> Those 4.5 million survey responses were gathered over a decade
I'd feel more confident about the results of this research if it didn't entirely depend on self-reported data from a survey. At least in this case it was a phone survey and not just an internet questionnaire posted to social media sites. I'd put more faith in a much smaller sample of young people being professionally evaluated for memory problems.
The survey asks the question:
"Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?"
It doesn't ask what physical/mental/emotional condition they have, or even if they were diagnosed with it by a professional (although it does at one point ask if a doctor has told them they have a depressive disorder).
Some years the survey included optional questions (which people may or may not have been asked) that asked if they were taking medicine or receiving treatment from a doctor or other health professional for any type of mental health condition or emotional problem, but again, didn't ask what that condition was.
If you told me that there has been a surge in young people over the last ~10 years who self-identify as having a mental or emotional problem that they themselves suspect has caused difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions I wouldn't be at all surprised.
I'd be more curious to know if there were a surging number of young people who were being diagnosed and treated for serious memory disorders recently.
With rising ADHD awareness and corresponding academic waivers and medications used to enhance academic performance, I'm surprised the results are not much higher among students. I'm disappointed the paper failed to address the limitations of the study.
Note that the effect was stronger with wealth, as expected for performance- and excuse-seeking behaviors in high-achieving households.
I think so, but that hasn't stopped it from being a popular way to gather data, or from often being the only source of data used in a paper. I get that internet surveys are dirt cheap and it's easy to get large number of responses, but you have to take the results with a such a massive boulder of salt that it seems more like a convenient way to churn out papers (or even an easy way to get a desired result) than a way to conduct actual worthwhile research.
My big issue with this study is it points to a cause. How can they know the issue is social media, and not, say, the climbing atmospheric CO2 or other long-COVID related issues?
The root cause is likely to the surge of dopamine in the brain related to activities like scrolling social media, fast-paced tik-tok videos, porn, etc. This means that the brain is so much addicted to this dopamine that normal level are no longer enough to be functional.
Its the low quality food, my memory improved a lot, after I stopped eating sugar and most refined foods.
Theres even some research that Alzheimer starts from bad bacteria in the gut, that loves sugar.
Shitty food has been around for a long time. Some virus known for causing long-term effects in non-negligible parts of the population has been around since 2019.
> The increase in disability prevalence from 2016 to 2022 is likely attributable in part to the long-term effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Bacteria (and your body) like sugar because it’s an easy to use fuel source. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having reasonable amounts of sugar in your diet.
As a European visitong the US, I am constantly amazed at how there is masses of sugar added to 'normal' food over there. You take a bite expecting a certain flavour, and go wtf did someone glace this with caramel or drop some candy in the flour mix?
Apparently very popular content - a parent at my kid’s kindergarten wanted to make cake for their kids birthday, said they’d only use 1 tsp of honey in the whole thing.
Cue universal freak out in the parents’ WhatsApp group.
Apparently, sugar:
- causes cancer
- causes autism
- causes hyperactivity
- causes blindness
- makes children indolent and lazy
- will permanently ruin a child if they even look at it
It’s weird, IMO. I let my kiddo have sugar within reason, and somehow she’s leaner than any of the other kids in her class, who even already have rotten teeth at two, despite their sugar free diets. They feed them simple carbs almost exclusively, and are oblivious to amylase.
Perhaps it’s because she’s physically active - the rest of her cohort are pretty much forbidden from walking or running as those pose risks, and children must be sheltered from all conceivable risk so that they grow up into independent and capable adults.
I would argue that that - physical activity - is far more important than what you shove in your face.
There have been repeatedly, credibly and demonstrably shown to be significant benefits to not spending your entire life sitting on your ass - but I guess it’s harder to get off your ass than to proselytise about sugar being an evil and artificial harmful chemical that has no place in the human body - despite it literally being what we run off of.
"I would argue that that - physical activity - is far more important than what you shove in your face."
No, it bloody is not.
I used to drive a bicycle for 6 - 12 hours ever day while working in the delivery. I also didn't watch what I was eating.
I ended up getting fat and with haemorrhoids. So I had to quit cycling.
Then I spend some time (years actually) researching and slowly improving my diet.
Result? I lost weight, my haemorrhoids (and several other health issues) stopped acting up, and I am overall much healthier despite most of my physical activity being walking.
Yes, exercise is important. But it won't help you if you eat massive amounts of garbage food.
So stop talking stuff you have no clue about.
Also, we do not "run off of" sugar. Human body can run off sugar, or fat, or a combination of these. And argument could be made that running off fat is actually healthier. Body can in fact produce all sugar it needs with absolutely zero need for dietary sugar (note that doesn't mean you should go zero carb, just that carbs / sugars are not a metabolic necessity).
As for this:
"who even already have rotten teeth at two, despite their sugar free diets. They feed them simple carbs almost exclusively, and are oblivious to amylase."
Uhh... carbs ARE sugars. It literally doesn't matter that you are avoiding "sugar" if you end up eating bread instead.
Quite a while back (I think 10+ years), I began to realize that I was too dependent on Phones for even the basic info. So, I’ve gotten back to writing a lot more and use Notebook + pen. It helps. I still use Phones but I like the idea of being able to know numbers, and details without pulling out the phone for everything.
Using the dialpad instead of the Saved/Favorite Name in the phones is an interesting habit I built up even for most used numbers such as my wife, sister, and even the neighbors. I remember quite a few numbers; even if I cannot say it, I can look at a keypad and the muscle memory kicks in.
This is the same for some key Passwords, I quite often just type them out. Again, I might not remember but my fingers just glides through the keyboard. I remember it being handy at a hospital making some large payment saving my brother’s family from malaria in a Hospital in Bombay.
Btw, it is also fun to no look at Map on the phone for most journey that I already have an idea or traveling for the 2nd time and henceforth.
I recently participated in a research study, and at one point, the researcher told me I was going to be given 3 minutes with a list of 20 words. I was to memorize as many of the words as possible. I would then be asked to perform a specific task, and then repeat back as many of the words as I could.
When I was given these instructions, I realized it's been many years since I had to memorize anything of meaningful length. I spent the first 20 seconds trying to remember as much as I could about how to memorize things, and the rest of the time actually memorizing. It truly is a muscle, and I was very out of practice.
These are survey results, not actual memory test results. They answered positively to having "serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions”.
I'd bet $1000 bucks that these people don't have actual memory problems.
this is real.
the cognitive environment has changed, where the the things that are retained in order to survive and thrive, one, have been removed and comodified, and are no longer absolutly personal and private, and two, there is a never ending merry-go-round of changing passwords, apps, submissions,sign ins, acciunt verifications, two factor authentications, to get at, what was once absolute, personal, and private.
What has been created is compliance and a lack of personal agency, and any motive to give a damn....whats the point of remembering something that you have zero chance of holding onto and building from?
A population stuck in that mid stage of grief , always letting go......
> Those 4.5 million survey responses were gathered over a decade
I'd feel more confident about the results of this research if it didn't entirely depend on self-reported data from a survey. At least in this case it was a phone survey and not just an internet questionnaire posted to social media sites. I'd put more faith in a much smaller sample of young people being professionally evaluated for memory problems.
The survey asks the question: "Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?"
It doesn't ask what physical/mental/emotional condition they have, or even if they were diagnosed with it by a professional (although it does at one point ask if a doctor has told them they have a depressive disorder).
Some years the survey included optional questions (which people may or may not have been asked) that asked if they were taking medicine or receiving treatment from a doctor or other health professional for any type of mental health condition or emotional problem, but again, didn't ask what that condition was.
If you told me that there has been a surge in young people over the last ~10 years who self-identify as having a mental or emotional problem that they themselves suspect has caused difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions I wouldn't be at all surprised.
I'd be more curious to know if there were a surging number of young people who were being diagnosed and treated for serious memory disorders recently.
With rising ADHD awareness and corresponding academic waivers and medications used to enhance academic performance, I'm surprised the results are not much higher among students. I'm disappointed the paper failed to address the limitations of the study.
Note that the effect was stronger with wealth, as expected for performance- and excuse-seeking behaviors in high-achieving households.
> internet questionnaire posted to social media sites
This has got to have a strong selection effect.
I think so, but that hasn't stopped it from being a popular way to gather data, or from often being the only source of data used in a paper. I get that internet surveys are dirt cheap and it's easy to get large number of responses, but you have to take the results with a such a massive boulder of salt that it seems more like a convenient way to churn out papers (or even an easy way to get a desired result) than a way to conduct actual worthwhile research.
The survey data can be measured against itself.
I think I remember a study about this a few years ago but I can't recall the details
Everyone also forgot their sense humour too.
My big issue with this study is it points to a cause. How can they know the issue is social media, and not, say, the climbing atmospheric CO2 or other long-COVID related issues?
The root cause is likely to the surge of dopamine in the brain related to activities like scrolling social media, fast-paced tik-tok videos, porn, etc. This means that the brain is so much addicted to this dopamine that normal level are no longer enough to be functional.
Its the low quality food, my memory improved a lot, after I stopped eating sugar and most refined foods. Theres even some research that Alzheimer starts from bad bacteria in the gut, that loves sugar.
Shitty food has been around for a long time. Some virus known for causing long-term effects in non-negligible parts of the population has been around since 2019.
> The increase in disability prevalence from 2016 to 2022 is likely attributable in part to the long-term effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Bacteria (and your body) like sugar because it’s an easy to use fuel source. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having reasonable amounts of sugar in your diet.
Reasonable amount being whatever you get from an occasional fruit snack.
Not whatever we have in the modern / food pyramid diet.
What is the reasonable amount? Could it be less than we currently have in many diets?
As a European visitong the US, I am constantly amazed at how there is masses of sugar added to 'normal' food over there. You take a bite expecting a certain flavour, and go wtf did someone glace this with caramel or drop some candy in the flour mix?
"Eating sugar" and "reasonable amounts of sugar in your diet" are two very different things.
Sure, but like literally anything else, the dose makes the poison.
There’s no reasonable amount of sugar, unless there’s fibre to go with it. Sugar by itself (ie refined sugar) is a poison.
What kind of content are you looking at to believe nonsense like that?
Apparently very popular content - a parent at my kid’s kindergarten wanted to make cake for their kids birthday, said they’d only use 1 tsp of honey in the whole thing.
Cue universal freak out in the parents’ WhatsApp group.
Apparently, sugar:
It’s weird, IMO. I let my kiddo have sugar within reason, and somehow she’s leaner than any of the other kids in her class, who even already have rotten teeth at two, despite their sugar free diets. They feed them simple carbs almost exclusively, and are oblivious to amylase.Perhaps it’s because she’s physically active - the rest of her cohort are pretty much forbidden from walking or running as those pose risks, and children must be sheltered from all conceivable risk so that they grow up into independent and capable adults.
I would argue that that - physical activity - is far more important than what you shove in your face.
There have been repeatedly, credibly and demonstrably shown to be significant benefits to not spending your entire life sitting on your ass - but I guess it’s harder to get off your ass than to proselytise about sugar being an evil and artificial harmful chemical that has no place in the human body - despite it literally being what we run off of.
"I would argue that that - physical activity - is far more important than what you shove in your face."
No, it bloody is not.
I used to drive a bicycle for 6 - 12 hours ever day while working in the delivery. I also didn't watch what I was eating.
I ended up getting fat and with haemorrhoids. So I had to quit cycling.
Then I spend some time (years actually) researching and slowly improving my diet.
Result? I lost weight, my haemorrhoids (and several other health issues) stopped acting up, and I am overall much healthier despite most of my physical activity being walking.
Yes, exercise is important. But it won't help you if you eat massive amounts of garbage food.
So stop talking stuff you have no clue about.
Also, we do not "run off of" sugar. Human body can run off sugar, or fat, or a combination of these. And argument could be made that running off fat is actually healthier. Body can in fact produce all sugar it needs with absolutely zero need for dietary sugar (note that doesn't mean you should go zero carb, just that carbs / sugars are not a metabolic necessity).
As for this: "who even already have rotten teeth at two, despite their sugar free diets. They feed them simple carbs almost exclusively, and are oblivious to amylase."
Uhh... carbs ARE sugars. It literally doesn't matter that you are avoiding "sugar" if you end up eating bread instead.
I'm not sure it's social media as much as just mobile phones. I used to memorize phone numbers, addresses, directions, short notes, etc.
Memory works like a muscle - use it or lose it.
Quite a while back (I think 10+ years), I began to realize that I was too dependent on Phones for even the basic info. So, I’ve gotten back to writing a lot more and use Notebook + pen. It helps. I still use Phones but I like the idea of being able to know numbers, and details without pulling out the phone for everything.
Using the dialpad instead of the Saved/Favorite Name in the phones is an interesting habit I built up even for most used numbers such as my wife, sister, and even the neighbors. I remember quite a few numbers; even if I cannot say it, I can look at a keypad and the muscle memory kicks in.
This is the same for some key Passwords, I quite often just type them out. Again, I might not remember but my fingers just glides through the keyboard. I remember it being handy at a hospital making some large payment saving my brother’s family from malaria in a Hospital in Bombay.
Btw, it is also fun to no look at Map on the phone for most journey that I already have an idea or traveling for the 2nd time and henceforth.
I recently participated in a research study, and at one point, the researcher told me I was going to be given 3 minutes with a list of 20 words. I was to memorize as many of the words as possible. I would then be asked to perform a specific task, and then repeat back as many of the words as I could.
When I was given these instructions, I realized it's been many years since I had to memorize anything of meaningful length. I spent the first 20 seconds trying to remember as much as I could about how to memorize things, and the rest of the time actually memorizing. It truly is a muscle, and I was very out of practice.
Zoomers these days have to memorize hundreds of reaction wojaks so they can bring up the correct one immediately in an argument.
I’m in my thirties. I have to mail books around the world and country because so few of my friends read. (It’s worst in the 50+ cohort.)
These are survey results, not actual memory test results. They answered positively to having "serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions”.
I'd bet $1000 bucks that these people don't have actual memory problems.
What an unspecific question that is. Could very well be memory problems, could very well be problems concentrating.
The dismissal in these comments is astonishing.
The paper discussed in the article: https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214226
this is real. the cognitive environment has changed, where the the things that are retained in order to survive and thrive, one, have been removed and comodified, and are no longer absolutly personal and private, and two, there is a never ending merry-go-round of changing passwords, apps, submissions,sign ins, acciunt verifications, two factor authentications, to get at, what was once absolute, personal, and private. What has been created is compliance and a lack of personal agency, and any motive to give a damn....whats the point of remembering something that you have zero chance of holding onto and building from? A population stuck in that mid stage of grief , always letting go......
what is a “decline surge”?
Wouldn't it also have something to do with it being hard to judge quality in the quantity of information today?
Not surprised when you are born in the smartphone era where your attention and memory are constantly hijacked.
> Study finds memory decline surge in young people
Who would have thought that bread (fast food) and circus (smartphone) would dumb them down. /s