Wikipedia:Featured article review/Digital media use and mental health/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 5:04, 30 December 2023 (UTC).

Digital media use and mental health

 * Notified: User:Almaty (Special:Diff/1186564291), User:CommonKnowledgeCreator (Special:Diff/1186564889), WikiProject Addictions and recovery (Special:Diff/1186565165), WikiProject Anthropology (Special:Diff/1186565422), WikiProject Computing (Special:Diff/1186565517), WikiProject Education (Special:Diff/1186566047), WikiProject Electronics (Special:Diff/1186566076), WikiProject Internet (Special:Diff/1186566099), WikiProject Libraries (Special:Diff/1186566112), WikiProject Media (Special:Diff/1186566132), WikiProject Medicine (Special:Diff/1186566156) and Psychiatry task force (Special:Diff/1186566168), WikiProject Neuroscience (Special:Diff/1186566182), WikiProject Parenting (Special:Diff/1186566201), WikiProject Psychology (Special:Diff/1186566225), WikiProject Sociology (Special:Diff/1186566237), WikiProject Video games (Special:Diff/1186566259), WikiProject Science Policy (Special:Diff/1186566263), WikiProject Autism (Special:Diff/1186566275), WikiProject Disability (Special:Diff/1186567557); FAR notice on article talk (Special:Diff/1184198180)

Review section
Copied from the FAR notice I left on the article talk page: This article was promoted to FA in 2019. Since then, several additions have been made to the article, including off-topic information (see, showing completely irrelevant information that I just removed). I haven't gone through the whole article, but I have removed a couple of large chunks of prose. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:49, 24 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I am not sure that the "A study in year X said" format is good writing. It makes the whole thing look disjointed and flow poorly. Besides, for a topic this large and important, a single study won't cut it - I'd want studies that satisfy WP:MEDRS requirements, even if the information isn't biomedical MEDRS is a good guidance for the kind of studies one wants to source large societal claims with. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:54, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing you're referring to much of the content I added in the ADHD, Autism, Insomnia, and NPD sections. I wasn't aware of WP:MEDRS until fairly recently. When I was looking for research to add to the article about the mental health disorders, I started by looking for literature reviews and meta-analyses using Google Scholar, but didn't find very many. About NPD, I found very few studies at all. This was a couple years ago, so maybe there's more research now. However, I am willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the article as a featured article given the importance of the topic to society (despite how few people seem to recognize it as such). I just felt like there should be some focus in the problematic use section about digital media use and specific disorders. I noticed that you removed the content summarizing the work of Randolph Nesse and George C. Williams. Why do you believe this is off-topic? As Nesse and Williams noted, evolutionary mismatch between human psychological adaptations with a technologically modern state society in causing mental health issues is the implicit theoretical assumption behind why digital media use negatively impacts mental health (in addition to other human factors issues like distracted driving in general, texting while driving, other mobile phone use and driving safety issues, the effects of the car on societies in general, and social aspects of television in general). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:22, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @CommonKnowledgeCreator. Thank you for your willingness to work through this process. Hopefully we can get this article back up to FA quality. The portion I deleted did not make the link between evolutionary mismatch and digital media use. Here is what it said, in full:
 * "In addition to noting with evolutionary biologist George C. Williams in the development of evolutionary medicine that most chronic medical conditions are the consequence of evolutionary mismatches between a stateless environment of nomadic hunter-gatherer life in bands and contemporary human life in sedentary technologically modern state societies (e.g. WEIRD societies), psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse has argued that evolutionary mismatch is an important factor in the development of certain mental disorders. Citations omitted. See." voorts (talk/contributions) 23:29, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * It does not explicitly use the words digital media use but it does where it says "technologically modern state societies". They don't enumerate every last form of technology that effects mental health, but Nesse and Williams do discuss the role that television and films plays play in causing people to become depressed. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:53, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I did not read the phrase "technologically modern sate societies" to imply "digital media"; if that's the claim being made, it should be made explicitly. Additionally, you should not use multiple wikilinks in a row per MOS:BLUESEA. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:59, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Nesse, as well as David Buss in The Evolution of Desire, also discuss the role of evolutionary mismatch when talking about the role of media images in causing anorexia nervosa among women. (The role of digital media use and anorexia is also what the 2021 Facebook company files leak was about and I'd argue should be mentioned somewhere in the article.) -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:00, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Then just reword the last sentence to say "that evolutionary mismatch with digital media technology". -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:05, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That's not the only issue with the paragraph that I deleted. Other issues are the wall of blue text, lack of clarity as to what it means for there to be an evolutionary mismatch for someone not familiar with that line of research, and general lack of clarity as to the mechanism that Williams' and Neese's theories propose. Moreover, there should be some sources that talk those theories and evaluate them, rather than just presenting them without context. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:09, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Other issues are the wall of blue text... The links to Stateless society, Nomad, Modernity, and State (polity) can be removed. ...lack of clarity as to what it means for there to be an evolutionary mismatch for someone not familiar with that line of research... That's why the link to the Evolutionary mismatch article was included so that the reader can follow to learn what evolutionary mismatch is (although I don't think I wrote it as "mismatches"). ...general lack of clarity as to the mechanism that Williams' and Neese's theories propose. Moreover, there should be some sources that talk those theories and evaluate them, rather than just presenting them without context. I'm not sure exactly that I understand your meaning. Evolution and mismatch are the ultimate cause. The proximate causes would depend on the disorder. Evolutionary psychology is the application of modern evolutionary theory to the scientific examination of cognition and behavior, and evolutionary psychiatry is the application of evolutionary psychology to mental health. There are whole Wikipedia articles that discuss them and criticism of them. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Linking to another Wikipedia article does not override the need to explain technical terms in an article relying on that term. The point about the mechanisms of the theories is that there's no explanation of what mismatch is occurring and how it expresses itself in human behavior and health. The final sentence means that a theory needs to be presented from a NPOV, which means affording due weight to analyses and criticisms of that theory. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't believe this star can be saved (because it never should have been promoted FA to begin with). Wikipedia summarizes secondary sources; it follows, does not lead. The article does (and did on promotion) exactly what we're not supposed to do on Wikipedia; it uses a preponderance of non-WP:MEDRS-compliant primary sources to lead the reader to conclusions. And by doing that, the article set up a situation for what would likely and did happen-- addition of more primary sources to reinforce conclusions. My suggestion is that we proceed to FARC for delisting, although interim efforts to reduce the article to conform with basic policy and guideline would also be helpful; short of DSM or ICD recognition, this article was always leading rather than following secondary sources, with a heavy reliance on primary sources, put together in a way that borders on original research. A strong argument to the contrary might convince me, but short of that, I will be a Move to FARC declaration.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  19:22, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the subject area is "leading rather than following secondary sources" absent DSM or ICD recognition. My knowledge of global mental health is limited to one graduate level course, but I think we certainly could have an FA quality article on this topic. The cited to several literature reviews and meta-analyses on the issue of mental health and digital media use, including several reviews on then-current debates in the field of global mental health and categorization of mental health disorders. I agree with you that to get the article back up to FA, a lot of OR cruft would need to be cut and the article would need to be updated with more recent meta-analyses/literature reviews. I'm certainly not in a position to do that, but hopefully someone is before we move this to FARC and I think we should wait a little bit; there's no rush. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm in no hurry, there are no deadlines at FAR as long as work is progressing, and it seems we agree on the direction the work needs to go here ... Bst, Sandy Georgia (Talk)  21:15, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Is there even a scientific agreement that social media use causes eating disorders? AN like phenomena have been reported long before and even during time periods when thin bodies were not in fashion. the most common eating disorder is BED which is hardly glamorized online and it's hard to see how social media would cause it. That's the issue with citing individual studies or researchers' opinion; it's hard to tell how widely accepted it is. Furthermore, methodology/reproducibility in social science research is a big issue. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:01, 2 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Basically, unless a lot of work starts happening here, I will be a Move to FARC, don't think this article should have ever been featured, and don't think it's salavageable. I've started reviewing on talk, and in addition to MEDRS and other concerns, there is a real need to update the article, as it presents very old primary studies throughout that, if not covered by now in secondary reviews, are probably UNDUE at best, or wrong at worst. I've only progressed up to the ADHD section, where I see a whole lot more of same.  I don't think this article is savable; it needs a scalpel, and is at best a good example of how not to write a Wikipedia article, much less to have a bronze star attached. The problems were summed up in a FAC comment: "we are meant to be citing reviews not writing reviews", and with the passage of time, these issues have become exacerbated. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:46, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree this will probably have to move to FARC for reasons I stated on the talk page. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:54, 3 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Move to FARC while lots of great work is happening with this article, too many updates are needed with higher quality, current sources that FAR is not the best avenue to fix these, in my opinion. Z1720 (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Move to FARC While Sandy has removed a lot of badly sourced material, this article would still need a lot of updating with recent research to meet the comprehensiveness requirement, and nobody has indicated they're willing and able to do that. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Move to FARC I don't think we can get there from here; the flaws are foundational. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  02:58, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

FARC section

 * Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and currency. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:59, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Nikkimaria (talk) 05:04, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist Significant, heavy duty work would need to be carried out on sourcing. Alas. Ceoil (talk) 11:53, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist per my comments above. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:36, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist while I can see people reverting to the FAC version, removing any "A study said..." fluff and then re-expanding with the list of sources proffered by Sandy on talk, I think that needs significant work outside of FAR/FARC. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:57, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist, accelerated - the issues are foundational and the article needs a major rewrite. Hog Farm Talk 19:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist work has stalled and much more research would need to be conducted for this article to be updated effectively. Z1720 (talk) 22:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.