Hollow Graves

Evidence 1: “On any given day, teens in the United States spend about nine hours using media for their enjoyment, according to the report by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on helping children, parents and educators navigate the world of media and technology. Let's just put nine hours in context for a second. That's more time than teens typically spend sleeping, and more time than they spend with their parents and teachers. And the nine hours does not include time spent using media at school or for their homework. If teens are, on average, spending nine hours a day consuming media, it's not such a surprise they're often doing it while doing their homework. Half of teens say they "often" or "sometimes" use social media or watch TV while doing their homework. Some 60% say they text and more than 75% say they listen to music while working on schoolwork at home. And of the kids who multitask, most don't think it effects the quality of their work. Nearly two-thirds say watching TV or texting makes no difference and more than 50% feel the same way when it comes to social media. While ours kids are growing up in a 24/7 digital world, children in lower income households have less access to technology than kids from wealthier families. Only 54% of teens in households making less than $35,000 a year have a laptop in their home versus 92% of teens in households making $100,000 a year or more. The implications of this digital transformation are huge for tweens and teens, educators, policymakers and parents. “For one, living and communicating via mobile devices gets in the way of empathy,” said Steyer. “Texting is so much less empathetic than having a conversation in person and looking somebody in the eye and having physical or at least a verbal presence with them,” he said. Add in the issues of digital addiction and the attention and distraction implications that come with mobile devices, and "empathy is really, really under siege," he said. "That's a huge issue in terms of society and human relationships and how young people are evolving in a social, emotional context." he added, saying more research is needed.” (Source 2) 

“’Our results suggest that social media itself doesn't cause harm, but that frequent use may disrupt activities that have a positive impact on mental health such as sleeping and exercising, while increasing exposure of young people to harmful content, particularly the negative experience of cyber-bullying," study co-author Russell Viner of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health said in a statement.” (Source 3) 

Evidence 2: “When people can't scroll and post as they usually do, Kerner said they can become bored and vulnerable to difficult emotions and stressors -- sometimes without knowing how to cope with them. "People find that they are alone with their own thoughts. And they're a little bit of a stranger to themselves in a way. Prior to social media, I think we were much better at being on our own, finding ways to engage ourselves and remain curious," Kerner added. "People definitely have a fear of missing out," Kerner explained. Losing or breaking a phone, or having a phone die can cause folks to panic, he said, as it prevents them from knowing what's happening and being connected to others. The outage, conversely, "provided a great sense of relief, because everybody was experiencing it. So people didn't feel as alone or as isolated or as panicked," Kerner told CNN. "Once people realized, 'oh, these networks are almost all down,' there was this bizarre, but very clear sense of relief. The feeling was 'I don't have anything I have to keep up with. I'm not missing out on anything,'" Duffy told CNN. During the outage, "people realized in real time the importance of face-to-face relationships, and the relative emptiness of a connection that takes place solely via Facebook or Instagram," he added. "The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation," Lembke wrote. While "social media addiction" is not currently included in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," Lembke told CNN she believes social media can be addictive, based on her clinical experience and her knowledge of how human connection and dopamine release are tied. "We can verifiably show that human connections stimulate dopamine release, which is how they are reinforcing, and anything that stimulates dopamine in the brain's reward pathway has the potential to be addictive," Lembke explained. The Facebook outage was something of an "accidental en masse experiment that hopefully revealed to people just how addicted they've become," Lembke said. Marriage and family therapist Ian Kerner often assigns homework to his clients that involves curbing the use of devices during time spent with partners and family members. "The number one complaint that I think I hear from couples is that he or she is always on their phone," Kerner told CNN. Lembke hopes the outage "will encourage people to actually intentionally plan to abstain from social media, and maybe their phones altogether, for a period of time." She recommends laying off social media completely -- whether that means selected apps or putting the phone away altogether -- for one month, enough time for the brain's reward pathways to reset themselves.” (Source 1) 

“One of the most deeply felt ironies of social media is that it is kind of a lie. The person we pretend to be is disconnected from the person that is; the bustling lives of others we like and scroll through are nothing more than curated alternate realities masking flaws and banalities barely different than our own. The researchers asked 1,787 participants ages 19 to 32 about their social media habits and how they feel about their places in the world. They gauged their agreement with statements like "I feel that people barely know me" or "I feel that people are around me but not with me." There were some limitations, too: Participants self-reported their social media use, so responses were subject to memory and other biases. The results can't be generalized to other age ranges, either. Still, it turns out, participants with high usage of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Reddit also perceived themselves to be more socially isolated. Now, the research presents us with a big, thorny question: Do people feel more isolated BECAUSE of social media, or do people who feel isolated just tend to engage in social media more, perhaps, as the study suggests, as a form of connection? The study posits that this question could be tackled by examining the kinds of social media people engage in: Do they actively post and chat with friends, or do they passively scroll and observe activity without engaging? Though these questions have yet to be answered, the researchers point out that feelings of isolation are often associated with negative health effects such as weight, sleep patterns and immune function. So looking into social media usage and its effects or motivations could help combat more than just loneliness.” (Source 6 (Backup Source) 

Evidence 3: “For every additional hour young people spend on social media or watching television, the severity of depressive symptoms they experience goes up, according to a study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday. The researchers found that high levels of social media use over four years was associated with increased depression -- and each one-hour increase in the average time students said they spent on social media was associated with an increase in the severity of depression symptoms within that same year. The tendency to already watch high levels of television over four years without an increase was associated with less depression. But the researchers found that each one-hour increase in the average amount of time students said they spent watching television within a given year was associated with an increase in the severity of depression symptoms that year. Dr. Gary Maslow, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Duke Health and assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, said in January that he often points his patients' families to the American Academy of Pediatrics for tips on how to establish healthy social media habits at home. One tip is to set up a charging station in the home, he said, so cell phones are not charged in the bedroom, which can lead to distractions and sleep interruptions. "Get an alarm clock, so the kid doesn't use their phone as an alarm, and really limit that nighttime usage, because we know sleep affects mood and everything else," Maslow said. "It's a balance, because there are benefits to engagement with media. There are so many ways in which social media is important and has positive features, but there's also ways in which social media can replace social support and connection from people you are living with in person," he said. "So it's finding that sweet spot."” (Source 4) 

Evidence 4: “1. Don't let the Internet get you down. 2. Data is your friend. 3. Put the phone down. And especially put your children's phones down. For example, if you view Facebook through a half-empty glass, it may feel like an endless land of one-upmanship where everybody is doing better than you. On the other hand, if you look at it as a tool for building supportive relationships, it's a great place to find sympathy, encouragement and connection. "Just being a heavy user of social media, like Facebook, doesn't mean you're likely more vulnerable to depression," she says. Social media can have effects on mental health. Studies have shown that getting "likes" for Facebook posts actually results in a release of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with pleasure. Moreover, sad or moving posts can promote release of oxytocin, the "love hormone," which makes us feel protected.” (Source 5) 

Evidence 6: “It's an important distinction, says Ann DeSmet, a professor at Ghent University in Belgium who was not involved in the research. "If the displacement of healthy lifestyles and cyberbullying can be attenuated, the positive effects of social media use, such as encouraging social interactions, can be more endorsed," she said in a statement. The researchers found that, in both sexes, very frequent social media use was associated with greater psychological distress. The effect was especially clear among girls: The more often they checked social media, the greater their psychological distress. But nearly 60% of the impact on psychological distress in girls could be accounted for by low sleep quality and greater exposure to cyberbullying, with decreased physical activity playing a lesser role. But for boys, those factors explained only 12% of the effects of very frequent social media use on psychological distress. The research, published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, involved interviews with almost 10,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16 in England. The researchers found that social media may harm girls' mental health by increasing their exposure to bullying and reducing their sleep and physical exercise.” (Source 3) 

“But it can really take a toll on youngsters. In a study from Stanford on girls age 8-12, "those who say they spend considerable amounts of time using multimedia describe themselves in ways that suggest they are less happy and less socially comfortable than peers who say they spend less time on screens," The New York Times observed. The study is by no means conclusive, but it does offer food for thought, Lyn Mikel Brown, an education professor, told the newspaper. "The clear message is also how important it is for parents to create opportunities for girls to unplug, to live a balanced life, and increase quality face-to-face time with the people important to them," said Mikel Brown. It all sounds like common sense -- but then, so does most advice on social well-being. Which is why some of the shrewdest words on the subject have nothing to do with social media at all.” (Source 5)