Jonathan Haidt also told the Senate that “eyewitness testimony” confirms the academic findings: social media is a culprit. Not necessarily the only culprit.

Their research and others directly asked teens what they think is causing the problem. As we all know, many of them like social media, like heroin users like heroin,  but when teens were asked whether they think social media overall is good or bad for them, according to Haidt, “The answer is consistently “no.”

Added to that, Haidt pointed out to the Senate that

“Facebook’s own internal research, brought out by Frances Haugen in the Wall Street Journal, concluded that “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression … This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”

Haidt advised the Senate that in Australia a study showed that “teens believe that social media is the main reason that youth mental health is getting worse.”

This is what Haidt told the Senate committee investing the problem:

“This crisis did not emerge gradually. There was no sign of it before 2010, but by 2015 it was everywhere, overwhelming mental health centers that catered to teens and college students. The crisis emerged in the exact years when American teens were getting smart phones and becoming daily users of social media platforms such as Instagram. Correlational, experimental, and eye-witness testimony points to social media as a major cause of the crisis. I do not believe that social media is the only cause of the crisis, but there is no alternative hypothesis that can explain the suddenness, enormity, and international similarity that I laid out in part 1 of this document. Researchers and spokespeople for the major platforms who tell you that the evidence is “inconclusive” or that the effect sizes are “too small” should be asked directly: “OK, then what do YOU think caused this?”

Haidt and his team believe, based on significant evidence, not just grump adults, that social media is part of the reason that in the United States, Canada and elsewhere are suffering from these serious health problems.

It is clear that in the United States and Canada the countries are experiencing what Haidt called “a catastrophic wave of mood disorders (anxiety and depression) and related behaviors (self harm and suicide).”

The crisis is so severe that the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, recently issued an Advisory on Youth Mental Health warning Americans to take this problem seriously.

 I think we should all do that. If we don’t the west will continue to decline and many more American and Canadian young people will suffer immeasurably.