Newsletter
It's not social media, life is just worse and other things
August 2, 2024
Hello,
Here’s everything since my last little missive to you:
It’s not social media, life is just worse
Excerpt: It has been pretty trendy for the last little while to notice that mental health problems are on the rise, and also social media use is on the rise, and so probably mental health problems are on the rise because social media is an attention sucking monster. But research on the topic doesn’t seem to find any obvious connection between the two. Lots of people are talking about this now, so I will run you through the ‘social media isn’t actually that bad’ thing then give you some other things to stress about instead.
Main idea: Social media use probably isn’t the problem. Social media use is probably just the most obvious manifestation of lots of problems. And in fact, social media could probably be a solution. It’s up to you.
More evidence against the marshmallow test. See also this marginalia.
No clear pattern of moderation was detected between delay of gratification and either socioeconomic status or sex. Results indicate that Marshmallow Test performance does not reliably predict adult outcomes.
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The emerging virtual-preaching economy in Kenya:
The preachers say these online ministries have brought religion and fellowship to people who might not have otherwise found them. But the field is unregulated and less standardized than in-person churches. Many virtual preachers have no formal training in theology. And critics question whether they can really bring the communion and bonds that brick-and-mortar churches have offered for centuries.
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AI language models are almost as good as each other now, and other interesting news.
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War deepens gender-stereotypes. From Ukrainian data:
We find that conflict onset deepens gender-stereotypical behavior among politicians in their public engagement. We also show that, consistent with our argument, gender biases among the public are magnified during war.
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The biology of erogenous zones. The main thing I took away from this was that my capacity for sensation is decreasing and also sometimes the genitals are connected to the feet.
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I hope you found something interesting.
You can find links to all my previous missives here.
Warm regards,