"The Dangerous Experiment On Teen Girls" by Jonathan Haidt
1. Harm to teens is occurring on a massive scale.
For several years, Jean Twenge, the author of iGen, and I have been collecting the academic research on the relationship between teen mental health and social media. Something terrible has happened to Gen Z, the generation born after 1996. Rates of teen depression and anxiety have gone up and down over time, but it is rare to find an “elbow” in these data sets––a substantial and sustained change occurring within just two or three years. Yet when we look at what happened to American teens in the early 2010s, we see many such turning points, usually sharper for girls. The data for adolescent depression are noteworthy:
Some have argued that these increases reflect nothing more than Gen Z’s increased willingness to disclose their mental-health problems. But researchers have found corresponding increases in measurable behaviors such as suicide (for both sexes), and emergency-department admissions for self-harm (for girls only). From 2010 to 2014, rates of hospital admission for self-harm did not increase at all for women in their early 20s, or for boys or young men, but they doubled for girls ages 10 to 14.
National surveys of American high-school students show that only about 63 percent reported using a “social networking site” on a daily basis back in 2010. But as smartphone ownership increased, access became easier and visits became more frequent. By 2014, 80 percent of high-school students said they used a social-media platform on a daily basis, and 24 percent said that they were online “almost constantly.” Of course, teens had long been texting each other, but from 2010 to 2014, high-school students moved much more of their lives onto social-media platforms. Notably, girls became much heavier users of the new visually oriented platforms, primarily Instagram (which by 2013 had more than 100 million users), followed by Snapchat, Pinterest, and Tumblr.
Boys are glued to their screens as well, but they aren’t using social media as much; they spend far more time playing video games. When a boy steps away from the console, he does not spend the next few hours worrying about what other players are saying about him. Instagram, in contrast, can loom in a girl’s mind even when the app is not open, driving hours of obsessive thought, worry, and shame.
The evidence is not just circumstantial; we also have eyewitness testimony. In 2017, British researchers asked 1,500 teens to rate how each of the major social-media platforms affected them on certain well-being measures, including anxiety, loneliness, body image, and sleep. Instagram scored as the most harmful, followed by Snapchat and then Facebook. Facebook’s own research, leaked by the whistleblower Frances Haugen, has a similar finding: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression … This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.” The researchers also noted that “social comparison is worse” on Instagram than on rival apps. Snapchat’s filters “keep the focus on the face,” whereas Instagram “focuses heavily on the body and lifestyle.” A recent experiment confirmed these observations: Young women were randomly assigned to use Instagram, use Facebook, or play a simple video game for seven minutes. The researchers found that “those who used Instagram, but not Facebook, showed decreased body satisfaction, decreased positive affect, and increased negative affect.”
Body Paragraphs for Essay 3
Things to Consider:
One. In 2012, young people got immersed in social media. This accompanied a spike in depression, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide. Rates doubled. Is this correlation or causation? Is this moral panic?
Two. Likes and Reposts were part of a behavior modification scheme that created a craving for attention, and the most attention could be gained by "racing toward the brainstem" in the form of extreme, aggressive behavior. This made us stupid.
Three. Spending more and more time on the Internet, we severed real friendships while developing fake or parasocial (online) friendships, which encouraged loyalty to our parasocial friendship circle. This loyalty led to tribalism and cancel culture.
Four. We isolated ourselves in tribalistic silos that indulge our confirmation biases and cherry-pick reality so that we are more stupid and we no longer share a common reality, what is called an epistemic crisis.
Five. We are intimidated by being bullied for disagreeing with other groups and our own group. We keep our mouths shut and without civil disagreement, we succumb to Groupthink and this results in stupidity.
Six. We fed on little sips of information so that we could not focus on longer expositions and in doing so we've re-hardwired our elastic brains, making our attention spans dysfunctionally small.
Counterarguments:
The technology of social media is disruptive and therefore like any disruptive technology, it is a double-edged sword.
The access to information via social media cannot go back into the toothpaste tube. We have to adapt to it.
1A Essay 3 (Essay Worth 200 Points): What Is Causing the Mass Erosion of Critical Thinking Skills?
Due as an upload on November 18.
The Assignment:
For a 1,200-word essay, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the forces that cause a societal intellectual and emotional disintegration analyzed in Jonathan Haidt’s essay “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.”
For research, you must draw from Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, “You’re Being Manipulated” by Peter Wehner, and, optionally, various works by Tristan Harris.
Suggested Outline:
Paragraph 1: Using appropriate signal phrases, summarize and paraphrase the major points of Jonathan Haidt's essay "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid."
Paragraph 2: Develop an argumentative thesis in which you support, refute, or complicate Haidt's claim.
Paragraphs 3-7: Your supporting paragraphs. At least one of your paragraphs should cite Jaron Lanier's book and another paragraph should address the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma.
Paragraph 8: Your conclusion, a dramatic restatement of your thesis.
Your last page is the Works Cited page with no fewer than 4 sources in MLA format.
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Building Block Assignment #2 for Loss of Critical Thinking Essay
Due November 11 as an upload for 25 points
Write 2 body paragraphs.
One body paragraph should connect Jonathan Haidt’s essay “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid" to a chapter from Jaron Lanier's book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.
Your second body paragraph should connect Jonathan Haidt's essay to one of the major points from the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma.
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Are We Losing American Democracy? Jonathan Haidt, Part 1
Timeline of Insanity from Haidt's Essay:
Before 2009, Facebook had given users a simple timeline––a never-ending stream of content generated by their friends and connections, with the newest posts at the top and the oldest ones at the bottom. This was often overwhelming in its volume, but it was an accurate reflection of what others were posting. That began to change in 2009, when Facebook offered users a way to publicly “like” posts with the click of a button. That same year, Twitter introduced something even more powerful: the “Retweet” button, which allowed users to publicly endorse a post while also sharing it with all of their followers. Facebook soon copied that innovation with its own “Share” button, which became available to smartphone users in 2012. “Like” and “Share” buttons quickly became standard features of most other platforms.
Shortly after its “Like” button began to produce data about what best “engaged” its users, Facebook developed algorithms to bring each user the content most likely to generate a “like” or some other interaction, eventually including the “share” as well. Later research showed that posts that trigger emotions––especially anger at out-groups––are the most likely to be shared.
By 2013, social media had become a new game, with dynamics unlike those in 2008. If you were skillful or lucky, you might create a post that would “go viral” and make you “internet famous” for a few days. If you blundered, you could find yourself buried in hateful comments. Your posts rode to fame or ignominy based on the clicks of thousands of strangers, and you in turn contributed thousands of clicks to the game.
This new game encouraged dishonesty and mob dynamics: Users were guided not just by their true preferences but by their past experiences of reward and punishment, and their prediction of how others would react to each new action. One of the engineers at Twitter who had worked on the “Retweet” button later revealed that he regretted his contribution because it had made Twitter a nastier place. As he watched Twitter mobs forming through the use of the new tool, he thought to himself, “We might have just handed a 4-year-old a loaded weapon.”
As a social psychologist who studies emotion, morality, and politics, I saw this happening too. The newly tweaked platforms were almost perfectly designed to bring out our most moralistic and least reflective selves. The volume of outrage was shocking.
“Why the Past Ten Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid”
Overview:
- We are living in a fragmented world where we disappear into rabbit holes of social-media curated reality silos. These silos or bubbles cater to our cognitive biases and pre-existing opinions. Living in a world that flatters our subjective reality makes us more stupid.
- Our societal fragmentation leads to chaos and distrust, which strengthens tribalism. Blind obedience to the tribe makes us more stupid.
- Living more and more on social media, we want popularity and attention reflected through likes, reposts, and subscribers. We don’t aspire to create legit content. Rather, we hunger for a dopamine hit of virality. The algorithms reward aggressive, extreme, and obnoxious behavior so that we can be popular with our subscribers and “friends.” In this regard, we no longer build real friendships but create parasocial (imaginary) friendships. This behavior makes us more stupid.
- We seek belonging on our social media platforms by "dunking" and "canceling" those we perceive as bad actors and this impulse to demonize others without nuance or complexity makes us stupid.
- The extremism of social media causes us to reject the epistemic reality of science, expertise and norms; instead, we live inside conspiracy anti-expertise bubbles and political purity bubbles; living inside these bubbles makes us more stupid.
- Social media floods the zone with BS. “Anything is possible; therefore, everything is equally BS.” This false moral equivalency makes us more stupid. This is also called whataboutism. “You still haven’t paid me back the five thousand dollars I lent you two years ago.” “What about the time you took a bite of my peanut butter sandwich?” Whataboutism makes us stupid.
- Social media learned that outrage sells and gets our attention and since outrage creates dopamine, social media has encouraged us to get drunk on the dopamine of outrage. As a result, we have become more stupid.
- When all social media platforms invented the like and repost buttons as ways of measuring our attention on smartphones around 2011 or 2012, according to Haidt, they began a successful behavioral modification or manipulation campaign that has changed us for the worse.
- The behavior modification is so bad that a better name for it is addiction. How bad is this addiction? The creators are so scared of the very hardware and software they produce they themselves don't use it, and they don't allow their children to use it. They follow the adage, "Don't get high on your own supply."
Thesis Examples for Essay
If McMahon Were Writing the Essay: My Approach
Jonathan Haidt makes a lot of salient points in his essay “Why the Past Ten Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.” He observes our fragmented experiences that have us in our own social media echo chambers, which reinforce our cognitive biases; our deep hatred and animosity for people who are not on “our team”; our loss of trust in institutions; our loss of shared narratives to bond us together as a whole; our replacement of real friendships with parasocial interactions; the “never-ending stream of content” that has fragmented our minds; our addiction to outrage, virtue signaling, and virality; the ubiquity of smartphone devices that are accelerants of addictive behavior; orthodox political tribalism that is more fervent than religious faith and is so virulent that many of us live to “own our political enemies”; the death of local news; the explosion of trolls in the age of extremist algorithms; the fever swamp of extremist conspiracy theories; weaponized misinformation in the service of autocrats; and a citizenry so confused they shrug their shoulders, say, “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” and surrender to nihilism and apathy.
While social media has surely been an accelerant to the above problems that pose a threat to American democracy, we would be unwise to overemphasize social media’s role. Like the Gutenberg Press in the fifteenth century, social media will be the cause of much chaos and upheaval, some good and some bad. We would be wise to see that America’s division and acrimony have been baked in long before social media from deep sources of a long-standing cultural war between the city and the country (red and blue states), a generation war between Z and the Boomers; a class war between the haves and the have-nots, and a swath of anti-social males who lacking education, economic ascent, reproductive opportunities, and hope, are drawn to populism and fascism as ways of taking revenge on their imaginary foes.
Thesis That Disagrees with the Above
While I agree with McMahon that America’s erosion of democracy and stupidification cannot entirely be laid at the hands of social media, the well-intentioned college instructor is in deep error to compare social media problems to the problems presented by the Gutenberg Press before it. Such a comparison shows that McMahon is blind to the unique crises and disasters that social media imposes on society. As Jaron Lanier, the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, and Jonathan Haidt rightly show, social media has profit-driven, built-in mechanisms and algorithms to make us stupid, addicted, narcissistic, tribalistic, and incapable of supporting a thriving democracy.
Thesis That Disagrees with Both McMahon and Writer X
Let us not toil needlessly to side with either McMahon or Writer X. Both are wrong. In fact, McMahon is partially correct when he observes that the virulent tribalism that is dividing America is a toxic cocktail of social and cultural divisions and the pathologies of social media. Moreover, Writer X is also correct to argue that social media presents unique dangers that cannot be compared to the Gutenberg Press or other disruptive technologies that have come before it. In other words, if we are to restore America’s democracy, we will have to address the built-in disasters of social media and the systemic unrest from class and cultural divisions. In case McMahon and Writer X don’t know how to do this, it’s called walking and chewing gum at the same time.
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ChatGPT Prompt:
Title: A Rebuttal of Haidt's Notion of Uniquely Stupid American Life in the Past Decade
Introduction
In his controversial essay "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid," Jonathan Haidt presents a bleak narrative of intellectual decline and societal erosion in the United States. He attributes this perceived decline to various societal and cultural factors, including the dominance of emotional reasoning over critical thinking. While Haidt's arguments have garnered significant attention, a critical examination reveals that his depiction of the past decade oversimplifies complex societal dynamics and fails to account for the multifaceted advancements and achievements that have marked American society during this period.
Counterbalancing Haidt's Pessimism: Progress and Advancement
Haidt's argument neglects the significant strides made in various sectors during the past decade. Across fields such as technology, medicine, and environmental conservation, the United States has witnessed remarkable advancements that have revolutionized human life. The rapid development of renewable energy technologies, the breakthroughs in medical research, and the innovations in space exploration are just a few examples of the intellectual and technological achievements that have shaped the last ten years. Neglecting these advancements in favor of a narrow focus on societal challenges undermines the comprehensive narrative of progress and evolution that characterizes contemporary American life.
Fluctuating Intellectual Trends and Educational Adaptations
Furthermore, the notion of a singular trajectory of intellectual decline overlooks the dynamic nature of intellectual trends and educational adaptations. While concerns about critical thinking are valid, many educational institutions have revamped their curricula to emphasize analytical skills, problem-solving, and interdisciplinary learning. Initiatives in STEM education, emphasis on critical analysis in humanities, and the growing popularity of interdisciplinary majors reflect an evolving intellectual landscape that defies Haidt's static portrayal of intellectual regression. The proliferation of online educational resources and the democratization of knowledge through digital platforms have further empowered individuals to engage with diverse intellectual content, challenging the narrative of a stagnant intellectual environment.
Socio-Cultural Resilience and Community Activism
Contrary to Haidt's pessimistic outlook, the past decade has witnessed a surge in socio-cultural resilience and community activism across the United States. Grassroots movements advocating for social justice, environmental conservation, and marginalized communities have gained significant traction, leading to tangible policy changes and societal awareness. The rise of youth-led initiatives addressing systemic inequalities, the mobilization for climate action, and the advocacy for marginalized voices reflect a vibrant and engaged civil society that defies Haidt's narrative of societal apathy and stagnation. This surge in civic engagement underscores the resilience and dynamism embedded within American communities, challenging the notion of a monolithic intellectual decline.
Conclusion
While Haidt's essay highlights genuine concerns about the intellectual and societal landscape in the United States, its myopic focus on the notion of a uniquely "stupid" decade overlooks the multifaceted advancements and societal resilience that have marked contemporary American life. By failing to acknowledge the dynamic nature of societal progress, educational adaptations, and community activism, Haidt's argument falls short of capturing the nuanced reality of the past ten years. It is crucial to recognize and celebrate the advancements and resilience that characterize American society, while simultaneously addressing the challenges and areas for improvement that persist. Only through a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted nature of contemporary America can we foster a more constructive and holistic dialogue about the trajectory of the nation's intellectual and societal development.
Social media platforms have become an integral part of modern society, revolutionizing the way individuals interact, share information, and form opinions. While these platforms have undoubtedly fostered connectivity and facilitated the dissemination of information, their design often incorporates features like "likes" and reposting functions, which subtly and insidiously manipulate billions of users. These mechanisms effectively steer users' behaviors and compromise their free will, leading to an era of mass behavior modification that warrants critical examination.
The "like" feature, ubiquitous across various social media platforms, has transcended its initial purpose of endorsing content and now serves as a potent tool for shaping human behavior. Psychologically, the act of receiving a "like" triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward. Users consequently crave this affirmation, driving them to create and share content that aligns with the popular trends or opinions. This phenomenon cultivates a culture of conformity, where individuals tailor their expressions to meet the approval of the majority. Consequently, this stifles genuine creativity and fosters a homogenized digital landscape, wherein users' authenticity is sacrificed at the altar of approval.
Moreover, the reposting or sharing function on social media platforms amplifies the potential for mass manipulation. Information, regardless of its veracity, can swiftly reach millions of users, generating a domino effect of belief and action. Malicious actors exploit this feature to disseminate misinformation, propaganda, and extremist ideologies, exploiting the vulnerability of unsuspecting users. Through the rapid circulation of polarizing or misleading content, these platforms inadvertently nurture echo chambers, reinforcing existing beliefs and prejudices rather than encouraging critical thinking and informed discourse. This perpetuates societal divisions, as users are confined within bubbles of tailored information, reinforcing their biases and limiting exposure to diverse perspectives.
Additionally, the algorithmic curation of content on these platforms perpetuates a feedback loop that sustains users' engagement. By analyzing users' behaviors and preferences, social media platforms tailor content to cater to their inclinations, thereby reinforcing existing beliefs and preferences. Consequently, users are constantly exposed to content that aligns with their preconceived notions, shielding them from alternative viewpoints and diverse opinions. This algorithmic echo chamber further entrenches users in a state of behavioral reinforcement, creating an environment where the platform dictates and shapes users' experiences, effectively eroding their capacity for independent thought and critical analysis.
The amalgamation of these features constructs a web of psychological manipulation that compromises users' free will. The need for validation and affirmation drives users to conform, stifling original thought and diversity of expression. The rapid dissemination of information, often unchecked and unverified, fuels polarization and misinformation, cultivating a populace susceptible to ideological manipulation. Furthermore, algorithmic curation perpetuates echo chambers, restricting users' exposure to diverse viewpoints and hindering their ability to form independent opinions.
In conclusion, the "like" and reposting functions, alongside algorithmic curation, have transformed social media platforms into powerful tools for mass behavior modification. Users' free will is compromised as they become unwitting participants in a system that thrives on conformity, reinforces prejudices, and restricts exposure to diverse perspectives. The ethical implications of these manipulative tactics raise critical questions about the responsibility of social media platforms and the need for robust regulatory frameworks to safeguard users' autonomy and foster a more informed and inclusive digital environment.