6 Scientific American, March 2020LETTERS
[email protected]SOCIAL MEDIA DEBATE
Lydia Denworth is a little too quick to dis-
miss fears of the effects of social media on
young people by setting up false equiva-
lences in “The Kids Are All Right.” For in-
stance, if fears of television have been un-
founded, it doesn’t follow that fears of so-
cial media are parallel in a meaningful
way. And I don’t think either that example
or the others she cites have been unequivo-
cally proved to be baseless. I thought it was
fairly well established that too much TV
is bad for developing minds. Further, one
could easily build a case that city life (at
least a congested one disconnected from a
stable community) is comparatively detri-
mental to mental well-being. And clearly,
Socrates was correct that the use of writing
would affect the ancient practice of memo-
rization: it’s unlikely anyone today would
be able to recite the Iliad in its entirety.
Jon Fraze via e-mailI find that one result of the growing use of
social media is seldom addressed: When
young people use it as their chief way to
communicate, it seems they lose the abili-
ty to “read between the sentences.” How
does one learn to decipher body language
or hear expressions of joy, despair, fear or
distress when reading texts? How does
one express the depth of gratitude in the
shortened and misspelled phrase “Thanx”?
I fear that what will be lost is a richness
of the spoken word and the subtlety of
thoughts gained only through hearing
nuanced sentences.
Joan McCracken Billings, Mont.IMPROVING MENTAL HEALTH
Kirk J. Schneider has great points about
how we might benefit from a new kind of
national leadership to tackle our mental
health crisis in “The U.S. Needs a Mental
Health Czar” [Forum]. As a social worker
and social work and mental health edu-
cator, I would like to also add a few more
ideas to the discussion.
First, rather than having a single czar
who is an expert on psychological ap-
proaches, we might consider the possibili-
ty of introducing a multidisciplinary team
that would consider many interrelated fac-
tors we now suspect are associated with
mental health. For example, social workers
could add much to the assessment of, pre-
vention of and response to mental illness
by considering environmental factors that
may contribute to the suffering of people
today. Similarly, ecological scientists and
biologists might, for instance, be able to
help us understand how air pollution, traf-
fic congestion and other urban stressors
could be associated with human problems.
And the addition of people who are skilled
at assessing spiritual needs might also
contribute. Such a team could be especial-
ly helpful in the primary prevention of
mental illness through building new regu-
lations, policies and social justice reforms.
Second, we have not only a national
crisis but also a global one. For example,
the widespread depression of individuals
across the globe that the World Health Or-
ganization has repeatedly noted may re-
flect, at least in part, a reaction to such is-
sues as climate change, displacement and
preparations for war. Because the biologi-
cal and psychological welfare of people in
our country is interrelated with that of ev-
eryone else on our “shrinking” planet, the
U.S. could work collaboratively with othernations to identify factors that may con-
tribute to all human suffering.
David Derezotes University of UtahCOIN LOSS
In “The Inescapable Casino,” Bruce M.
Boghosian presents a scenario in which
“Shauna” gambles on coin tosses. Each
win increases her wealth by 20 percent,
and each loss decreases it by 17 percent. It
seems to me that the result of the simula-
tion is implicit in the way it is set up: If
Shauna’s wealth is $100 and she plays
against a richer agent, then one win, fol-
lowed by one loss, or vice versa, results in
a net loss to her of $0.40, or 0.4 percent of
her initial wealth. If she plays against a less
wealthy agent, then she will gain 0.4 per-
cent of that agent’s wealth. Thus, the net
gain always flows to the wealthier agent. A
20 percent win and 17 percent loss do not
represent a fair system. And replacing the
latter with anything greater than 16^2 ⁄ 3 per-
cent will produce the same results.
James Lysenko MontrealBOGHOSIAN REPLIES: Lysenko’s calcula-
tions are correct. In the yard sale model my
scenario was based on, the fractions won
and lost with each coin flip are the same,
which even more clearly favors the wealth-
ier agent. In the case where Shauna is the
poorer agent, I decreased her loss percent-
age to emphasize that even when she has a
positive expected gain at each flip, the lon-
ger she plays, the more likely she is to lose.
To underscore Lysenko’s point with
simpler numbers, let’s change the poorer
agent’s win and loss percentages to +
and –75, respectively. Her expected gain in
wealth is now (100% – 75%) / 2 = 12.5%,
which is positive. But note that winning
means doubling her wealth, and losing
means quartering it. Hence, it takes two
wins to compensate for a single loss. Be-
cause the coin is fair, she will lose in the
long run, even though her expected gain in
wealth at each toss is positive.
A different way to frame this apparent
paradox is to note that the expected gain in
the logarithm of the poorer agent’s wealth
is negative. Supposing that we use base 2
logarithms: If she wins, her wealth is dou-
bled, so its logarithm increases by 1. If she
loses, her wealth is quartered, so its loga-
rithm decreases by 2. Thus, the expectedNovember 2019“We have not only
a national mental
health crisis but
also a global one.”
david derezotes university of utah© 2020 Scientific American