@cjferguson1111
PhD Psychologist, Author of Suicide Kings; Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games is Wrong & How Madness Shaped History. Member of an awesome family. Substack: grimoiremanor.substack.com Website: www.ChristopherJFerguson.com
A hike in Hawaii prompts a look back at the early 2020s when every innocuous exchange was fraught with neuroses over race. Here’s hoping we’ve moved past that.
open.substack.com/pub/grimoire...
One news article suggests the #socialmedia ban in Australia may have been a cause of new teen mental health problems, not a fix: www.crikey.com.au/2026/01/16/t...
In my essay today for @RCInvestigates I look at the burgeoning #digitalabstinencemovement, including #socialmedia bans, #cellphone bans and the claims that Edtech "ate" kids' education.
None of these policies or claims are well-based in actual data.
www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/202...
A bit of statistical inside baseball today, but I discuss control variables, as well as moderators and mediators and how to tell the difference when modeling the data. It turns out, it’s not always that easy…
open.substack.com/pub/grimoire...
🚨New study alert!🚨
Large study points out some subtleties in the #socialmedia and #mentalhealth debate.
Very small correlations are found between time spend on social media and various negative outcomes disappear once theoretically relevant controls are applied to the analyses: rdcu.be/e5f4t
A school in NJ banned a novel citing student #mentalhealth concerns: www.npr.org/2026/02/20/n...
Good reminder that, though much of the current fad of banning #socialmedia is framed as "let's get kids reading instead", government will come for the books right quick too if we open this door.
I'm glad someone wrote this WaPo article. It's the smartest thing I've seen on the social media panic in some time.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Today on Chicago's Morning Answer with DanP roft we talk about how youth #suicide appears to be driven by stressful schools, with suicides tapering off in the summer. By contrast #socialmedia does not predict youth #mentalhealth.
morninganswerchicago.com/debate-grows...
In my post today I offer my suggestions on how to cultivate your social media experience. Tame the algorithms, take charge of notifications, build a moat of pleasant experiences. Social media should be fun, and here’s how to make sure it is.
open.substack.com/pub/grimoire...
In my essay today for @spectator I argue that #socialmedia bans such as in place in Australia, and being considered in the UK are doomed to fail. The evidence just isn't there that they would help.
spectator.com/article/ther...
Another study finds no mental health benefits of cellphone bans: mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/29/1...
Aside from a few unpublished studies that were misleadingly hyped (they also found no evidence in favor of cellphone bans), the data on cellphone bans' effectiveness is looking increasingly grim.
@enbrown.bsky.social on new research that #socialmedia abstinence is as bad or worse than overuse (correlationally speaking): reason.com/2026/02/09/a...
It's probably less that use or not use itself is bad, but that either extreme indicates kids who are unusual and probably struggling in other ways
How Billie Eilish stuck her foot in her mouth over “stolen land.” Or, why trite slogans are bad.
open.substack.com/pub/grimoire...
A good essay drawing from Rachel Kowert 's work on to better consider #videogame and #socialmedia "addiction" and why the term is often misused.
Typically problems indicate other underlying issues, not something screens did to kids.
A great read: www.thewhitehatter.ca/post/is-my-c...
Today for big think I look at how some individuals have obsessively chased mastery...sometimes to their own deaths: bigthink.com/neuropsych/m...
Will Dobud dropping truth bombs about social media and cellphone bans with more eloquence than I ever could.
open.substack.com/pub/willdobu...
New study suggest that much of the research on "gaming disorder" and similar constructs accidently got confounded with gambling due to wording issues (gambling is a "game").
First post of the year, new paper out today: we present possibly the biggest case of systematic Measurement Schmeasurement in tech use. It seems that most studies on gaming (videogame) addiction/disorder haven't measured gaming after all. This research took years, so long 🧵 doi.org/10.1098/rsos...
Folks have been asking why so many bad studies get through academic peer-review. Today…I tell you!
open.substack.com/pub/grimoire...
A good brief video by @taylorlorenz.bsky.social on @jonathanhaidt.bsky.social's role in the current technological moral panic, i.e. smartphones
youtu.be/2yVJffNplJc?...
Just what we need...to learn free speech from the UK
My apologies Tobias...super, super sincere apologies, I have Australia stuck in the brain. Let me see if I can find Austrian data.
No, my error.
Australia. Whoops! No, not the same, haha. Quarters doesn't really matter. The trend was already in progress. You can't make a causal attribution for a trend already in process prior to the attribution, that's classic ecological fallacy mistake.
Ok, there's already a problem here. It's that your trend begins BEFORE your intervention, it looks like. According to Mission Australia, you reporting high distress was 25% in 2023, then dropped to 22% in 2024 BEFORE the intervention. So this is ecological fallacy capitalizing on a preexist trend
Such analyses also have the assumption that any intervention is "clean" (i.e., the only change in society at that time), which is unlikely.
It's not too much different from when people tried to correlated TV adoption with violent crime rates. It looked convincing at the time (and resulted in pubs) until those VC rates reversed. Time series studies are often misleading (even as I've done some, admittedly)
I think very clearly the former. I'd say (and I'd say the same in either direction and, indeed, have been cautioning against making too much of this kind of data), there is very much bathwater and too much baby. Too much ecological fallacy risk without controls.
Not going to lie, mostly seems like trivial results with plenty of ecological fallacy (i.e., no control) thrown in. That's what I worry about with a lot of this stuff. Weak results that can be misleading. After all, in the US youth mental health was improving WITHOUT any such interventions.
A study of 25,629 adolescents finds "no evidence that time spent on social media…predicted later internalizing symptoms among girls or boys…The findings…do not support the widely held view that adolescent technology use is a major causal factor in their mental health difficulties" #smma