<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/28/adults-are-losing-their-shit-about-teen-mental-health-on-social-media-while-desperate-teens-are-using-ai-for-mental-help/>
"It’s just like adults to be constantly diagnosing the wrong thing in trying to
“save the children.” Over the last couple of years there’s been a mostly
nonsense moral panic claiming that the teen mental health crisis must be due to
social media. Of course, as we’ve detailed repeatedly, the actual research on
this does not support that claim
at all.
Instead, the evidence suggests that there is a ton of complexity happening here
and no one factor. That said, two potentially big factors contributing to the
teen mental health crisis are (1) the mental health challenges that
their
parents are facing, and (2) the lack of available help and resources for both
kids and parents to deal with mental health issues.
When you combine that, it should be of little surprise that desperate teens are
turning to AI for mental health support. That’s discussed in an excellent new
article in
The Mercury News’ Mosaic Journalism Program, which helps high
school students learn how to do professional-level journalism.
For many teenagers, digital tools such as programs that use artificial
intelligence, or AI, have become a go-to option for emotional support. As
they learn to navigate and cope in a world where mental health care demands
are high, AI is an easy and inexpensive choice.
Now, I know that some people’s immediate response is to be horrified by this,
and it’s right to be
concerned. But, given the situation teens find
themselves in, this is not all that surprising.
Teens don’t have access to real mental health help. On our most recent podcast,
we spoke to an expert in raising kids in a digital age, Devorah Heitner, who
mentioned that making real, professional mental health support available in
every high school would be so much more helpful than something silly like a
“Surgeon General’s Warning” on social media.
Indeed, as another recent podcast guest, Candice Odgers, has noted, the
evidence actually suggests that the reason kids with mental health issues spend
so much time on social media might be because they are already having mental
health issues, and the lack of resources to actually help them makes them turn
to social media instead.
And now, it appears it may also make them turn to AI systems."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
