WEBVTT - Social Networks and Mental Health 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.399 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.720 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.639 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.880 tech are you? So today I thought I would talk 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.360 about something that hits a bit close to home, which 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:31.240 is the relationship between social media, social networks, and mental health. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.520 This is a very complicated topic for a whole bunch 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.080 of reasons. I mean, for one thing, just to be 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.880 transparent with all of y'all, I'm a gen xer, okay. 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.280 I grew up in an era in which there was 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.280 a pretty darn hefty stigma attached to all things mental health, 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.720 Like if you had mental health struggles, the feeling was 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.920 that somehow that was your fault and a failing of 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.200 you personally. So to this day, while I recognize the 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.440 importance of mental health and seeking help when you're struggling, 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:05.160 like when a friend of mine tells me, oh, I 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.600 found this awesome therapist, I'm so happy for them, it's 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:13.280 still a barrier for me, which is screwed up. Like rationally, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.240 I can recognize it as being important, and I can 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.480 be happy for my friends to seek that health and 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.640 yet I still have the blocks, the mental blocks that 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.200 are rock solid when it comes to my own mental health, 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.080 which kind of stinks, Like it really stinks when you 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.800 are trying to think of things rationally and you still 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.000 encounter this because you're like, Okay, some things go beyond rationality. 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.920 I have to admit that. But apart from my own 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.920 personal reasons, it's a tricky topic because it's really hard 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.160 to be definitive about things that relate to mental health. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.760 There are all different types of human beings out there 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.840 in the world, and there's stuff that could roll right 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.800 off the back of one person but really traumatically impact 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.320 someone else, and it often can be really different, dificult 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:05.800 to determine a causal relationship between different factors. Now by that, 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.440 I mean there are a ton of studies out there 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.840 that have looked into the potential impact of social media 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.720 on mental health. For example, a study might find that 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:22.079 people who identify as being depressed or experiencing anxiety might 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.120 be spending a lot more time on social media sites 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.440 than people who do not identify as that. But does 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.239 that mean the social media sites are causing this anxiety 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.480 and depression that by staying on these sites that's what's 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.320 making people feel anxious and depressed. Or could it mean 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:45.080 that people who are already experiencing anxiety and depression are 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.520 seeking out social media sites. You know, maybe that's a 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.480 coping mechanism for them. In other words, it's the old 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:57.520 phrase correlation is not causation. Just because two things appear 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.200 to happen together doesn't mean that one caused the other. 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.160 They could be unrelated. They could both be caused by 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.400 the same common factor. We just don't know without looking 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.480 into it further. So today I thought, you know what, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.959 I'm going to actually go through one of these studies. 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.079 Because I've talked about studies in general, but typically I'm 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.079 reading about an article that's written about the study. I'm 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.200 not reading the study itself. So I found a study 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.120 from twenty twenty that was a sort of meta analysis 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.040 on the subject of mental health and social networking sites. Now, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:35.040 if you are unfamiliar with the term meta analysis, that 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.160 is a type of study that looks at the results 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:41.760 of other studies in order to reach some conclusion. So 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.080 you might say, all right, let's take these thirty studies 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.760 about this one topic. Really look at what the conclusions 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:51.240 are of all of them and see if we can 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.720 use that to draw new conclusions. So in this case, 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.280 the researchers of this particular study, they identified fifty papers 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.800 about social media and mental health using Google scholar. By 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.360 the way, when they did the search terms for things 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.960 like mental health and social media and social networking, they 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.000 came up with tens of thousands of papers. Even with 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.080 social media and mental health together, it was like eighteen 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.159 thousand papers. From that group, they got fifty, and from 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.400 that list of fifty, they paired the list down to 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:27.080 sixteen studies. They had a whole process for reviewing these 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.880 papers and determining whether or not they fit within their 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.240 own study. And as you can see, with sixteen, that 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.360 means fewer than half of those fifty made it through. Eight. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.680 Of those studies that they'd considered. They were cross sectional studies. 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.640 That means it's a study where they analyzed data, or 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.520 the original researchers analyzed data from a group of subjects 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.479 at a single point in time, so it's like a 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.120 cross section of time. That made up half of the 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.640 papers that they were looking at. Two of the sixteen 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.920 were qualitative STUF studies. That means they were looking at 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:07.440 non quantifiable information and trying conclusions from that. So, in 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.160 other words, these studies look at stuff like social phenomena, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.680 which you cannot really measure with scientific units. Right, if 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.840 you're measuring, like in chemistry, you're using units of like 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.839 weight and volume, those are quantifiable. You can put actual 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.360 units of measurement to them. If you're saying how happy 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:30.599 is society, that's not really quantifiable. That's qualitative, not quantifiable. 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.120 So those were the kinds of studies for two of 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:38.360 the sixteen papers that they chose. It's tricky to do 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:42.279 a qualitative analysis because you're still trying to come to 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:48.400 a scientific conclusion, but you're using unquantifiable factors to do so. 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.920 So they get a little whibbly wobbly, and a lot 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.800 of this stuff falls into fields like sociology, which, by 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.839 the way, I love sociology is one of my favorite 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.960 classes when I was in college. But sociology is by 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.000 its nature difficult to grow because of a lack of 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:10.280 quantifiable units. Anyway, three of the remaining studies were longitudinal studies. 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.440 That means they explored the same list of variables and 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.279 how those variables changed over a long period of time. 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.719 So this is like if you have a group of 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:23.400 subjects and you are observing them periodically over a long 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:28.960 course like potentially years. The remaining studies were systematic, meaning 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.480 they looked at patterns that would indicate cause and effect. 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:37.400 Are there recognizable and reliable patterns so much so that 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:42.159 should you start to see one thing, you would immediately 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.200 begin to draw conclusions that a pattern exists, even if 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.279 it's not readily evident at the time. One of the 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.920 really big challenges of meta analyses is that you have 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.120 to try and synthesize the findings of different studies that 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.880 are all using totally different methodologies, and you do this 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.960 while you're trying to draw your own conclusions. That's pretty 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.839 tough because you might accidentally misinterpret findings in an effort 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.400 to reach the conclusion you've already made. Or you might 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.600 pair two different papers together to say these papers support 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.920 one another, but because they're different methodologies, it may not 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.440 be as clear as that. Right. If the methods were 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.480 totally different, then yeah, the conclusions might be similar, but 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.960 you might not be able to say this study supports 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.160 this other study because they they took such different pathways 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.640 to get there. You can't be sure that they are 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.400 actually saying the same thing, and there's bias that you 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:41.080 have to deal with. Everybody has bias, and suppressing bias 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:44.480 is important. It's also really hard to do. Sometimes it's impossible. 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.520 You likely are going to have your own bias when 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.680 you go into a study, like you might already have 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:56.160 a preconceived idea of something that you're just expecting to prove. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.400 So that will make you pay more attention to the 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:04.640 things that really reinforce your bias and potentially dismiss or 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.680 discount things that are not aligned with your bias unless 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.840 it gets to a point where it's just overwhelmingly impossible 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.520 to ignore. So this gets into things like cherry picking, 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.360 right where you're cherry picking the points of data that 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:23.000 support your perspective or your argument. Now, I'm not saying 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.840 that all meta analyzes are bad. I'm just saying they're 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.640 tricky to do and they're easy to do poorly, So 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.400 they're not bad just out of the gate, but they 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.640 are hard to do well. And obviously your conclusions are 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.480 only as reliable as the individual studies are. Like, you 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.040 could do a fantastic meta analysis, but if all the 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.360 studies that are part of your meta analysis are crap, 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.480 then the results of your meta analysis aren't reliable either. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.600 Garbage in, garbage out kind of thing. So that's why 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.600 that selection process was important. So while they only use 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.839 six out of fifty papers that they selected out of 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.080 a larger like eighteen thousand potential papers, you can at 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.240 least say, well, they had a process there to try 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.640 and weed out things that would either be a bad 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.160 fit or were poorly designed. So this paper, I haven't 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.440 even mentioned the title yet. Here's the title. You can 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.800 look this up and read it yourself. It's social Media 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.480 Use and its Connection to Mental health, a systematic review. 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.840 And this was by a collection of authors. There's like 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.800 six or seven authors attached to this. I found it 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.400 by using the National Library of Medicine when I was 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.440 looking for a paper to talk about, and it was 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.080 originally published in a web based peer reviewed medical journal 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:47.120 called Curious. Now let's cur eus. We're going to get 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.200 to the paper in a second, and I'll also have 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.680 more to say about Curious at the end of this episode, because, 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:57.280 as it turns out, Curious has its own curious reputation. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.120 I'm not saying it's a bad paper, but I am 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.640 saying like it is a matter of debate among the 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.600 research circle, and yeah, I kind of tripped into that 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.120 one without anticipating it. So first, before we get to 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.000 the actual paper, I think it is important to establish 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:19.120 the connection between socialization in general and mental health. Human 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.200 beings are social animals, even though some days I feel 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:23.880 like I should just run off to be a hermit 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:28.120 in the woods. Some days, y'all, that compulsion is a 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:32.559 strong one. So in a different scientific paper by Deborah 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.920 Umberson and Jennifer carraz Montez title Social Relationships and Health 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.600 a Flashpoint for Health Policy, there is a very powerful 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:45.360 statement that I wanted to share. Quote Captors use social 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.920 isolation to torture prisoners of war to drastic effect. Social 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:55.160 isolation of otherwise healthy, well functioning individuals eventually results in 0:10:55.200 --> 0:11:01.040 psychological and physical disintegration and even death. In quote, that 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.640 is a heck of a way to argue for the 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.839 power of socialization, because when we are deprived of socialization, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.720 we suffer. Generally speaking, studies show that the quantity and 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:17.400 quality of our social relationships have an enormous impact on 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:21.280 our well being, both mental health and physical health. People 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:26.000 who maintain more and high quality social relationships tend to 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.840 live longer and healthier than those who do not. So, 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.160 you know, for being someone who has very few friends 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.080 at this point, like I don't hang out with very 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:35.800 many people at all, I look at this and I 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.360 think I need to get out there more and actually 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.360 for meaningful friendships, not just be like, hey, how's it going, 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.040 what's your sign? Nice to see you come here. Often 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.120 like to actually get meaningful relationships because they are very 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.600 important to our health. So there is strong evidence supporting 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.680 a link between socialization in general and mental health. There's 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.960 lots of research that says that it's an important factor 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.640 for our mental health. Is this aspect of socialization not 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.640 that people who are kind of loaners or whatever are 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:10.080 mentally unwell, that's not necessarily the case. But generally speaking, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.720 we tend, we humans tend to do better when we 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.440 have good socialization. Now let's move on to social networks. Now. 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.280 I'm sure some of y'all out there are old enough 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.480 like me to remember a time before there were really 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.240 online social networks, or at least a time before we 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.680 had sites that served purely as a social network. I 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.000 think back to the bulletin Board System or BBS days 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.480 and I can remember logging into a service and skimming 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.280 the message boards, and these BBSs often existed on a 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.960 single person's computer somewhere. So this wasn't the Internet. You 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.160 weren't logging into a network of networks. You were literally 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:53.439 dialing into a computer that hosted this bulletin board. Now 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.360 that computer might link to other computers and share a 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.199 message board between them, which increased the reach of the 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.680 bulletin board system, but it still wasn't the Internet yet, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.679 not for the average person, but for a lot of folks, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.280 it was a preview of what the Internet would be. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.800 It was just on a much smaller scale, kind of 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:15.280 think of like a community bulletin board version of the Internet. 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.640 And back in those days, a lot of folks, myself included, thought, Wow, 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.880 this technology is going to transform the world. We're going 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.320 to be able to communicate with each other instantly, no 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:28.920 matter where in the world we happen to be. We'll 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.440 be able to find people who share our interests and 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.320 make friends in brand new ways. It is going to 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.200 be amazing. In fact, I'm going to tell you another 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.480 story to sort of illustrate this Before I get to that. However, 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:53.600 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay, 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.400 so before the ad break, I promised y'all a story. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.000 So when I was a kid, I loved fantasy novel 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:02.240 I mean I still do, but I don't read them 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:03.800 as much as I used to because I read a 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.120 lot of other stuff now. But when I was a kid, 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.640 I wasn't really into science fiction very much. I mean 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:12.480 I liked some science fiction movies and television shows, but 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:17.160 I didn't read science fiction books. I loved fantasy novels. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:22.600 I knew precisely three other kids in my personal life 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.840 who also liked fantasy novels to various degrees. So our 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.320 tiny little social group of four people kind of helped 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.200 us get through the experiences of like middle and high 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.960 school because none of us fit in particularly well with 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:40.480 the rest of the student body. I wouldn't say we 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.920 were like ostracized or ridiculed or anything. I mean, maybe 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:45.720 we were, but I wasn't aware of it, which is 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.560 probably for the best. But like, I just didn't integrate 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.000 well with the main student body, not being so savvy 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:58.880 with things like mainstream entertainment or sports or any of that. However, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.760 you know, there was something special about my childhood that 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.200 my friends lacked, and that was that my parents write 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.720 science fiction and fantasy and horror and mysteries and other 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.720 types of fiction. They are published authors. My father has 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.000 written more than a hundred published works at this point 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.880 in that field in fiction. And one way that my 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.840 parents would promote their work it was really my dad. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:25.880 At this point. Mom would also write, but that was 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:31.600 later on. Dad would go to different regional science fiction 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.840 and fantasy conventions where fans would come together and they 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.080 would hang out and party and have a great time 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.440 for a weekend. These conventions had names like Dixie Trek, 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:47.960 Dixie Dixie Trek, or Phoenix Con. Atlanta is known as 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.320 the City of the Phoenix, or the Atlanta Fantasy Fair. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.920 That was a really big one. So these days, the 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.240 really big one in the Southeast is Dragon Con. And 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.600 in fact, my dad was the first toastmaster Dragging when 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.640 it first got started. And it was at these science 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.360 fiction and fantasy conventions that I saw the power of community. 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.800 So in the quote unquote real world, a fantasy novel 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.480 geek could end up feeling pretty darn isolated in those days, 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.560 but at these conventions I would become part of an 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.920 enormous community of fans, so you could go to panel 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.520 discussions about your favorite book where people would talk about 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.040 fan theories or discuss certain works in depth, or sometimes 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.080 you might even get a chance to hear the author 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.560 himself or herself speak, And everything was a celebration of 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.040 the geeky interests for the most folks attending, I mean, 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.640 it was an experience you just couldn't replicate back home, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.320 because there just weren't enough people you knew in your 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.880 everyday life where you could have these kinds of interactions. 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.800 These conventions were special. They gave fans a place in 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.640 time to really engage in their interests and to celebrate them. 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.320 So early on the Internet seemed to be shaping up 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.880 in a way that it could do this, but through computers. Right, 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.720 that could involve creating, you know, communities that celebrate specific 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:10.080 interests online, and you wouldn't be restricted to just attending 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.680 a convention one weekend out of the year in order 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.520 to get together with friends and talk about, you know, 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.399 the latest episode of Quantum Leap or whatever. Now you 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.000 could go online and join a forum dedicated to your 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.119 favorite show or movie or book series or whatever. And 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.440 if there wasn't one, out there, you could make one 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.160 and folks would find it. Now way back in the day, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.720 I remember joining a forum called the Bronze, and it 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.960 was a community that celebrated the television series Buffy the 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.600 Vampire Slayer, and I ended up meeting up a bunch 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.600 of other fans that way, including someone who ultimately went 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.760 on to write for the series Angel, which spun off 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.920 of Buffy. I met some of the musicians who provided 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.439 music for the show's soundtrack. I even ultimately ended up 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.200 meeting some of the actors, writers, and directors of the series. 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:56.560 So first I met them online and then later I 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:58.639 met them in person. It was great. So for a 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.080 while it seemed like the Internet and the Web in particular, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.240 we're going to revolutionize the way we socialize with one another, 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.240 and a lot of us who were optimists thought that 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.960 we might be able to form really deep, meaningful relationships 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.480 online and that would be just as important and relevant 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.680 and deep and meaningful as the relationships we had out 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.360 in the quote unquote real world. It ended up being 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.840 true for me. I mean, I met my partner online 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.600 way back in the nineteen nineties and we're still together 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:32.240 thirty years later. But social platforms would end up introducing 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.600 a lot more than just a way to connect with 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.000 other people. I don't think the optimists out there took 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:42.679 into account the development of recommendation algorithms, for example. So 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.720 the algorithm's job, when you really get on to it 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.199 is to convince you to stay on the platform for 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.680 as long as possible, to hold your attention as long 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.800 as it possibly can. So the algorithm is supposed to 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.800 serve up material that you're going to find engaging. Now 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.320 that doesn't mean good, but engaging, because it doesn't matter 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.639 if the stuff you see makes you feel happy or sad, 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.080 or angry or scared or any other specific emotion. That 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.760 doesn't matter at all to the algorithm. What matters is 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.159 that you stay there, You don't leave the page. Preferably, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.640 you engage with whatever the content is, you know, by 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.840 clicking that you like it, or leaving a comment, or 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.320 perhaps best of all, sharing it with other people. That's 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.119 really the algorithm's job, And the recommendation algorithm is necessary 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:36.520 because the social networking site is a business. We're the product, 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.760 right The site isn't selling anything to us, apart from 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.720 some sites that offer like a premium experience in return 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.240 for a subscription. Otherwise, these companies make their money through advertising. 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.760 The more valuable the landscape is, the more these sites 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.160 can charge to put ads across that landscape. And if 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.280 the site can assure advertisers that their ads are going 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:02.200 to match up with appropriate audiences, thus improving the chance 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.080 that folks will actually click through the ad to buy something, 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.359 then they can charge even more for those ads. So again, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.480 the emotional reaction users have while they're using the service, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.040 that doesn't matter, because sad people they're worth exactly the 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.160 same amount of money as happy people as long as 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.600 they're staying engaged on the site. If you are happy 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.760 or sad, you're worth the same amount to Facebook. And 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.560 it's easier to find stuff that makes users sad or 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.680 anxious or whatever. Well, naturally, if it's easier to find 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:34.679 that stuff, that material is going to get served up 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.919 to users more frequently, and you're going to be encountering 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.679 that stuff on a more frequent basis. Now, if you 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:44.560 contrast that with the early days of social networking sites, 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.800 before they had found a way to monetize their operations, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.840 then things are drastically different. You often had sites that 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.760 used a much more straightforward approach to content organization. I 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.639 still miss the old days where I could log into 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.160 a site like Facebook and I could just look at 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.119 my friends' posts in reverse chronological order, so all I 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.680 had to do was keep scrolling, and I would eventually 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.680 catch up on what everyone was doing, and I would 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.440 know I had a good idea, like I've seen everything. 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:15.840 But today, if I go to Facebook, I get a 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.040 hodgepodge of posts from the last several days. They're organized 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:24.000 in no discernible order, and there's tons of ads peppered 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.960 into boot. All right, now, let's get back to the paper. 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.320 So according to the meta analysis paper that I mentioned 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.000 at the top of the episode, the negative impact of 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.320 social media, or the correlation between social media and the 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:41.439 mental health problems is apparent. And then that sounds logical. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.240 I mean, there's like a common sense element to that, right, 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.639 I mean I just explained that the site is designed 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:48.679 to keep people there as long as possible, and the 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.200 way to do that is to catch and hold their attention, 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.400 and negative stuff can do that fairly effectively. So it's 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.800 no surprise that negative stuff rises to the top and 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.000 that this can have an impact on people. But that's 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.040 still a long way to go from proving there's a 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:07.960 causal link between social networking use and mental health issues. 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:13.280 So the paper did share some pretty interesting findings. One 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.879 of those is that a person's age didn't seem to 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:20.520 affect the impact of social networking use, so whether you 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:22.640 were old or young, there didn't seem to be much 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.080 of a change there, although a lot of the studies 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:29.439 would end up focusing on pre adolescent users. Gender, however, 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:33.080 did seem to have a factor when it came to impact. 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.840 Those who identified as female were, in the words of 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.959 their authors, much more likely to experience a negative impact 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:44.440 to mental health than those who identified as male. Now, 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.520 I'm not sure how much I should actually trust this 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.359 paper if I'm honest, because as I was reading it 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.520 early on, I found an error in the paper. It 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.919 includes a bar graph that shows gender distribution among the 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:02.080 various platforms, And so this paper came out in twenty twenty, 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.320 so keep that in mind. But even so, the distribution 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.119 caught me off guard because it flew in the face 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:10.639 of what I had believed. It doesn't mean that I 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:13.440 was right and the paper was wrong, but it did 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:15.640 surprise me. So the one for Twitter was the one 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:17.720 that really surprised me. Now keep in mind, again, this 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:20.240 paper came out in twenty twenty. Twitter was still Twitter 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:22.760 back in those days. And if you had asked me 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.680 in twenty twenty, what do you think the gender distribution 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:29.080 is on Twitter? I would have guessed it skewed male, 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:32.720 that there'd be more men on Twitter than women, But 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.960 in fact, it apparently was much more skewed toward females. 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:39.200