Notices by Just Another Amy (justanotheramy@aus.social)

@CStamp @mcnado @tantramar @merileedkarr
Last time I had surgery — in a lull early in COVID — one nurse had cut the ties of her floppy blue at the bottom so she could tie the top ones behind her head, like a curtain.

@tee
I have this, but I also have responsibility for a deeply time-blind auDHD tween, and wrangling *both* of our brains to get us out of the house is an absolute nightmare.
I can just (just) manage myself… but also coordinating someone else who thinks “we need to get dressed to leave now” means “drop everything and play with the rats” or “call a friend and play minecraft” is haaaaaard.

@Pepijn
“Please consider not being disabled before using assistive technology to reply to this email."

This is the straws all over again.

@erici @camwilson
I have already said upthread that “worrying parents about complex issues then offering simplistic solutions is a well worn grift”.
I don’t particularly care if that’s formatted as a blog or a book.

@erici @camwilson
Leo and the rest of the 6News team are not the only young people getting value from social media.
It’s a life saving resource for many queer and gender diverse kids, especially those who have abusive families, conservative communities, or geographical isolation.
It’s also often a vital resource for kids experiencing other kinds of abuse.
This is such a privileged heteronormative take.

@erici @camwilson
He's upping the stakes listing more consequential issues supposedly as counterexamples: but the rhetoric in this paragraph is focused on working to undermine the credibility of skeptics, and those examples are decontextualised. "Teen pregnancy" for instance is a hot button culture wars topic, largely created by the abstinence-only sex ed that purports to prevent it.

@camwilson @erici
Let’s go.

He starts by preemptively distancing himself from charges of stirring up a baseless moral panic, framing past panics as trivial concerns like bicycles and comic books. This positions him as a rational voice discussing a real and serious issue. By dismissing "alarmists" as hysterical and blaming media for sensationalism, he primes readers to see his argument as valid while undermining opposing views before they’re even introduced.

@camwilson @erici I’m very annoyed now by that garbage you’ve foisted on me, so I’m going to finish my cup of tea and dust off my qualitative critical psych skillz from my first degree, and we can go through that con artist’s rhetoric paragraph by paragraph, alright?
Buckle up.

@erici @camwilson
"Mauling" is absurdly emotive language designed to provoke fear rather than encourage rational analysis. This paragraph doesn’t warrant further comment; it undermines itself with its exaggerated rhetoric.

@erici @camwilson
Odgers critiqued his book for ignoring systemic factors like racism, economic hardship, and the 2008 GFC as plausible drivers of the youth mental health crisis. The author objects, framing it as a distraction from the “brain rewiring”. In doing so, he dismisses the challenge of accounting for real-world variables that complicate cause-and-effect claims, doubling down on his alarmist narrative instead of engaging with systemic issues.

@erici @camwilson
The claim that "the broader scientific and policy communities tune in" shifts the focus from evidence to influence, subtly pressuring the audience to take sides.

@camwilson @erici
The social media use of college students is often quite political, so reducing their social media use would thus lower exposure to contemporary news — in 2018 that means things like the #MeToo movement, various humanitarian crises, murder of a Saudi dissident, various Trump shenanagins, worsening climate change…
Reducing social media use might reduce their exposure to such distressing realities, but that doesn't make reality go away.

@erici @camwilson
I guess we’ll see. But we know what lines pushed his buttons, don’t we?

@camwilson @erici
The mention of "withdrawal symptoms" introduces covert addiction framing, which isn’t supported by the evidence provided. It’s a loaded term designed to provoke alarm, suggesting that social media use mirrors substance abuse without establishing a valid basis for such a comparison.

@camwilson @erici
Statistics linking heavy social media use to increased depression, particularly among girls, are given as evidence of a causal relationship — these studies don’t address *why* those girls are spending so much time on social media in the 1st place. It’s “correlation is not causation” again — without understanding the reasons for the behaviour, the data cannot establish that social media use is the cause, rather than a symptom.

@camwilson @erici
He’s making the same mistake again—failing to see people, especially women and girls, as having motives or agency. This is the long shadow of behaviourism’s black box.
Those who are sad or isolated often seek understanding and connection, and when that isn’t available in their immediate family or community, social media broadens their horizons.
Correlation is not causation.

@camwilson @erici
And why women are on Insta in the first place, how they’re using it — these are not Insta problems, these are much larger cultural problems.
It would be a rare feminist who’d argue we could all pack up and go home if only Insta would shut up shop.

@camwilson @erici
Look at the Brailovskaia study: it examines alternative time use, showing that increased physical activity correlates with decreased depression—a well-established finding. It should highlight that most other studies ignore this as a variable, despite its significance. This oversight raises a broader correlation vs. causation issue: without accounting for what replaces social media, we can’t fully understand its impact on mental health.

@erici @camwilson
I should hope not — and no, it doesn’t. What we’ve mostly seen is a collection of studies using correlation to force causation, which was precisely the thrust of the original criticism.

@camwilson @erici
When a child or an entire school participates in a mental health study, responsible adults are aware that they’ll be judged on the outcomes. This often leads to closer attention to wellbeing — a phenomenon tied to reputation management. The need for informed consent makes it impossible to eliminate this variable. As a result, children’s mental health may improve simply due to increased adult conscientiousness, confounding the study’s findings.