The push for a ban comes from the Murdoch Media inciting a moral panic. Albanese, in my mind, saw an opportunity to curry favour with Murdoch (a forlorn quest) and the broader lower middle and working class voting population who do have genuine concerns (not ones I share, well not to the extent that a ban is the solution) about social media.
It is hard not to read some deep cynisicism into this. Albanese knows that, to the extent it works at all, it will not make any difference to the mental health of young people. All it will do is create a politically useful illusion for their concerned parents. Today we hear that fact checking on Meta will stop. Despite the damage that will do, don't hold your breath for any action to address it.
The increasing anxiety and depression trend began near the beginning of this century. The research on causation is ambiguous and there are a number of hypotheses being explored. I'm cautious about the extent of the increase because most diagnoses are made by GPs and the standards appear to have softened. Saving Normal by Allen Frances(2013), a book by the head of the DSM IV taskforce, argues that diagnostic expansion has become a problem. Despite free access to psychological services and medication the trend continues. That old saying about doing the same thing and expecting a different result😉? The social media ban is a vote catcher not a problem solver.
Depression is particularly problematic in terms of diagnosis. Sadness in response to external events isn't supposed to count, but it's hard to see how this distinction can be made to work, when external events have been so awful since the turn of the century
"Critics have argued that removal of the bereavement exclusion will “medicalize” *ordinary grief* and encourage over-prescription of antidepressants" (emphasis added)
Recent generations have to jump through many more hoops than my generation. I knew people working in abattoirs saving up for a house, at 22 years old I bought as top of the line 1,000cc motorcycle, where I lived you could walk up to a factory gate with a reasonable chance of employment. The poor tykes now live with chronic employment and housing insecurity, must keep upskilling, and were told that if they do the hard yards they too can own a big home, fine house, raise a family, and have overseas holiday. Twas all bollocks, they were lied too throughout their developmental years.
TBF, and assuming we are Australian and of similar ages, there was no such thing as an "overseas holiday". There was "going to England", something that you might do once, and might or might not return from.
There's one word that seems to be used exclusively by the new right in New Zealand, "woke". It seems if they can't find a genuine fault with something they regard as left wing, they call it or the writer "woke".
Haidt always gets a free pass. But that seems to be the case for any conservative skilled at respectability politics. Traditional media will lap up anything, as long as it is presented with a sufficiently grave and scholarly mien, especially if the product is sensational enough.
I'm old enough to remember the favorable reception of the works of Charles Murray and John Lott.
The push for a ban comes from the Murdoch Media inciting a moral panic. Albanese, in my mind, saw an opportunity to curry favour with Murdoch (a forlorn quest) and the broader lower middle and working class voting population who do have genuine concerns (not ones I share, well not to the extent that a ban is the solution) about social media.
It is hard not to read some deep cynisicism into this. Albanese knows that, to the extent it works at all, it will not make any difference to the mental health of young people. All it will do is create a politically useful illusion for their concerned parents. Today we hear that fact checking on Meta will stop. Despite the damage that will do, don't hold your breath for any action to address it.
The increasing anxiety and depression trend began near the beginning of this century. The research on causation is ambiguous and there are a number of hypotheses being explored. I'm cautious about the extent of the increase because most diagnoses are made by GPs and the standards appear to have softened. Saving Normal by Allen Frances(2013), a book by the head of the DSM IV taskforce, argues that diagnostic expansion has become a problem. Despite free access to psychological services and medication the trend continues. That old saying about doing the same thing and expecting a different result😉? The social media ban is a vote catcher not a problem solver.
Depression is particularly problematic in terms of diagnosis. Sadness in response to external events isn't supposed to count, but it's hard to see how this distinction can be made to work, when external events have been so awful since the turn of the century
>”Sadness in response to external events isn't supposed to count”
Is that true? I thought it was pretty standard that external events did not exclude a depression diagnosis.
DSM-5 even removed the “bereavement exclusion”:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4204469/
"Critics have argued that removal of the bereavement exclusion will “medicalize” *ordinary grief* and encourage over-prescription of antidepressants" (emphasis added)
Right, and those "critics" don't represent the view of mainstream psychiatry. (If they did, the bereavement exclusion would have stayed in the DSM.)
Don't think we are going to resolve this in a comments thread
Recent generations have to jump through many more hoops than my generation. I knew people working in abattoirs saving up for a house, at 22 years old I bought as top of the line 1,000cc motorcycle, where I lived you could walk up to a factory gate with a reasonable chance of employment. The poor tykes now live with chronic employment and housing insecurity, must keep upskilling, and were told that if they do the hard yards they too can own a big home, fine house, raise a family, and have overseas holiday. Twas all bollocks, they were lied too throughout their developmental years.
TBF, and assuming we are Australian and of similar ages, there was no such thing as an "overseas holiday". There was "going to England", something that you might do once, and might or might not return from.
There's one word that seems to be used exclusively by the new right in New Zealand, "woke". It seems if they can't find a genuine fault with something they regard as left wing, they call it or the writer "woke".
Haidt always gets a free pass. But that seems to be the case for any conservative skilled at respectability politics. Traditional media will lap up anything, as long as it is presented with a sufficiently grave and scholarly mien, especially if the product is sensational enough.
I'm old enough to remember the favorable reception of the works of Charles Murray and John Lott.
You might take a look at Jack Balkin on this, eg https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3484114 He teaches Con Law at Yale, so he is very high up the pecking order in his field. The approach seems sensible.
Balkin was a prominent lawblogger back in the day, always worth reading