The Case Against Social Media

I just watched this interesting episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast with the social scientist Jonathan Haidt: The Case Against Social Media.

When I talk about social media usage, I always argue for prohibiting it for kids until they are adults.

People go like "You can't do this, because they will become social outcasts." or "All other kids do this too.".

Jonathan Haidt has some interesting ideas about the topic and how to tackle it.

He also created a roundup of scientific papers about the topic.


Quotes:

The main one, I think: [...] it's living a life where you're thinking all the time about posting. You're scrolling through and everyones life is looking better than yours, because it's fake. [...] Once you start posting, that takes over your mind [...] and even if you are "only" spending 5 or 6 hours a day on Instagram, you're always thinking about it.

And when you're in class you're thinking about "How are people responding about the post that I made?". I mean I do it [...] and I can't help it like I check 20 times per day - this is terrible. Imagine a 12 year old girl. [...]. I see some young women, women in their 20s and 30s putting up sexy photos of themselves and this is so sad.