Then why does this trend disproportionately affect girls? There is nothing particular special about “onlineness” that should affect them particularly worse than boys, but plenty of very real evidence that shows social media sites like IG are very harmful to girls (and meta knows it).
There are plenty of millennials that have been terminally online since at least their early teens and weren’t showing this same trend. I’m saying there’s nothing inherent about “online-ness” that should warrant mass levels of depression like this.
I don't know about other social media, but IG combines a culture of posting visual content with heavy use of face/body filters. If you're already feeling self-conscious about your body, this is a recipe for body image issues and self-hate. Girls were facing the same issue from advertising and the fashion industry in the pre-internet era, but now it's beamed directly to everyone's phone.
There are well-founded stereotypes regarding women's need for gossip. Men compete in other ways. It's women who are most addicted to social media, instagram, etc.
> There is nothing particular special about “onlineness” that should affect them particularly worse than boys
Females are on average far more social than males. If there's a dose-response effect social media time and mental health, then we should plausibly expect girls to be affected more.
Why do you assert that onlineness doesn't affect women disproportionately?
Women face all sorts of abuse and minimization online. I've heard of many women using male sounding names online in order to be taken seriously or avoid harassment. The general advice on subreddits dominated by women is to turn off personaal messaging to avoid the inevitable rape threats.
Take a look on Instagram and take a look at some musicians that are men and some that are women. The level of hatred directed towards women and the extra barriers they face will be very clear.
You also have subreddits that glorify misogyny like WomenAreThings or MisogynyKink. You have others where guys steal pictures from girls' social medias and redistribute them with captions about rape fantasy or where they use AI to force their victims into sexual media.
You look on YouTube and the algorithm wants to push misogynistic content aimed at disillusioned young boys and more and more of them are tuning in and blaming women for all their problems, asserting that feminism was a mistake.
If you're on Instagram compare how many women have their profiles set to private than men. This is to avoid the constant harassment they'd otherwise face.
I'm seeing more research every year that suggests women are actively self-censoring, silencing themselves or pretending to be men when online.
Here's a few interesting bits of further reading. I've been told off in the past for sharing these things here because women's rights are politics and therefore against the guidelines of the site but I hope it's relevant enough to the discussion here:
While all of that is true, nobody hates women like other women. Men are just way more conspicuous and aggressive about it. Women conceal their abuse through rhetoric and political games.
On what basis are you making these assertions? I'm not sure what you mean by "rhetoric and political games" but it's the conspicuous agressive kind of hatred that would lead to women being disproptionately affected in a negative way, I would think.
I didn't actually say anything about men being the problem. Hatred against women hurts women was my whole point. I hope you can appreciate the irony in your comment: I pointed out some of the ways that women might struggle online, even linked to a variety of articles about it, and you felt the need to jump in and baselessly assert that women are the worst offenders.
I'm trying to comprehend the point of your comment, particularly how it relates to the article you linked. If nobody hates women but women, but we're all women online... where does that leave us?
There are plenty of millennials that have been terminally online since at least their early teens and weren’t showing this same trend. I’m saying there’s nothing inherent about “online-ness” that should warrant mass levels of depression like this.