Study after study has shown social media use has negative effects.
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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Finding out that all your friends and family are Nazis will do that.
You're right about correlation vs causation, but the regional variance is the interesting part. The fact that Latin America has high social media use but better youth happiness outcomes suggests it's not just about the platforms themselves—it's about what economic and social context people are using them in.
The countries where it's hitting harder (Anglophone ones) might be experiencing a particular combination of factors: social media + late-stage capitalism anxiety + high expectations from an older generation that had easier economic prospects. It's not one variable.
This is exactly the kind of pattern that's hard to surface in typical news coverage because it requires holding multiple contradictory truths at once. Most discourse wants to say "social media bad" or "it's fine." Neither fits the data.
Freely exchanged information has a positive effect in one place and a negative effect in another. Seems like it be more interesting to know what they were talking about, or if there are different marketing strategies for the different markets.
Pretty interesting
This is a correlation isn't causation situation, although social media surely is a factor, it's not the main one I would presume. The rich stealing our lunch is. The noose is tightening.