There is no evidence that using social media is driving an epidemic of mental illness and blaming it can distract from effectively responding to the real causes
and rising hysteria could distract us from tackling the real causes.” — https://www.nature.com/... [image] Philip N Cohen / @philipncohen@mastodon.social : “the book's repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children's brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science.” https://www.nature.com/... Omar Wasow / @owasow@mastodon.social : “The plots presented throughout this book will be useful in teaching my students the fundamentals of causal inference, and how to avoid making up stories by simply looking at trend lines.” https://www.nature.com/... Chris Simpson / @chris_e_simpson@hachyderm.io : Damning review of Jonathan Haidt's book that blames social media for the rise in teen anxiety and depression — Candice L. Odgers argues that correlation does not imply causation, that there is no evidence for a causal connection, and that focusing on this will detract from clearly identifying and dealing with the actual causes … Bluesky: BabyBoomerWriter / @babyboomerwriter.bsky.social : Socialization opportunities were limited by the restrictive, low stimulation lifestyle we all had to accept to safely get thru COVID. Adolescence is a major developmental stage where teens build friendships, add socialization skills, & practice independence. Teens didn't know we were all struggling. Janet Yaw / @janety.bsky.social : Completely disagree. [embedded post] X: @basedbeffjezos : It's Decel mindset, not social media itself, that is the problem. The cultural software, not the interconnect infrastructure. The solution is to use social media to spread optimism. Louis Anslow / @louisanslow : Nature goes in on ‘The Anxious Generation’ for its scientific populism. https://www.nature.com/... [image] @jeffjarvis : Thank you, @candice_odgers, for your review of Haidt's latest. In an entire book (and I have one coming out partially in response to him), I do not do as well as you did here. “Serious claims require serious evidence,” indeed. https://www.nature.com/... Rory Cellan-Jones / @ruskin147 : https://www.nature.com/... The hot new book saying smartphones and social media are warping our kids' minds will sell like hot cakes because it speaks to parents' worries - but it's bad science says this review “telling stories that are unsupported by research”. LinkedIn: Siva Vaidhyanathan : No one will be able to take Jonathan Haidt's new book seriously after reading this review by an actual researcher and expert in the field. … Stephen Schueller : I don't think technology will solve all of our problems, and I'd be naive to think it doesn't cause some, but we need to have hard conversations … Candice Odgers : It may be time to rethink how we support young people online and offline versus simply shut off their social media. … Forums: r/IfBooksCouldKill : A great critique from Nature of Jonathan Haidt's anti-smartphone grift
Context & Ripple Effects
The review enters an active dispute over Jonathan Haidt's argument that smartphones and social platforms explain worsening teen mental health. Related coverage had already examined both the claimed costs of a smartphone-centered childhood and criticisms that The Anxious Generation does not establish the claimed causal link.
It also extends a longer methodological concern: researchers have argued that studying platforms' broad social effects requires a crisis-discipline approach rather than conclusions drawn from parallel trend lines. The significance is less a new platform finding than a challenge to the evidentiary standard behind a prominent public narrative.
First-order effects
- The review strengthens the position of critics who say claims of a platform-driven mental-health epidemic are not supported by causal evidence, directly contesting Haidt's framing.
- It shifts attention toward unspecified underlying causes of youth mental-health problems, rather than treating social-media use as the primary explanation.
Second-order effects
- Advocates of phone or social-media restrictions face greater pressure to distinguish correlation from causation when making their case; the same scrutiny applies to platform defenses.
- Researchers and public commentators may place more weight on study designs that can isolate effects, echoing prior warnings against reading causality from population trends.
Third-order effects
- If this evidentiary dispute persists, youth-safety policy could increasingly turn on whether broad platform-level interventions can be tied to measurable causal outcomes rather than compelling narratives.
- The wider shift is toward treating claims about platforms' societal harms as an empirical-governance problem: uncertainty may remain, but stronger causal standards determine which interventions are justified.
The trend: The debate is moving from broad assertions that social media causes social harm toward contested, higher-bar causal evidence for platform regulation and youth policy.