Jon, there was and remains a glaring hole in your research: Your unwillingness to touch how harmful social media has been in convincing LGB teens that they're T or Q. The trans movement got only the briefest mention in The Anxious Generation. I get it; transactivists are vicious and you don't want to subject yourself or your family to rape and death threats. But it's really, really hard to read you debating the pros and cons of social media for LGBTQ kids when it's done so much demonstrable harm in promoting kiddie sex change operations, for which there is pretty damn little hard science behind it. You must know this by now. Eighty percent of so-called 'trans kids' are simply gay, which makes 'gender affirming care' progressive gay conversion. And all this shit started on social media. Like I said, I get your reticence to address it, but it's a major hypocrisy in your work.
Came here to say the same thing. The "T" is definitely still a third rail that many are afraid to go anywhere near. It is a social contagion that got its hold through social media. There are many harms of social media, but only one that tells kids they are in the wrong body and the only remedy is permanent sterilization.
Nobody is willing to address it even it warrants investigation, it's political taboo at best and social suicide at worst. Again, the vast majority of LGBTQ+ teens are LGB, and their mental health outcomes are terrible. The T and Q portion of the banner are not what it is responsible for the poor mental health exhibited by LGBTQ+ youth and it seems unfair to hold the trans youth movement responsible (which is not to say that they don't have responsibilities elsewhere).
You've also made a jump in your logic when you conclude that social media is somehow only capable of convincing teens to be T or Q and that somehow it is impossible to become LGB via social media. Again, as newsworthy and sensational as the trans youth movement is, the majority of suffering from LGBTQ+ youth is amongst its LGB identities.
The "T" kids have the worst mental health of the group. I've seen something like 75-80% suffer from depression. Most have other comorbidities as well such as autism that make them more susceptible to the influence that something is wrong with their bodies. We keep getting to that we need to "affirm" them for the sake of their mental health, but the stats get worse once you do.
I don't think that the suggestion was that a kid can't be convinced to be LGB, but that the ones that are being pushed to take it further.
That may be, but I will say this again: 24.1% of high school students are LGBTQ+, but only a small percentage of high school students identify as transgender. Even if you remove the transgender population from the data group entirely, the remaining LGBQ+ youth still fare extremely poorly in comparison to their straight peers. We've shown this definitively in our graphing of the CES 2022 dataset.
The Cass review, published earlier this year, is regarded one of the most extensive reviews on the subject of youth gender dysphoria. They did not conclude that affirmation in and of itself was necessarily harmful, but rather that blind affirmation is not a panacea.
What you are also doing is conflating sexual and gender identity. Transgenderism wouldn't be an evolution of an LGB identity, but something separate. For instance, there are teens who identify as transgender and straight as well as teens who identify as transgender and gay/lesbian. Additionally, there might be a bisexual teen who identifies as bigender, agender, genderfluid, or one of the many other gender identities used beyond cis. and trans. Point being that there is overlap between sexual orientation and gender identity, so you can't necessarily detach the T from LGB because it and other gender identities are entrenched in the LGB sexualities (and even the straight identity).
I have seen that stat and I am highly skeptical that. For the past 50 years, something like 3-5% of population has been in that category and now all of a sudden it jumps to almost 25%? I think it is a sign of the declining mental health and kids are latching on to these alternative identities as a way to try to feel better. Adding all these additional categories is a way to keep pushing the envelope. Gay isn't good enough, so go to bi or asexual to trans who is gay? It's ridiculous. What comes first, the poor mental health or the LGBT?
3-5% is approximate number for older generations like Gen X, but the percentage seems to be trending upwards in an exponential phase right now. With Millennials that number grew to 9.8% and now it is well over 22.3% for the elder members of Gen Z. Being skeptical on this issue is quite frankly wishful thinking, these numbers are corroborated by a wide variety of sources and surveys and the trend is paralleled in other countries across the world.
You are definitely right that this is a bit of chicken vs. egg situation when it comes to untangling the connection between LGBTQ+ status and poor mental health.
What I mean is that are they really bisexual, gay, etc or they just saying that because it makes them feel a certain way? The stats were very consistent until recently. I also wonder where that survey was conducted? I work at a small private college and I know our population is nowhere near 25% in that group.
I didn't say social media was the only thing capable of convincing teens they were anything other than their conception sex and their sexual preference--but SM's role in influencing children, esp in regard to fads, is long and well-documented, such as the anorexia cult that sprung up on SM many years before this. Lisa Littman's paper delves into this. I don't believe 'trans' is something that genuinely affects more than tiny percentage of people - perhaps about as many who are genuinely afflicted with DSD (the new 'cool' genetic affliction to keep men on women's sports teams, although it is a real anomaly - once again, one needs a test, though, to *prove it). TQ has nothing to do with LGB apart from being the 'cure' for it. Frankly, we dont' really need much of an LGB movement anymore, they've accomplished most of what they wanted. All the major issues, anyway. TQ needs to go off and do their own thing but we need to have many adult conversations about male bodies where they don't belong. Trans rights are *men's* rights. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Agreed that SM is exerting a great deal of influence. Well kids are naturally highly impressionable to whatever is placed before them, which is currently a lot of SM. I've said above that TQ+ identities are not contingent upon LGB identification, there are transgender youth who orient themselves as straight. Non-cis gender identities are not exclusive to non-heterosexual sexual orientations. As bizarre and alien as this might sound for some, this doesn't change the fact that many other groups take this as a fundamental truth. My point was that your original comment seemed to imply that social media wasn't playing a role in the development of a teen's LGB identity, for which today's LGB youth, who represent most of the LGBTQ+ population, are suffering disproportionately more than their peers. We'll probably have to wait for the 2023 YRBS data released either later this year or early next year before a more complete portrait of transgender high school students can be established, especially in relation to other LGBTQ+ youth.
If one is to suggest that the bloom of LGBTQ+ identity is a "fad" then one would likewise expect a reduction of LGBTQ+ identification once the fad ends. This does not seem to be the case given that Millennials have kept that number stable at ~10% approaching near two decades since the launch of sites like Tumblr. So how can it then be reasonable to expect the 24.1% of high school students who are non-heterosexual to diminish with time? That the 2021 high school sexual assaults in Loudoun County were not a watershed moment on this issue, and are rather largely forgotten, seems to indicate that high school policies on these issues will stay the course.
A lot of detransitioners report being fed stories of happiness after medical transition that misled them into thinking they needed medical transition to be happy. Kids who no longer identify as trans sometimes report that being trans was suggested to them as the reason for their distress and then that they were deluged with stories only of people who had good outcomes.
There is a drive to belong for young people and it manipulates them into thinking they need these medical interventions. Of course if the US MDs were actually following the evidence like the international community it wouldn't be a problem as they would be told by the professionals that actually it's unclear what the best options are if you feel you are trans. The rise in trans identification appears to track that of social media use in English speaking countries.
LGB is not about medical transition.
Q is not a disadvantaged group that requires special treatment, is it?
Statistically, this if not reflected. Transgender identifications are already in the minority when compared to LGB identifications that make up the vast majority of the LGBTQ+ population. Even dropping the Transgender demographic your results would largely be the same, the LGB population still has strikingly poor mental health.
Also Q is more of an umbrella term to include for smaller minority and marginalized sexual identities. It's a bit redundant if you keep the + because that's also supposed to represent the other identities, but they didn't put me in charge of the acronym. In Canada it's even longer, they sometimes use 2SLGBTQIA+.
That tech CEO restrict their kids’ access sats everything you need to know. Look at what people do, not what they say. And call them out on it until they run out of BS.
People in the left want to advance their political agenda more than they want to reduce harm in minorities,not the majority but at least big players in politics,if LGBT have higher chance to receive sexual harassment that's a strong talking point for them,and they would happily 'martyr' those people to reduce discrimination in the aftermath.Stats proving benefits of reduction in social media use are likely to strengthen their position that society is the problem,not the apps,and isn't likely to get them on board.Hope I am wrong here
Not to be overtly cynical here, but have you considered that these kids make a lot of money? Whether it'd be anti-anxiety meds, weekly therapy, surgery, or chronic-health treatments, you make a lot more money off of kids in poor health than those with great health.
Obviously this line of thinking is appalling, but certain parties think it nonetheless. The other issue with political grandstanding is that often parties don't address issues so that they can be campaigned off of. Perpetuation of the charade that it is the worst time to be LGBTQ+ is what in part is driving some of the growing resentment.
If i remember correctly Haidt had some data showing worse mental health in teens from high class households,it is a somewhat conspiratorial take but when money is involved ppl get really selfish
I don't know which piece of data you're talking about specifically, but from the Gimbrone et al. (2022) figures Haidt has often shown, parental education only seems to slightly reduce depressive affect. Rather this data indicates that kids who come from families with less educated parents have worse mental health.
There are certainly parties that have no financial incentive to ameliorate the current situation. To even admit that their products or services might be partially responsible is to possibly incur financial risk in addition to opening up yourself for potential culpability.
Listeners of National Public Radio need a comparable bill to protect them from the incessant grooming they receive with the majority of NPR news stories involving a trans-sexual or homosexual in some way, generally unnecessarily in the listener's face.
It isn't because many of NPR's listeners are more subject to grooming and normalization of queerdom than those who don't listen to it. Most of the children who listen to NPR do so because their parents are, lending legitimacy to it that it would not otherwise benefit from.
I'm skeptical as to how much of the LGBTQ+ mental health crisis you could ascribe to NPR, although if you have substantive data I would be more than willing to see it. I am more inclined to agree on the front that NPR may play a role in watering down these topics for older generations to accept.
I'm not attempting to ascribe any of the LGBTQ+ mental health crisis to anyone.
I'm merely pointing out that NPR has been including mentions of LGBTQ+ in almost every story they report on their programs. NPR is attempting to normalize LGBTQ+ for the 90% of the population who are not associated with it.
If you want proof of my premise, feel free to listen to any NPR news program and note their continual mentions of women's wives and men's husbands, in the course of stories where such makes no difference to the story.
But isn't everyone doing that though? Not even just newspapers and media outlets, but there are elementary schools that start teaching the nomenclature quite early on. LGBTQ+ normalization is being performed and has been performed by far more than just NPR, who I don't disagree is doing it.
The idea behind such mentions, whether you agree with idea or not, is to normalize the idea that women and men can have both wives and husbands, something not fully accepted by all annals of society, which is entailed by the legalization of same-sex marriage.
It is extremely telling that the people making these platforms restrict their use for their own children. Just like the tobacco executives, they know the truth but are lying to our faces.
Social media distorts children’s (and vulnerable adults) perception of the world. It’s completely unsurprising that body dysmorphia and self harm has become so prevalent among girls. And this definitely applies to the “TQ+” in “LGBTQ+”. The entire transgender craze is a technologically driven cult of body dysmorphia. It has affected not just the victims but a large fraction of bystanders pretending to be “kind” for social credit. Supposedly rational adults suddenly claim that it is normal to be able to self identify as whatever (can I self-identify as Tom Cruise, or a rooster, or a chimera of both, and be taken seriously?) It is ridiculous - the emperor is buck naked, but all the addicts on Meta and Reddit are busy praising his outfit.
Protecting vulnerable youth? The precise opposite is true, they are ruthlessly exploiting them. The only benefit is to the social media companies, who will remain unable to see a problem as long as the money keeps rolling in.
For the record, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz think kids should be able to get sex changes. Walz made MN a trans kid sanctuary and the state can take your kid if you don't "affirm". I don't care what their record is on any other issue. This is a position I cannot support.
A careless oversimplification at best, isn't it? Maybe useful though as an example of the way we often throw aside the basic responsibilities of research and reasoning in our zeal to protect innocence. QAnon claims to protect children, and a recent book The Quiet Damage talks about families torn apart by their conspiracy theories. Anyone here old enough to remember the McMartin trial of the mid-eighties? One of many such excesses in that era. Some sinister factions hide behind the pretense that they are protecting children. They count on us to give a quick and easy pass to their claims. Where so much is at stake, we cannot let disinformation slip past us unexamined.
Is it though? It's not a conspiracy theory that people in the Democrat party are pushing this stuff, including the two defacto leaders of the party right now. Walz signed the law in MN allowing kids to received puberty blockers and surgery. The law also allows the state to take custody of kids to give them these "treatments" as well. I don't think there is a comparison to QAnon here. The facts are there. The Democrats claim they are saving kids and providing "life saving care", but the data don't support it.
Hi. Allow families and their doctors and their children to seek care, I think you mean? A political party does not provide such care, or push it, or (I would hope) interfere in it. It stands aside and leaves such choices to us. Minnesota has a proud history of top medical care that draws people from far away. In this case the state offers a haven to people from states that interfere in family and personal decisions. Puberty blockers differ from surgery. They postpone bigger decisions (such as surgery) until a teen is older and better able to decide. Harris and Walz are two different candidates from different regions with different histories and policies. We don't want to stir all these many different things together into one, right? This is worth getting clear and getting right.
One person's "care" is another's medical experiment. The messaging around puberty blockers as some temporary pause so the child can decide is totally inaccurate. Sterilization, impaired growth, bone density issues, mental and emotional effects are very common. They don't fix anything and the data shows that things get worse after intervention. There is a reason that most countries have stopped allowing these drugs to be used. The US is an outlier in letting this occur. It is activism, not medicine.
Good point, thanks. How do we (or legislators) know this? From doctors. From medical science. Doctors will also warn families of this, before the rest of us hear of it. That's where the decision belongs, between doctors and families, where the best information surfaces first. Not with legislators who know only second-hand, and make a single blunt-force decision for all the different families and cases that happen to fall within a map territory. Right, let's keep activism out of it, whether for or against.
" Even worse, the industry had claimed that smoking made people healthier—by reducing anxiety, say, or slimming."
But smoking DOES reduce anxiety and keep weight down. That doesn't mean people should smoke, but the statement is true.
Now, show me the advertiser who DOESN'T blow things out of proportion. It's kind of their job to do that. Seen any political ads lately? I rest my case.
If you want to protect kids, please consider that this legislation protects internet media companies from the only successful liability cases based on product defect. Specifically, cases which argue that contrary to the presumption that Internet Media Companies have no control over user content, behind Section 230 exemption from liability, in some cases Internet Media companies do identify, target and amplify content.
This legislation will protect the Internet Media Company from liability when the kids lie about their age, opt-out of the bill’s censorship of kid inappropriate content and parental monitoring.
Yes, one of the big issues with legislative efforts like these is that if you don't get it right the first time, you probably won't be afforded another bill to fix any mistakes you might have pushed through.
What about the kids whose parents are too busy or are disinterested/unbothered/harmful towards their child's development? The amount of kids growing up in supportive two parent households is only decreasing.
All very fine, but still nothing about the actual physical harm done by wireless radiation. Why not? Look at the Environmental Health Trust, CEO the electronics engineer Prof Kent Chamberlain. Look at PHIRE, run by a specialist in Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. Look at Safer EMR. Look at the Bioinitiative and so much more!
Do we really believe that choices made by legislators are better-motivated than choices made by tech leaders who have built free-market media? Better than comparing such laws to tobacco bans, compare them to abortion bans. Choices surrendered to tech media can be escaped or later retrieved, unlike choices surrendered to legislators. Each person and each family can avoid TikTok or whatever. No one can avoid the laws passed by the legislature. I don't trust officials claiming to protect children. Protections that target and restrict the adult population at large? No thanks. Who benefits? Would-be tyrants above all. If we don't trust teens to make good choices, shall we trust them to know who has caused their distress? I side with liberty left to each family, each parent, each child, knowing the risks. Leave the responsibility to them. To each of us.
So no age limits on alcohol use, driver’s licenses, etc? I’m all for liberty but there are some things that need restrictions, especially to protect minors. The tech companies use algorithms to hook, to addict the users. These devices and social media are so powerful that a child, one without a fully developed prefrontal cortex, cannot be expected to be able to control on their own, without the assistance of adults. Kids are kids for such a short finite period. We should do everything we can as adults to allow them to be kids for as long as possible! I am for legislation to protect kids from big tech, social media overload.
Good point, thanks. Should have suggested we let each family decide for its own children, though that has problems too, and has not worked well with abortion decisions.
Exactly, WE need to tell people what to do because YOU know better. Meanwhile your grandchildren are broke and your grandson thinks he is a girl. Parent your children and leave mine alone.
Jon, there was and remains a glaring hole in your research: Your unwillingness to touch how harmful social media has been in convincing LGB teens that they're T or Q. The trans movement got only the briefest mention in The Anxious Generation. I get it; transactivists are vicious and you don't want to subject yourself or your family to rape and death threats. But it's really, really hard to read you debating the pros and cons of social media for LGBTQ kids when it's done so much demonstrable harm in promoting kiddie sex change operations, for which there is pretty damn little hard science behind it. You must know this by now. Eighty percent of so-called 'trans kids' are simply gay, which makes 'gender affirming care' progressive gay conversion. And all this shit started on social media. Like I said, I get your reticence to address it, but it's a major hypocrisy in your work.
Came here to say the same thing. The "T" is definitely still a third rail that many are afraid to go anywhere near. It is a social contagion that got its hold through social media. There are many harms of social media, but only one that tells kids they are in the wrong body and the only remedy is permanent sterilization.
Nobody is willing to address it even it warrants investigation, it's political taboo at best and social suicide at worst. Again, the vast majority of LGBTQ+ teens are LGB, and their mental health outcomes are terrible. The T and Q portion of the banner are not what it is responsible for the poor mental health exhibited by LGBTQ+ youth and it seems unfair to hold the trans youth movement responsible (which is not to say that they don't have responsibilities elsewhere).
You've also made a jump in your logic when you conclude that social media is somehow only capable of convincing teens to be T or Q and that somehow it is impossible to become LGB via social media. Again, as newsworthy and sensational as the trans youth movement is, the majority of suffering from LGBTQ+ youth is amongst its LGB identities.
The "T" kids have the worst mental health of the group. I've seen something like 75-80% suffer from depression. Most have other comorbidities as well such as autism that make them more susceptible to the influence that something is wrong with their bodies. We keep getting to that we need to "affirm" them for the sake of their mental health, but the stats get worse once you do.
I don't think that the suggestion was that a kid can't be convinced to be LGB, but that the ones that are being pushed to take it further.
That may be, but I will say this again: 24.1% of high school students are LGBTQ+, but only a small percentage of high school students identify as transgender. Even if you remove the transgender population from the data group entirely, the remaining LGBQ+ youth still fare extremely poorly in comparison to their straight peers. We've shown this definitively in our graphing of the CES 2022 dataset.
The Cass review, published earlier this year, is regarded one of the most extensive reviews on the subject of youth gender dysphoria. They did not conclude that affirmation in and of itself was necessarily harmful, but rather that blind affirmation is not a panacea.
What you are also doing is conflating sexual and gender identity. Transgenderism wouldn't be an evolution of an LGB identity, but something separate. For instance, there are teens who identify as transgender and straight as well as teens who identify as transgender and gay/lesbian. Additionally, there might be a bisexual teen who identifies as bigender, agender, genderfluid, or one of the many other gender identities used beyond cis. and trans. Point being that there is overlap between sexual orientation and gender identity, so you can't necessarily detach the T from LGB because it and other gender identities are entrenched in the LGB sexualities (and even the straight identity).
I have seen that stat and I am highly skeptical that. For the past 50 years, something like 3-5% of population has been in that category and now all of a sudden it jumps to almost 25%? I think it is a sign of the declining mental health and kids are latching on to these alternative identities as a way to try to feel better. Adding all these additional categories is a way to keep pushing the envelope. Gay isn't good enough, so go to bi or asexual to trans who is gay? It's ridiculous. What comes first, the poor mental health or the LGBT?
3-5% is approximate number for older generations like Gen X, but the percentage seems to be trending upwards in an exponential phase right now. With Millennials that number grew to 9.8% and now it is well over 22.3% for the elder members of Gen Z. Being skeptical on this issue is quite frankly wishful thinking, these numbers are corroborated by a wide variety of sources and surveys and the trend is paralleled in other countries across the world.
You are definitely right that this is a bit of chicken vs. egg situation when it comes to untangling the connection between LGBTQ+ status and poor mental health.
What I mean is that are they really bisexual, gay, etc or they just saying that because it makes them feel a certain way? The stats were very consistent until recently. I also wonder where that survey was conducted? I work at a small private college and I know our population is nowhere near 25% in that group.
I didn't say social media was the only thing capable of convincing teens they were anything other than their conception sex and their sexual preference--but SM's role in influencing children, esp in regard to fads, is long and well-documented, such as the anorexia cult that sprung up on SM many years before this. Lisa Littman's paper delves into this. I don't believe 'trans' is something that genuinely affects more than tiny percentage of people - perhaps about as many who are genuinely afflicted with DSD (the new 'cool' genetic affliction to keep men on women's sports teams, although it is a real anomaly - once again, one needs a test, though, to *prove it). TQ has nothing to do with LGB apart from being the 'cure' for it. Frankly, we dont' really need much of an LGB movement anymore, they've accomplished most of what they wanted. All the major issues, anyway. TQ needs to go off and do their own thing but we need to have many adult conversations about male bodies where they don't belong. Trans rights are *men's* rights. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Agreed that SM is exerting a great deal of influence. Well kids are naturally highly impressionable to whatever is placed before them, which is currently a lot of SM. I've said above that TQ+ identities are not contingent upon LGB identification, there are transgender youth who orient themselves as straight. Non-cis gender identities are not exclusive to non-heterosexual sexual orientations. As bizarre and alien as this might sound for some, this doesn't change the fact that many other groups take this as a fundamental truth. My point was that your original comment seemed to imply that social media wasn't playing a role in the development of a teen's LGB identity, for which today's LGB youth, who represent most of the LGBTQ+ population, are suffering disproportionately more than their peers. We'll probably have to wait for the 2023 YRBS data released either later this year or early next year before a more complete portrait of transgender high school students can be established, especially in relation to other LGBTQ+ youth.
If one is to suggest that the bloom of LGBTQ+ identity is a "fad" then one would likewise expect a reduction of LGBTQ+ identification once the fad ends. This does not seem to be the case given that Millennials have kept that number stable at ~10% approaching near two decades since the launch of sites like Tumblr. So how can it then be reasonable to expect the 24.1% of high school students who are non-heterosexual to diminish with time? That the 2021 high school sexual assaults in Loudoun County were not a watershed moment on this issue, and are rather largely forgotten, seems to indicate that high school policies on these issues will stay the course.
I think it's good to separate LGB and T.
A lot of detransitioners report being fed stories of happiness after medical transition that misled them into thinking they needed medical transition to be happy. Kids who no longer identify as trans sometimes report that being trans was suggested to them as the reason for their distress and then that they were deluged with stories only of people who had good outcomes.
There is a drive to belong for young people and it manipulates them into thinking they need these medical interventions. Of course if the US MDs were actually following the evidence like the international community it wouldn't be a problem as they would be told by the professionals that actually it's unclear what the best options are if you feel you are trans. The rise in trans identification appears to track that of social media use in English speaking countries.
LGB is not about medical transition.
Q is not a disadvantaged group that requires special treatment, is it?
Statistically, this if not reflected. Transgender identifications are already in the minority when compared to LGB identifications that make up the vast majority of the LGBTQ+ population. Even dropping the Transgender demographic your results would largely be the same, the LGB population still has strikingly poor mental health.
Also Q is more of an umbrella term to include for smaller minority and marginalized sexual identities. It's a bit redundant if you keep the + because that's also supposed to represent the other identities, but they didn't put me in charge of the acronym. In Canada it's even longer, they sometimes use 2SLGBTQIA+.
Thanks for publishing the full article here for those who cannot access it on The Atlantic site.
That tech CEO restrict their kids’ access sats everything you need to know. Look at what people do, not what they say. And call them out on it until they run out of BS.
Unless tech CEOs as highly visible public figures face different threats than most of us?
People in the left want to advance their political agenda more than they want to reduce harm in minorities,not the majority but at least big players in politics,if LGBT have higher chance to receive sexual harassment that's a strong talking point for them,and they would happily 'martyr' those people to reduce discrimination in the aftermath.Stats proving benefits of reduction in social media use are likely to strengthen their position that society is the problem,not the apps,and isn't likely to get them on board.Hope I am wrong here
Not to be overtly cynical here, but have you considered that these kids make a lot of money? Whether it'd be anti-anxiety meds, weekly therapy, surgery, or chronic-health treatments, you make a lot more money off of kids in poor health than those with great health.
Obviously this line of thinking is appalling, but certain parties think it nonetheless. The other issue with political grandstanding is that often parties don't address issues so that they can be campaigned off of. Perpetuation of the charade that it is the worst time to be LGBTQ+ is what in part is driving some of the growing resentment.
If i remember correctly Haidt had some data showing worse mental health in teens from high class households,it is a somewhat conspiratorial take but when money is involved ppl get really selfish
I don't know which piece of data you're talking about specifically, but from the Gimbrone et al. (2022) figures Haidt has often shown, parental education only seems to slightly reduce depressive affect. Rather this data indicates that kids who come from families with less educated parents have worse mental health.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8713953/figure/F2/
There are certainly parties that have no financial incentive to ameliorate the current situation. To even admit that their products or services might be partially responsible is to possibly incur financial risk in addition to opening up yourself for potential culpability.
Listeners of National Public Radio need a comparable bill to protect them from the incessant grooming they receive with the majority of NPR news stories involving a trans-sexual or homosexual in some way, generally unnecessarily in the listener's face.
NPR? You let that crap in your house??
I haven't owned a house since 1982.
Well if it's any consolation, kids aren't likely to be listening to NPR if they have the choice. Their parents might.
It isn't because many of NPR's listeners are more subject to grooming and normalization of queerdom than those who don't listen to it. Most of the children who listen to NPR do so because their parents are, lending legitimacy to it that it would not otherwise benefit from.
I'm skeptical as to how much of the LGBTQ+ mental health crisis you could ascribe to NPR, although if you have substantive data I would be more than willing to see it. I am more inclined to agree on the front that NPR may play a role in watering down these topics for older generations to accept.
I'm not attempting to ascribe any of the LGBTQ+ mental health crisis to anyone.
I'm merely pointing out that NPR has been including mentions of LGBTQ+ in almost every story they report on their programs. NPR is attempting to normalize LGBTQ+ for the 90% of the population who are not associated with it.
If you want proof of my premise, feel free to listen to any NPR news program and note their continual mentions of women's wives and men's husbands, in the course of stories where such makes no difference to the story.
But isn't everyone doing that though? Not even just newspapers and media outlets, but there are elementary schools that start teaching the nomenclature quite early on. LGBTQ+ normalization is being performed and has been performed by far more than just NPR, who I don't disagree is doing it.
The idea behind such mentions, whether you agree with idea or not, is to normalize the idea that women and men can have both wives and husbands, something not fully accepted by all annals of society, which is entailed by the legalization of same-sex marriage.
I'm not addressing media outlets that I don't bother with.
Sane women don't have wives and sane men don't have husbands.
What choice do they have if they are bundled into child seats in a car and the adults are listening to NPR?
It is extremely telling that the people making these platforms restrict their use for their own children. Just like the tobacco executives, they know the truth but are lying to our faces.
Social media distorts children’s (and vulnerable adults) perception of the world. It’s completely unsurprising that body dysmorphia and self harm has become so prevalent among girls. And this definitely applies to the “TQ+” in “LGBTQ+”. The entire transgender craze is a technologically driven cult of body dysmorphia. It has affected not just the victims but a large fraction of bystanders pretending to be “kind” for social credit. Supposedly rational adults suddenly claim that it is normal to be able to self identify as whatever (can I self-identify as Tom Cruise, or a rooster, or a chimera of both, and be taken seriously?) It is ridiculous - the emperor is buck naked, but all the addicts on Meta and Reddit are busy praising his outfit.
Protecting vulnerable youth? The precise opposite is true, they are ruthlessly exploiting them. The only benefit is to the social media companies, who will remain unable to see a problem as long as the money keeps rolling in.
For the record, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz think kids should be able to get sex changes. Walz made MN a trans kid sanctuary and the state can take your kid if you don't "affirm". I don't care what their record is on any other issue. This is a position I cannot support.
A careless oversimplification at best, isn't it? Maybe useful though as an example of the way we often throw aside the basic responsibilities of research and reasoning in our zeal to protect innocence. QAnon claims to protect children, and a recent book The Quiet Damage talks about families torn apart by their conspiracy theories. Anyone here old enough to remember the McMartin trial of the mid-eighties? One of many such excesses in that era. Some sinister factions hide behind the pretense that they are protecting children. They count on us to give a quick and easy pass to their claims. Where so much is at stake, we cannot let disinformation slip past us unexamined.
Is it though? It's not a conspiracy theory that people in the Democrat party are pushing this stuff, including the two defacto leaders of the party right now. Walz signed the law in MN allowing kids to received puberty blockers and surgery. The law also allows the state to take custody of kids to give them these "treatments" as well. I don't think there is a comparison to QAnon here. The facts are there. The Democrats claim they are saving kids and providing "life saving care", but the data don't support it.
Hi. Allow families and their doctors and their children to seek care, I think you mean? A political party does not provide such care, or push it, or (I would hope) interfere in it. It stands aside and leaves such choices to us. Minnesota has a proud history of top medical care that draws people from far away. In this case the state offers a haven to people from states that interfere in family and personal decisions. Puberty blockers differ from surgery. They postpone bigger decisions (such as surgery) until a teen is older and better able to decide. Harris and Walz are two different candidates from different regions with different histories and policies. We don't want to stir all these many different things together into one, right? This is worth getting clear and getting right.
One person's "care" is another's medical experiment. The messaging around puberty blockers as some temporary pause so the child can decide is totally inaccurate. Sterilization, impaired growth, bone density issues, mental and emotional effects are very common. They don't fix anything and the data shows that things get worse after intervention. There is a reason that most countries have stopped allowing these drugs to be used. The US is an outlier in letting this occur. It is activism, not medicine.
Good point, thanks. How do we (or legislators) know this? From doctors. From medical science. Doctors will also warn families of this, before the rest of us hear of it. That's where the decision belongs, between doctors and families, where the best information surfaces first. Not with legislators who know only second-hand, and make a single blunt-force decision for all the different families and cases that happen to fall within a map territory. Right, let's keep activism out of it, whether for or against.
I agree with this comment
" Even worse, the industry had claimed that smoking made people healthier—by reducing anxiety, say, or slimming."
But smoking DOES reduce anxiety and keep weight down. That doesn't mean people should smoke, but the statement is true.
Now, show me the advertiser who DOESN'T blow things out of proportion. It's kind of their job to do that. Seen any political ads lately? I rest my case.
Youth cigarette purchases declined only when a government issued ID was required for purchase and enforced.
Thank god for the gubment!
If you want to protect kids, please consider that this legislation protects internet media companies from the only successful liability cases based on product defect. Specifically, cases which argue that contrary to the presumption that Internet Media Companies have no control over user content, behind Section 230 exemption from liability, in some cases Internet Media companies do identify, target and amplify content.
This legislation will protect the Internet Media Company from liability when the kids lie about their age, opt-out of the bill’s censorship of kid inappropriate content and parental monitoring.
Yes, one of the big issues with legislative efforts like these is that if you don't get it right the first time, you probably won't be afforded another bill to fix any mistakes you might have pushed through.
Not to mention that very few are considering the primary harm of these devices, which is wireless radiation.
Where is Elon Musk?
Paid well by the evil, to censor for evil.
Be a parent and manage what goes in and out of your children's lives. Can we stop talking about this already? Stupid statist conversation.
What about the kids whose parents are too busy or are disinterested/unbothered/harmful towards their child's development? The amount of kids growing up in supportive two parent households is only decreasing.
All very fine, but still nothing about the actual physical harm done by wireless radiation. Why not? Look at the Environmental Health Trust, CEO the electronics engineer Prof Kent Chamberlain. Look at PHIRE, run by a specialist in Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity. Look at Safer EMR. Look at the Bioinitiative and so much more!
Do we really believe that choices made by legislators are better-motivated than choices made by tech leaders who have built free-market media? Better than comparing such laws to tobacco bans, compare them to abortion bans. Choices surrendered to tech media can be escaped or later retrieved, unlike choices surrendered to legislators. Each person and each family can avoid TikTok or whatever. No one can avoid the laws passed by the legislature. I don't trust officials claiming to protect children. Protections that target and restrict the adult population at large? No thanks. Who benefits? Would-be tyrants above all. If we don't trust teens to make good choices, shall we trust them to know who has caused their distress? I side with liberty left to each family, each parent, each child, knowing the risks. Leave the responsibility to them. To each of us.
So no age limits on alcohol use, driver’s licenses, etc? I’m all for liberty but there are some things that need restrictions, especially to protect minors. The tech companies use algorithms to hook, to addict the users. These devices and social media are so powerful that a child, one without a fully developed prefrontal cortex, cannot be expected to be able to control on their own, without the assistance of adults. Kids are kids for such a short finite period. We should do everything we can as adults to allow them to be kids for as long as possible! I am for legislation to protect kids from big tech, social media overload.
Good point, thanks. Should have suggested we let each family decide for its own children, though that has problems too, and has not worked well with abortion decisions.
Exactly, WE need to tell people what to do because YOU know better. Meanwhile your grandchildren are broke and your grandson thinks he is a girl. Parent your children and leave mine alone.