Media effects research was the primary topic of my graduate research, though this specific area (social media and mental health) wasn't one of the topics I studied. The fact that Ferguson did a meta-analysis, made numerous errors, and obtained the result that a possible media effect is non-significant is extremely unsurprising. He's been doing that for the past 17 years.
Social psychology has faced a reckoning in a number of problems over the past 15 years (p-hacking, replication crisis). Those are tough issues that definitely needed attention from the field. That said, it seems to be a sadly neglected issue that it's quite easy (arguably much easier) to use flawed methods to obtain a non-significant result when one wishes, for whatever reason. This is often followed by the erroneous conclusion that the effect in question therefore doesn't exist. Journal editors and reviewers, in particular, need to be more attentive to this problem. This hurts the field and the public understanding of important issues.
Wait, what? THIS is the problem in social psychology, obtaining "nonsignificant results when one wishes...followed by the erroneous conclusion that the effect in question therefore doesn't exist"? Cuz you know how much journals LOVE to publish studies that show non-significant results. That's why good meta-analyses include file drawer analysis.
Why do you think there is a replicating crisis in the first place?
Like any scholarly field, social psychology doesn't have just one problem. I already acknowledged p-hacking and the replication crisis as problems - this is also a problem. P-hacking doesn't necessarily mean shifting the results towards statistical significance - it can and does work (more easily, in fact) to shift the results towards non-significance. There's certainly a bias against publishing non-significant results. It would be great if non-significant findings were given a proper interpretation and were then easy to publish. Instead, they often get published in less prestigious journals. Perhaps this also explains why they can get away with erroneous interpretations and methodological flaws. If you think such work doesn't get published, I'd encourage you to spend a few minutes going through Ferguson's publications.
I truly appreciate your efforts to investigate this phenomena. I work in Mental Health, and am very concerned about the effect that social media is having on our youth.
So, what was Ferguson's motivation for skewing his meta-analysis to minimize the impact of social media on mental health? You never explicitly state that, but you imply it all over the place, by stating that all his mistakes went in one direction. Does he work for a big social media firm? I mean, I understand your motivation for criticizing it---he's challenging your money topic. But what is his motivation?
I don't expect Haidt or Stein to publicly speculate about opposing academics' motivations, and I'm quite glad that they don't.
I think that After Babel's purpose for emphasizing the alignment of Ferguson's errors is to emphasize how tenuous his conclusion is. If the errors were evenly split in each direction, then his meta-analysis would be less powerful, but his conclusion might still be correct.
In Italy currently the association of pedagogists supported by famous actors has launched a petition to stop smartphone below 14 and Social media below 16 and now with 56.000 signatures is already addressed by the Senate Commission -
I want to take this opportunity to thank from the bottom of my heart Prof Jonathan Haidt who is in all Italian Major newspaper because with his book Anxious Generation he unleashed a national debate overcoming Zuckerberg Wall of distractions.
You are together with the precious intellectually honest people around you a Major source of Hope.
Media effects research was the primary topic of my graduate research, though this specific area (social media and mental health) wasn't one of the topics I studied. The fact that Ferguson did a meta-analysis, made numerous errors, and obtained the result that a possible media effect is non-significant is extremely unsurprising. He's been doing that for the past 17 years.
Social psychology has faced a reckoning in a number of problems over the past 15 years (p-hacking, replication crisis). Those are tough issues that definitely needed attention from the field. That said, it seems to be a sadly neglected issue that it's quite easy (arguably much easier) to use flawed methods to obtain a non-significant result when one wishes, for whatever reason. This is often followed by the erroneous conclusion that the effect in question therefore doesn't exist. Journal editors and reviewers, in particular, need to be more attentive to this problem. This hurts the field and the public understanding of important issues.
Wait, what? THIS is the problem in social psychology, obtaining "nonsignificant results when one wishes...followed by the erroneous conclusion that the effect in question therefore doesn't exist"? Cuz you know how much journals LOVE to publish studies that show non-significant results. That's why good meta-analyses include file drawer analysis.
Why do you think there is a replicating crisis in the first place?
Like any scholarly field, social psychology doesn't have just one problem. I already acknowledged p-hacking and the replication crisis as problems - this is also a problem. P-hacking doesn't necessarily mean shifting the results towards statistical significance - it can and does work (more easily, in fact) to shift the results towards non-significance. There's certainly a bias against publishing non-significant results. It would be great if non-significant findings were given a proper interpretation and were then easy to publish. Instead, they often get published in less prestigious journals. Perhaps this also explains why they can get away with erroneous interpretations and methodological flaws. If you think such work doesn't get published, I'd encourage you to spend a few minutes going through Ferguson's publications.
Preventing children from accessing smartphones is well and good, but more ambitious solutions to this problem may be necessary:
https://swiftenterprises.substack.com/p/computational-independence
Now this is real science. Thank you.
I truly appreciate your efforts to investigate this phenomena. I work in Mental Health, and am very concerned about the effect that social media is having on our youth.
So, what was Ferguson's motivation for skewing his meta-analysis to minimize the impact of social media on mental health? You never explicitly state that, but you imply it all over the place, by stating that all his mistakes went in one direction. Does he work for a big social media firm? I mean, I understand your motivation for criticizing it---he's challenging your money topic. But what is his motivation?
I don't expect Haidt or Stein to publicly speculate about opposing academics' motivations, and I'm quite glad that they don't.
I think that After Babel's purpose for emphasizing the alignment of Ferguson's errors is to emphasize how tenuous his conclusion is. If the errors were evenly split in each direction, then his meta-analysis would be less powerful, but his conclusion might still be correct.
Even anecdotally, it is clear and obvious to me that the less time I spend on social media, the better my mood is.
In Italy currently the association of pedagogists supported by famous actors has launched a petition to stop smartphone below 14 and Social media below 16 and now with 56.000 signatures is already addressed by the Senate Commission -
I want to take this opportunity to thank from the bottom of my heart Prof Jonathan Haidt who is in all Italian Major newspaper because with his book Anxious Generation he unleashed a national debate overcoming Zuckerberg Wall of distractions.
You are together with the precious intellectually honest people around you a Major source of Hope.
https://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2024/10/03/news/jonathan_haidt_libro_generazione_ansiosa_restituiamo_il_gioco_ai_nostri_figli-423534319/
https://www.corriere.it/cultura/24_settembre_01/social-l-adolescenza-rovina-ragazzi-oggi-sempre-connessi-quindi-depressi-angosciati-0783e332-6888-11ef-9aeb-f3c12d704d0d.shtml
https://www.orizzontescuola.it/stop-ai-cellulari-ai-minori-il-libro-di-jonathan-haidt-scatena-il-dibattito-niente-smartphone-fino-al-liceo-niente-social-prima-dei-16-anni-scuole-senza-telefoni/
Grazie di cuore Professore! Many blessings
Excellent clarification points - we Need so basly Accuracy and precision... two more collateral casualties of SM rewiring.
Thank you for your commitment to the Truth.
The spirit of Ancel Keys lives on.