interested and go down that rabbit hole. Um The, the problem is is when they start to kind of creep into our lives, these are supposed to be rabbit holes by the way. Um And then we start to see uh people behaving in ways in reality that um don't seem to make sense, don't seem to fit with what we think. Um you know, for the majority of people, for the, for a long time have thought of like what the truth is or what things are real. Um you know, um conspiracy theories have been very, become very powerful and um like I said, the more polarized you are, the more likely they seem to feel true. Um And um people become extremely passionate, make into the capital, et cetera. Um As a result, OK, moving on specifically to Instagram and its effects on uh Children and, and people as far as psychopathology goes. So it came about on its own in 2010. I still remember getting um seeing the news story in 2012 where Facebook was buying Instagram and um it was a big story because they bought it for a billion dollars. Um I didn't know that social media companies had a billion dollars at that point. And it was uh shocking to me. Um uh One of the reasons Facebook bought Instagram is for the reason that everybody knows is that Facebook's audience was getting older and Instagram users were younger. So uh they successfully um ex extended their life cycle by grabbing these younger people, advertisers love younger people and it was a good investment um because this is the users and this is the revenue from the past few years. Um So, you know, if you could have, if you had a billion dollars in 2012, it wasn't a bad investment because you're making several, several, you know, many times that per year. So when I first started looking at this, I was sort of trying to figure out, ok, if I use social media, will I have a DS M diagnosis, will it cause it like if I use Facebook a lot, do I get depressed? Do I have a um um you know, a depression as a result of it, many of the newer articles that are looking at this focus on how you use the social media, your psychological characteristics, what you view, how you present yourself, especially on these image based social media sites and um o other things, mediators per se. So not a direct link but like there's, you know, um you've got this mediator when you're using the social media and then maybe that causes the diagnosis or maybe you, that causes another mediator to be more uh likely which then could lead to the diagnosis, et cetera, right? So what are these mediating factors? The things that we uh the things that are being researched are sort of like the how so intensity of use social comparison. So comparing yourself to others, we'll talk about the second passive use are just looking at other people's things. Um The type of content you have your self esteem while you're using it the way you present yourself. Um The feeling of belonging fomo is huge fear of missing out your body image is, is very, very big on Instagram. We'll talk about that quite a bit because of uh it being image based essentially. So social comparison is an important thing that you know, has existed forever. But um on social media sites, it's like become on steroids because exposure to um you, you get exposed to so many other people's presumed flawless lives. Um Somebody listened to a podcast of she was saying like she's starting to feel self conscious about the only pictures she puts on um social media is when she's all dressed up to go out or whatever. And then it looks like. That's the way she looks all the time. And that's sort of a good example of what uh what we're talking about. So you're seeing everybody else's life is, I'm always dressed up. My makeup is perfect. II, I have a flawless life. I'm always having fun. Um And then this idea that you start to feel like, well, that's not my life and my life is worse as a result. So that's what social comparison is. So definitely social media use uh with high levels of social comparison can lead to um lower self esteem in kids. And we know that um so this definitely has um a lot of studies behind it and trying to figure out um what, you know, drives this and what, what, what kind of uh uh diagnosis you might have. But it definitely is one of these pathways, one of these mediators of social comparison. Um And I think that um most kids will tell you that um how that feels they, they are aware of that particular thing. Um What about dose? What if you're checking your social media a lot or what if you're spending a lot of time on it? Well, we certainly have a lot of people that are checking their phones a lot, checking their social media a lot. Um The older we get, the less likely we are to uh check our phones, you know, but it's uh that, that is probably, you know, going up. Um So eating disorder disorder pathology is one of the things that um comes out of this social comparison and in intensity of use is um is associated with more psychopathology, especially the eating disorder, which is the starting starting to be the one that we can really link, especially if you have some of these other mediators. So um Cath Polyopia, he um used to be the VP of growth of Facebook which growth is what we're talking about, right? Everything is growth. Um But he uh he, he talks about why he left and saying like you get these, you know, idea that you have to pers show everybody or see their sort of perceived perfection. And then maybe we get like thumbs up hearts, things like that. And then we, we think of those things as value, we think of those things as truth just because that's how it feels, but it also doesn't feel, it feels fake, it feels brittle. Once you put down the phone, it's gone. Um And then it like an addiction, you feel more vacant and empty than before you did it. And then you're like, well, I need more of that um that uh is, you know, just sounds like alcohol to me actually. Um as far as like people talking about their addictions, but you have a high intensity sns use and then you have this psychological characteristic of like, OK, uh my self esteem is contingent upon the approval from others, which is what the social media is trying to make you think like, right? There is no inherent value to a retweet or a like or a heart, right? There's, there's no value to it at all. Um But it feels like approval and then if you don't get it, you know, um uh you have lower self esteem essentially. Um And then that leads to more social comparison which those things can make you use your phone more. And at some point, you might come out of the loop with full on eating disorder behavior. So that's one thing um that we really uh kind of worry about. And um actually the Facebook whistleblower information had a lot of this in it. Um So if you use the social media a lot, particularly Instagram image based, um you, you can do more and more sort of body surveillance. So looking at your own body, monitoring your body, uh preoccupied and worry about how your body appears to other people, right? And then um self objectification is another term that they use. Um It has uh damaging outcomes in both men and women. Um Because this beauty ideal that's presented is, is literally impossible. Um So, um another thing that you may not have heard of orthorexia, so that's really more of an obsession with healthy eating or eating healthy or eating the right things which doesn't feel as pathological to people, I think as uh just restricting but can have the same effects health wise. Um It's not just women. Um There have been studies about um eating disorder symptoms and other kind of unhealthy behaviors about bodies in men. Um So, um the, the cultivation theory article here that I'm showing talks about um so frequent exposure of the virtual self preservation, uh self presentation of others may affect the way we look at strangers bodies or indulge in sort of eating if you, even if your own body esteem remains intact. So it's like it changes the way you think about bodies in general. And this is not what I'm talking about, but just so you understand. So there are um pro eating disorder websites, pro eating disorder, Instagram accounts. Uh There, I should probably have a trigger warning for everybody before I show this. Um But there are uh you know, this disorder um comes with a feeling of this is who I am. This is not a disorder and nobody should tell me what to do. Um And so there are um pro eating disorder. Insta accounts. Facebook says it's trying to get rid of them. Um But you know, I don't the power to get rid of all of them. And then what takes the place of it is something called? So, so first was this thinspiration, right? So these folks that are like, I am basically have an eating disorder and I'm proud of it. So they get rid of that thin sp but what has become more popular is what's called fitspo. And I don't know if you feel like the, the bodies on display are like radically different, but to me it seems like uh ok, um I'm just working out, I'm trying to be healthy here. I am drinking water, that sort of a thing. Um But uh their impact is, is very similar to the pro anorexic kind of content. So it does matter what you're looking at. If you look at somebody's, you know, pictures of grease or whatever on Instagram and you have the media uh eating disorder behavior like we talked about like that does not lead to an eating disorder. It's the specific stuff you're seeing. Um But if you view this fit inspiration or thinspiration content, um and you kind of define your self worth by your physical appearance that can lead to an eating disorder or if you just have low self esteem or if you have dissatisfaction with your body to begin with, which most people already do because of our culture. A drive for thinness and muscularity. I'm not sure that there are very many teenagers that don't have one or the other of those. It also matters the number and type of accounts that you follow, right? So, um and what we're viewing, you know, might be everybody on their best day, but they're not even everybody on their best day. They're a fake version of people on their best day. So online as people kind of understand, right? There's um ways to get rid of all the stuff you don't like about the way you look, you can get rid of your dark circles like I have um you can whiten your teeth, brighten your skin, make your face a different shape, change your nose. Um This is just one app that does this. Um But uh it's all about the way you look and changing the way you look and then post it on social media and say like, what do you guys think about this? The problem is, is then you're seeing things that aren't real. So um this young lady has been altered to not have, I don't know, a rib cage or something in this picture. Um But this woman, she did this uh to make a point. She um did a trying to do a body positivity thing where she showed this is a fake thing that you can do with this software and look, this is what my real face looks like. And then on the right, I don't have as many lines. I don't have, I have my eyes, don't look real, you know, everything is a little different and even like this person who seems fairly, you know, healthy and thin on the right. It, it needs to be more uh um showing more kind of like bones uh and more room between the legs. This sort of a thing that is actually almost impossible to achieve without being um um almost cic um so polite in the mood, there is uh an awareness, at least online and there's an awareness in um uh the younger generation. I think at least of this presenting yourself on, on, on social media in one way. And your real who you really are is something else entirely and it's just a kind of a made up thing. Um So there are social media accounts that try to highlight this uh called Instagram versus reality. Um And um if you look at these and you like, for example, this meme on the left, it probably helps to have that sort of a thing. So when you can see, oh OK, this is what's happening. This is not reality that sometimes can help. So the Instagram versus reality kind of posts like, like I was showing you here um uh are, are somewhat helpful. They, they um have less detrimental effects at least, but we can't tell. We think we can tell but we can't. Um people have a limited ability to say like that's an original image that's been manipulated. Um Sometimes people go oh I think that manipulator but they can't tell you what's been manipulated. They just have a spidey sense that something uh off. I put this in here because there's not a lot of uh data on it. There's not a lot of research on this, but it's pretty interesting to, to think about social media as designed to change behavior. So then if you're exposed to a lot of people, um, talking about drinking, talking about, um, parties with drinking, different types of alcohol, whatever. Um, the more of that you're exposed to, the more you are likely to. Um, so in the first six weeks of college, if you're getting like a ton of that in your brain, um, it predicts alcohol consumption six months later. Um And that is true, even if you, you know, uh control for do your friends drink, which is pretty powerful to me. So, you know, can change behavior the different ways. What about selfies? I think people do worry about um selfies. Um um And, and what that might mean and what it might do. Um So as far as as the research goes, um if you take a lot of selfies before you post or you edit them uh or manipulate them somehow before you post, so you're curating this image more and more and more. Um then you're more likely to have higher body surveillance, body dissatisfaction and lower self esteem. Um So taking in uh editing selfies makes people like their face less and not posting selfies, uh results in feeling like you don't mind your appearance or you are satisfied with it. Mood is, is still really tricky. Um As far as figuring out we're going with the mood, um and, and belonging is the next thing we'll talk about. But, uh, as far it's, it's, it's a complex relationship. So if you're browsing Instagram here at time, one that's related to a depressed mood at time two, um, but uh, if you're depressed to begin with, that increases your Instagram posting. So it seems like a loop to me. Um, but it, I, I don't think that this is fully helping us to understand exactly how that works, But there is a relationship between the two that needs more study. Obviously, some people feel very uh um a sense of belonging and they a a cure for their loneliness sometimes online. So if you don't have any social support, you might find it online and that is not a small thing for some people. Um I'm thinking of LGBT Q kids that live in the boot heel, right? That can find people online that can support them. That's a real thing that happens online. Um So that gets confusing sometimes. Um But intensity of use may need lead to then an increase in loneliness. So there's probably a tipping point with that. Um Fear of missing out is huge. It leads to anxiety feelings. Um uh somebody somewhere is having a lot more fun and that is really driven by like our basic need to belong in a community or um experience life or grab an opportunity, that sort of a thing. A lot of people do use this sort of social media um and they don't post so if you're just lurking, um that's one way that people use it, right? They might even have an Instagram account to do it. That's pure lur lurking. Um But if you're using it passively, you don't have to have a fake account, but if you're just passively using it, you're not interacting, you're not liking, retweeting whatever. Um that leads to higher social comparison and it leads to a lot more fear of missing out because you're not engaged and that can lead to depressive symptoms. So the depressive symptoms, like I said, research is still complex, hard to parse out. Um So um there's some negative studies, some positive studies, I still think that um you know, it's more about how than if but intensity and severity of, of uh intensity of use can lead to severity of uh depressive symptoms. These two things passive use, posting high numbers of selfies can lead to more depressive symptoms. So there's something there, we're not totally sure uh about it yet, but definitely limiting social media use can lead to significant improvement in well being um self esteem. Um There's an association between social media dependence. So actual feeling dependent, like an addiction and depressive symptoms. There's a um body surveillance and feeling like you're deceiving people. OK. So if you have um a lot of edited things that you put online selfie wise and you're doing a lot of body surveillance sort of along the eating it sort of pathology. But then you feel like, you know what, I'm lying to everybody, I'm deceiving people that can, that combination of things can lead to depressive symptoms. Um, remember when I said negative things can lead to more engagement online. Well, suicide is no different. It's a very negative thing. It's a very, um upsetting thing. Uh, and talking about suicide online and elicits a lot of engagement. So, um, you will, if, if anybody, um you know, has been around somebody that's had a suicide attempt, I do that all the time. I see people that have those and a lot of times there's some suicide uh posting that, that precedes that um the, the absolute bottom of this rabbit hole is, is a website that's sort of a social media website that's really just about um ho how to commit suicide and, and that you should sort of pro suicide content this media. But um something worth mentioning when uh talking about this. So, all right. So, like I said, high minded broad topic, uh here's the too long, didn't read, get rid of the apps off your phone, uninstall them, delete them. Um Talk about your real opinions about these platforms, give people advice about it, know how to turn off your notifications for sure. Um uh That's just a way for them to the, the, the social media is transcending reality and jumping out of your phone and grabbing you like you can turn those off. Uh, Google works the best still. I, I think, but, um, if you wanna try other places that don't store your history, uh, you can or just don't do anything that it, um, automatically gives you, um, like news stories, things like that. Same with youtube. So if you wanna look up whatever, uh, Farley sketch from the eighties or whatever and watch that on youtube, that's not a problem. It's just TV. But if youtube starts saying like here's stuff you might like or starts auto playing that, that's them trying to manipulate you again. Um Just you can install uh extensions that remove the recommendations. Um Obviously, everybody needs to fact check things a million times. I don't have to tell a bunch of doctors that, but um you might be so angry or whatever whenever you hear this story that you might share it widely and then like a day later you're like, was that true? That happens all the time? Um We should all be looking for lots of different types of information. If you're going to do social media, you should follow people that you disagree with just to get different points of view and not so that you can argue with them. Um Delay, delay, delay, giving devices to Children as long as you can. I know that it's a delay, not a don't because this is the world we live in. Um I really recommend that all the adults in the audience just avoid social media as much as possible or completely. Uh Hopefully everybody recommends keeping the devices out of the bedroom at a fixed time. Um Social media should be like I said, delayed, delayed, delayed. Um As long as you can, high school would be um the earliest I would wanna do it. You, I'll tell you about the time budget with your Children in a sec. Um And again, so when I was doing this research, um couple of years ago, I did, I stopped uh Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, everything. And um I really have found um greater well being and particularly greater um empathy towards other people. And I get less mad at strangers, I assume less about what they're thinking. Um But that's just me as an end of one. Um The A ap has this great thing on their website that replaced the two hour rule or the, the and it is called the Family Media use plan and it has a lot of good things. Um It's got all of these steps. The idea is as you see this family together um that they are gonna create this plan for themselves. Importantly, it means that, that, that the parents are part of this plan too. Um Nobody uses their uh in my house, their phones at the dinner table, those are not allowed. Um And they're never upstairs and um there's things about like kindness and empathy on here, safety and privacy. So this is a great, um, great tool to use if you don't know about it, which you probably do. But II I think that it's a really good resource. Um And there's a lot of my sources. Created by Presenters T. Eric Spigel, MD Pediatric Psychiatry View full profile
