Young women are becoming more radical. Young men aren’t. // Trying to ban plastics runs into the fossil fuel lobby. That’s only part of the problem. [#538]
"What happened around 2010 that caused these similar effects in US, Germany, and the UK?"
"2010" as a specific year is probably not useful to look at since this is a structural change in political culture. Following the introduction of the first smartphones in 2007-2008, when 4G rolled out in 2009 it created the field for the always-online lives that we now take for granted. While there were many other factors involved, this one seems to be the most obvious - complete transformation of the mass communication which is the prerequisite for political formation.
It might be a smartphone effect, but it seems likely to involve multiple causes, not just one. I don’t think we know yet. These are big shifts, in terms of the rate of change in social and political attitudes, and you don’t tend to get shifts that large, that quickly, from just one thing. And usually political formation takes longer than this. So I’m suspending judgment for the moment.
It definitely involves multiple causes, and I'm equally suspicious of a univariate explanation of something as complex as this, but I also think you underestimate the impact of the smartphones + social media combination - technologies specifically engineered to change behaviour. The more "trivial" behavioural changes generated by smartphones + social media are visible in everyday life - so I have no reason to think that these larger shifts aren't made possible by the same underlying dynamic. I'd be interested to know what (if anything) would persuade you to un--suspend judgement?
Hi Paul, Sorry not to respond sooner. The answer to this question is that I’d want to be more confident that it was causation, not correlation, and if it is causal then it’s not amplifying a deeper underlying cause. I might also want to look at other big technology changes in the past and see if there are historical examples of technology *alone* creating significant social shifts—e.g. the arrival of mass print in the last 19th century.
Because what we do know about claims being made for the effects of smart phones is that they are always contestable. For example, Jean Twenge has made strong claims about smart phones being the reason for worsening mental health among young people—and making those sorts of claims is a reliable way to get media attention—but when I look at her data I see that mental health outcomes seem to worsen mostly in heavy users of smart phones, and it’s not clear if the heavy use is a function of other factors, so those users get into a negative feedback loop.
Equally, there’s evidence that says that the poor mental health outcomes are linked more to deeper changes in the level of independence in childhood, because of cars and fear of crime, and—again—smartphone use has worsened this.
I’d also want to understand more about the nexus of young women’s experience in work, because my reading of the data is that this particular generation of young women is the first (at least until they have children) to get close to wage parity and job opportunity with young men. That’s a huge and novel change, and you could see that it might change behaviour and attitudes.
Don't worry about the slow reply, asynchronous communication is the wonder of the internet!
I'm an evidence-oriented person, so I don't disagree about needing to review the data in context, but I'm also a narrative-oriented person, and I think we can only understand data in the context of a narrative. That is to say: I don't believe you can construct a narrative solely from the data, you always need a narrative even before the data is collected, and then incorporate the data into that narrative.
In this instance, I'm fairly convinced about the deleterious impact of the mobile phone / social media nexus based on what I've observed over a couple of decades, plus what little evidence we do have. I don't need any more evidence to buttress my conviction, and I'm always open to evidence that might undermine that conviction (to the extent that I actively seek such evidence).
I don't think that, as a society, we can afford to wait for the research and academic community to come up with watertight evidence, particularly because there is almost never watertight evidence around anything to do with social trends. I also think that the line between correlation and causation is much less solid than we would like to believe, and not always relevant in multi-causal scenarios.
Your posts are very enjoyable. Had trouble restacking so shared.
Thanks!
"What happened around 2010 that caused these similar effects in US, Germany, and the UK?"
"2010" as a specific year is probably not useful to look at since this is a structural change in political culture. Following the introduction of the first smartphones in 2007-2008, when 4G rolled out in 2009 it created the field for the always-online lives that we now take for granted. While there were many other factors involved, this one seems to be the most obvious - complete transformation of the mass communication which is the prerequisite for political formation.
It might be a smartphone effect, but it seems likely to involve multiple causes, not just one. I don’t think we know yet. These are big shifts, in terms of the rate of change in social and political attitudes, and you don’t tend to get shifts that large, that quickly, from just one thing. And usually political formation takes longer than this. So I’m suspending judgment for the moment.
It definitely involves multiple causes, and I'm equally suspicious of a univariate explanation of something as complex as this, but I also think you underestimate the impact of the smartphones + social media combination - technologies specifically engineered to change behaviour. The more "trivial" behavioural changes generated by smartphones + social media are visible in everyday life - so I have no reason to think that these larger shifts aren't made possible by the same underlying dynamic. I'd be interested to know what (if anything) would persuade you to un--suspend judgement?
Hi Paul, Sorry not to respond sooner. The answer to this question is that I’d want to be more confident that it was causation, not correlation, and if it is causal then it’s not amplifying a deeper underlying cause. I might also want to look at other big technology changes in the past and see if there are historical examples of technology *alone* creating significant social shifts—e.g. the arrival of mass print in the last 19th century.
Because what we do know about claims being made for the effects of smart phones is that they are always contestable. For example, Jean Twenge has made strong claims about smart phones being the reason for worsening mental health among young people—and making those sorts of claims is a reliable way to get media attention—but when I look at her data I see that mental health outcomes seem to worsen mostly in heavy users of smart phones, and it’s not clear if the heavy use is a function of other factors, so those users get into a negative feedback loop.
Equally, there’s evidence that says that the poor mental health outcomes are linked more to deeper changes in the level of independence in childhood, because of cars and fear of crime, and—again—smartphone use has worsened this.
I’d also want to understand more about the nexus of young women’s experience in work, because my reading of the data is that this particular generation of young women is the first (at least until they have children) to get close to wage parity and job opportunity with young men. That’s a huge and novel change, and you could see that it might change behaviour and attitudes.
— Andrew
Don't worry about the slow reply, asynchronous communication is the wonder of the internet!
I'm an evidence-oriented person, so I don't disagree about needing to review the data in context, but I'm also a narrative-oriented person, and I think we can only understand data in the context of a narrative. That is to say: I don't believe you can construct a narrative solely from the data, you always need a narrative even before the data is collected, and then incorporate the data into that narrative.
In this instance, I'm fairly convinced about the deleterious impact of the mobile phone / social media nexus based on what I've observed over a couple of decades, plus what little evidence we do have. I don't need any more evidence to buttress my conviction, and I'm always open to evidence that might undermine that conviction (to the extent that I actively seek such evidence).
I don't think that, as a society, we can afford to wait for the research and academic community to come up with watertight evidence, particularly because there is almost never watertight evidence around anything to do with social trends. I also think that the line between correlation and causation is much less solid than we would like to believe, and not always relevant in multi-causal scenarios.