Joanthan Haidt article on why 'emotional thinking' causes depression in young women

[purplevipersgrass]

It's quite a long article and covers a lot of ground, but basically it posits that the kind of catastrophic ('Terfs want to hurt and kill transpeople'), black and white (TWAW, No Debate) and emotional thinking ('Ignore the facts, be kind') that we associate with TRAs and young people is responsible for actively causing depression — particularly among young liberal women. Being conservative and less inclined to being a bleeding heart offers some protection.

Haidt points out that CBT, used to treat depression, is designed to tackle and dismantle these unhelpful ways of thinking, but movements such as genderism instil and rely on them.

jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

To me at the root of everything in this article is SM. SM is what is damaging kids.

The fact that liberal girls are most affected to me is about nature rather than nurture. By their very nature they are going to be the group most affected/damaged by what goes on on SM as they are likely to be more sensitive then their conservative peers.

I find there's often this idea though that people learn to cope by dropping them into situations, like 'I was left to roam the streets from the age of 4 so I learnt how to look after myself and that I was in control'. Whereas IMO you can't force healthy independence on people, it comes when they're ready and some are ready way before others. Coping skills for all sorts of situations can be taught and learnt by watching others though of course. Kids learning by themselves out roaming around or from their peers or on SM also happens but may not be the coping mechanisms you'd hope for - eating disorders and self harm are all over SM, smoking, drinking, drugs, unsafe sex were are more likely with teens that were just hanging around even back 30 years ago.

Feeling victimised/marginalised and bonding over it has always been a thing, from punks to goths to emo's and now gender nonsense. But SM allows the bonding/pressure to spread much faster and further and deeper, it's much more intense, and there's no getting away from it. Before SM you could come home from school and escape, now it's 24/7.

.I think it's important for students to know what they can and can't cope with though, 30 years ago a friend of mine chose not to study Peter Schaffer's Equus because she didn't think she could cope with it, it was actually a bold move IMO as she then had to study a different book in her own time with support from the teacher where possible. The difference was she didn't say the book shouldn't be on the curriculum or no one should study it, she didn't organise a protest or think she needed to get it banned, she just quietly got on with doing what worked for her.

In conclusion I'd say that SM isn't suitable for under 18's and that sensitive girls are the most negatively affected by it. That we need to stop groups of emotionally riled up young people banning things and cancelling things and put a stop to the walking on eggshells around them - but allow them not to participate and to find their own suitable alternative if they are struggling to cope with a particular aspect.

The social media thing is interesting. I use instagram for my gymnastics hobby. I post videos of myself working on new moves, progress videos where I track improvement on a certain element over months/years, or ones where I'm bad at a movement because I don't have the strength and flexibility, do a particular exercise for a time period and then see if it's helped.

I use instagram for a few reasons. 1. tbh, I like seeing the progress I'm making and I wouldn't document it like this just for myself. 2. I have made a number of instagram "friends" who are at similar levels and it's been useful to see how we're progressing and/or what has or hasn't been working for us. And 3. I follow some really top level gymnasts/dancers both to get ideas and inspiration and just to admire their skill level. Many of them do things that I realistically, won't ever achieve because I started in middle-age and can't dedicate the same amount of time to my training as they do. But that's fine, I just like admiring their abilities and aiming for even 5% of their skill for me one day. It's a 100% positive experience for me. It helps me keep moving on a hobby I love, that not only makes me happy but improves my health and fitness as I age.

I'm also in a couple of whatsapp chat groups and a few are largely populated by women younger than me in their 20s and 30s. And an awful lot of them have started saying that following the hobby on instagram is destroying their mental health because they aren't as good as the people they follow. And it's just so insane to me. They have access to a tool that can help them to learn and provide camaraderie as they do so but they are leaning into the small moments of envy or insecurity that they can find in it. A friend who I train in real life with, went from less good than me to far better than me while I couldn't train for a few months. Did I love that? Nope! Part of me had a small sulk that she'd passed me out. But I also thought, actually, it's quite inspiring to see someone make that kind of progress, so I'm inspired to try harder and make that progress myself too. I can accept that other people will be better than me, will progress faster and that even though that makes me feel a bit bad, I can get over that. I'm a bit competitive, most people are, but I choose to focus more on my competitiveness with myself and my own desire to improve over getting bogged down by jealousy when other people are better.

I'm not sure it's entirely social media though, because this can and does happen in real life. I'm sure that the type of person to get frustrated by the progress of a practical stranger on instagram would get just as frustrated, if not more so, by the progress of someone they train with in real life. Social media just provides more new ways to let yourself get bogged down.

Jealous people seem to be quite limited in critical thinking skills in my experience.

The fact that liberal girls are most affected to me is about nature rather than nurture. By their very nature they are going to be the group most affected/damaged by what goes on on SM as they are likely to be more sensitive then their conservative peers

I’m not convinced that liberals are more sensitive than conservatives (or that being liberal is a nature thing). Conservatives are pretty sensitive too - just to different things and their responses might look different.

Social media usage varies - different people use it in different ways, and the content is consumed and processed within different social ecosystems. So the ways in which it is damaging might look different.

People go into a lot of detail to justify and defend their SM usage, when no one attacked it.

It's just how smokers and alcoholics behave when you mention you don't smoke or say you think drinking causes a lot of problems.

Sensitive and thin-skinned are not the same thing. Many of the young people most vocally pro-trans seem very touchy but pretty insensitive.