It's all correlational (observing that people with higher social media use are worse off in various ways). This approach is not capable of detecting reverse causation (people use social media more because they are unhappy) or third causes (something else causes people to both use more social media and also be unhappy)
> One in three girls was unhappy with their personal appearance by the age of 14, compared with one in seven at the end of primary school.
That comparison doesn't support the hypothesis. It should have been compared to teenagers from 10 years ago. Otherwise, you can't rule out the effect of growing up on the mental health if these girls.
I'm surprised its only one in three. In the 80s I would have guessed that at least half of 14 year old girls ( I was one ) were unhappy with their appearance.
I was a 14 year old girl in the 90s and I share your surprise its only one in three. I would guess the majority of my peers were unhappy with their appearance at that time based on my experience and observations.
I was one too. I (objectively) looked just fine but I thought I was a disfigured ghoul.
The irony was that my conviction that I looked ghastly only made it worse. I permed my hair and teased my bangs and piled on the makeup and held my breath while I pulled on jeans that were too small for me.
If I'd really seen myself when I looked in the mirror I would have been better off. I didn't, I saw someone who was supposed to look like Cindy Crawford and was failing miserably.
As difficult as that era was, I worry that the present dynamic is somehow even worse than the decades-long ill of young women comparing themselves to airbrushed supermodels: young women comparing themselves to an endless stream of social media personalities who work tirelessly and deliberately to maintain a facade of contrived believability.
And to whom anyone who isn't keeping up the same level of image consciousness, won't compare.
"But she posted a video without makeup when that hash tag was trending, and I look nothing like that when I do the same," at the social media star's most flattering angle, filmed through a $5K lens attached to a $3K DSLR body, with ideal lighting, post-processed...
People who mock people in real life for not looking this is that way do a way more impact.
It is not just about what ideals you see. It is also and maybe more about what is said about those who fail that standard. How they are treated and how you are treated.
FTFY: The moment the media makes a headline out of scientific research
> Heavy social media use is associated with worse scores on all outcomes in girls age 14 and 17, but only worse wellbeing for boys at age 14. In a model controlling for pre-existing levels of self-esteem and wellbeing, we find that low levels of physical activity remain associated with lowself-esteem and wellbeing scores in girls and boys through adolescence, while heavy social media use contributes to low self-esteem and wellbeing in girls, and wellbeing in boys at age 14.In focus groups, young people highlighted the positive and negative aspects of social media. While girls tended to focus on the negative impact on body image, boys felt that the images they saw on social media platforms could be aspirational.
And even if it was causal, you'd still need to investigate what it is on social media that causes misery, e.g. ideologies/misinformation, social comparison/envy, cyber-bullying, addiction, bad news/sensationalism or echo chambers.
I also wonder how they controlled for content vs. medium.
The news of the world has been pretty bad all around, getting worse and worse over the past decade. I can't help but wonder if being online plugs someone more deeply into that news, and the actual cause of the damage to one's mental health is more exposure to multi-sourced narratives unfiltered by the editorial voice often employed by traditional news media.
What if these young people are showing signs of mental trauma because mental trauma is a predictable reaction to being informed about the state of the world, and being more online leaves one more informed?
They do acknowledge in the article itself that it is correlation and that it could be reverse causation:
> “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research.
“It’s not a vacuum, it works both ways."
But the actual article headline is the typical clickbait interpretation of a scientific study.
It's all correlational (observing that people with higher social media use are worse off in various ways). This approach is not capable of detecting reverse causation (people use social media more because they are unhappy) or third causes (something else causes people to both use more social media and also be unhappy)