{"id":5698,"date":"2024-03-29T09:18:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darylchow.com\/frontiers\/?p=5698"},"modified":"2024-07-02T11:11:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T03:11:41","slug":"what-happened-between-2010-to-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/frontiers\/what-happened-between-2010-to-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happened Between 2010 to 2015?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 29 Mar. 202<\/em>4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let the Data Speak<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Take a look at the graph below. If we were to follow the lines up until 2010, besides the gender difference among teens (which we will get to later), you can\u2019t say much about how things are changing over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Major Depression Among Teens<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now look at the same graph, this time stretching beyond 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What has caused this rise of depression among teens around the period of 2010-2015?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we answer that question, there\u2019s more. This time, let\u2019s look at the prevalence of anxiety, emergency room visits due to self-harm, and suicide rates for teens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These graphs, taken from the latest book by one of my favourite social psychologist, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Haidt<\/a>, called The Anxious Generation<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, point towards an alarming evidence that many parents, teachers and mental health professionals have noticed in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There Must Be Other Explanations?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

No other theory can explain this decline in mental health among the young, including economic crises, climate change, academic pressure<\/a>, increase in self-report, and the age-old admonition from the stats professor that \u201ccorrelation is not causation.\u201d1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on why other competing explanations fall short, read <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean M. Twenge<\/a> post:<\/p>\n\n\n

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And why this specific impact on teen girls?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haidt noted,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The rate of self-harm for these young adolescent girls<\/strong> nearly tripled from 2010 to 2020<\/strong>. The rate for older girls (ages 15\u201319) doubled <\/strong>(emphasis mine), while the rate for women over 24 actually went down during that time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Haidt argues that a play-based childhood<\/strong> is now replaced by a phone-based childhood.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically\u2014you guessed it\u2014by the use social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which begs the question: What makes the period of 2010-2015 so unique?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The Ascent of Technology and the Descent of Our Kids<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, the first iPhone with a front-facing camera was introduced to the world. Promptly, Samsung followed suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A great way to make us anxious is to make us hyper self-conscious. Enter the self-facing camera and the world of selfies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


Haidt called the period of 2010-2015 \u201cThe Great Rewiring of Childhood.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That same year, Instagram was created as an app that could be used only on smartphones. For the first few years, there was no way to use it on a desktop or laptop. Instagram had a small user base until 2012, when it was purchased by Facebook. Its user base then grew rapidly (from 10 million near the end of 2011 to 90 million by early 2013). We might therefore say that the smartphone and selfie-based social media ecosystem that we know today emerged in 2012, with Facebook\u2019s purchase of Instagram following the introduction of the front-facing camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2012, many teen girls would have felt that \u201ceveryone\u201d was getting a smartphone and an Instagram account, and everyone was comparing themselves with everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next few years the social media ecosystem became even more enticing with the introduction of ever more powerful \u201cfilters\u201d and editing software within Instagram and via external apps such as Facetune. Whether she used filters or not, the reflection each girl saw in the mirror got less and less attractive relative to the girls she saw on her phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While girls\u2019 social lives moved onto social media platforms, boys burrowed deeper into the virtual world as they engaged in a variety of digital activities, particularly immersive online multiplayer video games, YouTube, Reddit, and hardcore pornography\u2014all of which became available anytime, anywhere, for free, right on their smartphones.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Related Posts:<\/h4>\n\n\n
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It\u2019s Not About Distraction. It\u2019s About Addiction.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ted Gioia<\/a> , another one of my favourite writers on Substack, recently illustrated in his excellent post, The State of Culture in 2024 <\/a>that it\u2019s not just about entertainment or distraction. It\u2019s about addiction<\/strong>. The new dopamine cartel of the tech companies are trying to make you become \u201cusers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image from Ted Gioia, The State of Culture 2024.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Dearth of Unmediated Experiences<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of my concerns is how disembodied <\/em>our experiences are becoming. I feel this when I\u2019m teaching to large groups online. Yes, people are present, but I don\u2019t feel them as I would being in the same room. I don\u2019t get the immediacy of a tight feedback loop if I\u2019m blabbering or landing on a point. I get more easily exhausted than an in-person context, which is often more energising. I still appreciate the opportunity to connect, albeit virtually. If you think about it, it\u2019s quite a trip to be able to connect with people from all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But think about the Gen Zs whose primary<\/em> connection are mediated primarily by their devices\u2014and their mates are probably just 3 km away, not 30,000 km away from their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When youths share with me about their social woes in sessions, I listen carefully to the nuance of the exchange, or at least their report of it, as I try to figure out who said what and why, and the intra-psychic conflict their are facing. They tell me about what they talked about, the stuck points, the hurts, the ghostings\u2026 And then I say something stupid like, \u201cSo you spoke to her on the phone or face-to face?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh no. It was via snapchat\/instagram\/whatsapp.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see, video call?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNooo\u2026 Text\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though we are all carrying a phone all<\/em> the time, from the bedroom to bathroom, who calls each other these days on the phone? A few weeks ago, a friend called me on the phone. I immediately went, \u201cIs everything ok?\u201d He said, \u201cEr, yeah. Just thought I ring you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I suspect that, on a deep level, we need more unmediated<\/em> experiences. Not just a fully immersive online game with your friends, but a fully bodied engagement of kicking that ball into the goalpost\u2014and missing most of the time. Not just an exchange of information, but to connect in real-time, in the flesh. If not in-person, at least to hear each other\u2019s voice; to hear our acoustic signature that is highly expressive of the hidden world of our emotions. An unintended consequence of the ascent of mediated experience might lead us to an increasing lack of social skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026To touch, to move, and to be moved. To be taken by things that travel at the speed of life, not at the speed of light<\/a>. An antidote to anxiety is to reduce velocity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m no Luddite, but we need to touch more of the people we are trying to relate to than touch our phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read The Anxious Generation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been following <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Haidt<\/a> work for awhile, and more recently reading his brilliant Substack <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Babel<\/a> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve only just begun delving into Haidt’s book, but I had to pause as the hour grows late. If I continue, I might get grumpy on a Good Friday morning. So far, the book is sobering. I hope that readers of <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development<\/a> will join me in reading The Anxious Generation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, you can watch Haidt\u2019s talk at the ARC forum:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smartphone Addiction and Gen Alpha | Jonathan Haidt, Social Psychologist<\/a><\/h4>

No Description<\/p><\/blockquote>