Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research
npr.org
npr.org
I know it's not realistic but it still gets to your head.
I uninstalled it from my phone I feel better about myself after a few weeks.
I'm guessing most of, if not all, social media is the same. I'm slowly trying to ween myself off but it is so meticulously addictive.
Social media is best used for keeping in touch with friends and family. If you're just browsing popular photos from people you don't know, it's basically an interactive and targeted version of watching TV. We all grew up understanding that endless TV consumption is an unhealthy activity that we should minimize, but it has taken a while for the same sentiment to be applied to social media.
I don't bother with the discover tab in Instagram and I mostly follow people I know. I can usually catch up on everything in 5-10 minutes per day at most, including some comments on friends' photos.
> I'm slowly trying to ween myself off but it is so meticulously addictive.
Being addicted to anything is a massive trigger for depression, especially when it displaces productive activities and replaces them with sedentary consumption. If you can't use something without becoming addicted, it's best to not use it at all.
I know it sounds trite but I feel like social media today (or maybe all forms of media honestly) makes the barrier to ill-will extremely easy.
If you were a young adult (at least from what I'm told) in the 50s/60s/70s it was hard to be addicted to TV because it would literally go off the air at 11 pm (or midnight?). What happens after I watch a show on Netflix? It immediately plays the next one.
You couldn't get lost in extreme opinions because in order to see those extreme opinions you've had to of met an extreme person (on a soapbox with xeroxes so I've been told), you wouldn't run into 100s of them as you do when going onto FB, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, tik tok, etc.
How can I as an individual compete with billion dollar companies that literally hire neuroscientists/psychologists to make something as addictive as possible?
If someone can't moderate their own consumption of something despite their best efforts, abstinence works.
Similar story with alcohol: Plenty of people have no problem moderating their consumption, but a small percentage of people really struggle with limiting their intake. For the latter group, not drinking any alcohol at all is a great solution.
I think this defeatist concept that social media is too addictive to resist sets a lot of people up for failure. It's not only possible to use social media without getting addicted, but it's the norm for the vast majority of people who use social media. If you're in the minority of people who can't moderate your own usage, then abstaining completely might be the best choice. But don't assume that addiction or uncontrolled doom-scrolling is inevitable.
No, if someone can’t moderate their own consumption, abstinence usually fails.
If a person finds something both easily resistable without immediate past use and hard to moderate immediately after use, abstinence works, but that’s not a super common response. People who have trouble moderating use immediately after a prior use also usually have problems resisting initial use.
If the rule is "don't do it", you know whether or not you're supposed to do it in any given case. That's not true if the rule is "be reasonable". If the first beer was reasonable, so is the second. One additional beer never really changes how reasonable your total consumption has been, even though the total range of reasonability is quite wide.
But like, how are you able to tell that generally people would have difficulty moderating their use of something shortly after they first begin to use it, generally tend to also have difficulty not beginning use?
That seems like it would be hard to measure/observe ?
If you abstain from meat, vegan options are seemingly everywhere now and everyone can sit at the same table.
If you choose abstain from addictive profit motivated proprietary software, good luck keeping any connection with friends and family. You just stop existing in their universes, and they can't be bothered to try a different communication tool to respect your preference to not have your data exploited to manipulate and addict you.
Ask me how I know.
Social media facilitates indirect interaction (seeing posts from one another) but it won’t make “Han shoot first” more often.
Stated another way: if you long for others to make first contact with you, social media won’t scratch that itch.
My grandmother gets 2-5 random calls from her friends daily, the last unexpected call I received from a friend was in 2013 as we all switched to social media posting/commenting then.
Somewhat disagreeing with my previous comment: but I’ve definitely seen this effect between iMessage / Whatsapp vs SMS. I’m more likely to interact with people one-on-one through those platforms instead of SMS because of the link/image/gif handling. My android friends without whatsapp/telegram/signal don’t hear from me as much because of that added friction.
The problem is that social media is too addictive and also very difficult to avoid.
For many jobs, social media has become if not integral then at least an implicit requirement ("please retweet our press release about new feature X"). It has also become a major news source, especially for niche or specialty topics (HN and reddit are "social media" too btw).
Companies like Facebook (and to less success, Google) are trying everything to create onramps to their social media platforms wherever possible. In many places Facebook is used by municipality governments to post news updates, restaurants to post their opening hours and menu updates, and so on.
"Social media abstinence" is not possible for everyone, difficult enough as it is once you've already been using social media.
It doesn't work for sex ed and I don't see why it would work for this.
Just seems like anyone posting here would notice the bleeding obvious - that sex ed happens in a very narrow age band not noted for self-knowledge, gratification delay or self control, compared with people with an addictive tendency across the age and self-control spectrum.
You can't, which is the reason we need government regulation. This clearly isn't self-regulating (like most things) and the purpose of government is to act in these matters on behalf of society.
I still don't think it's the government's job.
Not even that... Facebook can show you the worst of your friends and family. Doesn't feel healthy.
None fake friends and family. Got a handful of fam that are so fake with what they post. Act like they do it all and now one helps them. Turns out they are narcissistic users.
I've seen it a lot, and it's clearly negative, but I don't know exactly what makes somebody "fake". Is it that they tell a lot of lies? Or that they're not trustworthy friends? Or just that they're not very good people?
And we already had a good solution for that: email.
The craziest thing is, it happened so quickly. On year she was doing her own thing and loving it. Then her mom got her onto Instagram, and a year later she was trying to do everyone else's thing and chronically burnt out.
I'm not sure it's entirely Instagram's fault, though. A while back I decided to stop renewing my Make Magazine subscription for more or less the same reason.
It destroyed my marriage personally. My ex became obsessed with being the “BEST”. Went as far as creating multiple accounts in Instagram to highlight achievements in multiple areas. The obsession resulted in us no longer knowing each other. We spent essentially no time together and time spent together was spent obsessing over one of the accounts.
When I noticed how it was changing us I deleted it. I hope my ex finds happiness in some way some day. For me, I know I’m a much happier person not being wrapped up in that constant game of comparison against people I simply cannot compare to because my life situation is different.
The "reveal" may look cool, but what they did and how much time/effort/money it took to get the result is hidden from you.
It sounds like Instagram is essentially the generalization of pornography.
On the other end of the spectrum, Facebook used to be a cesspool for me, since I didn't like the amount of politics and high school classmates I didn't like in high school in my feed. Then, I unfollowed everyone that posted any politics of any kind, unfriended people I intended to never see again, and now my feed is only a handful of groups that are incredibly friendly and helpful communities around overly obsessive coffee culture. Otherwise, I now use Marketplace pretty heavily since it seems to have largely replaced Craigslist in my area with better targeting that actually regularly gets my interests right. Now that I have made the choices to use the tool well, it's really really helpful. You have to take some responsibility for the bad experience you have on these platforms -- they only push you content you engage with, so you can choose to stop seeing that crap if you want to.
I do see value in things like marketplace but my experience when I left was so negative that I find it difficult to go back.
If you use Instagram the way "normal" people do, it's a path to sadness. Selfies, one-upmanship, parties, perfect cakes, perfect gardens, exotic vacations, etc. All the badness. It's just human nature and it's what the platform has become. Bleh.
If, however, you go into Instagram and aggressively curate your feed to be hyper-specific to a (visual) niche you're interested in, it can be really, really great.
I have 3 Instagram accounts - my "main" one (in which I follow friends), and that's become a hellscape of all of the above. I just don't use it anymore.
My other 2 are hyper-specific: One follows pets (parrots, specifically), the other is all about coin collecting (@numismattack ahem shameless plug). Absolutely zero variation from those themes. And you know what? It's a really fun way to immerse yourself in those respective worlds! All interesting niche content, all the time. I suggest you (and others) give that a try.
Ps - no matter what your main feed is, stay far far away from the "Explore" tab. That is brain poison. It's like pure algorithmic dopamine generation and it's the root of all evil on that platform.
I can attest to that. From the beginning I didn't intend my IG to be some personal thing (there's no photo of me in there or details about my private life), just following some artsy subjects I was interested in back in the day. In the meantime is has changed into a feed of modernist and brutalist architecture (I really like that subject) and there's some really neat things I saw in there.
My SO uses IG very similarly, her feed is now filled up by pets, mostly border collies (we have one at home).
Makes sense that an app built pretty much entirely around this feature is the hottest new thing in social media in 2020s.
I hadn't used my FB account in about 8 years but hadn't deleted it. Just did that a few days ago and the sense of closure was awesome!
In India, there is a psychological tendency to blame the person rather than the tool, so I'm even more afraid for people here.I mean a case like the suit against McDonald for hot coffee spilled on lap would be laughed at here. i.e. I'm expecting that "you're feeling depressed due to social media, you're the problem" kind of statements might actually fly with the people. I also see this changing for the better, so .. hopeful.
I use it to search for items I need on the marketplace. I use it to join group chats for small events and organization since it would be a hassle to get neighbors and their friends to ditch it for my sake.
I haven't opened instagram in ages, but keep it around for the very odd link to a post on it, and the same with Twitter.
It has absolutely improved my mood. Even cutting down on HN is good, and cutting reddit from my life was the biggest relief I've experienced.
I remember once, I was sat outside at a burger joint watching a lady take literally 5 whole minutes taking pictures of her food at a specific table, while another gentleman (who was NOT with her) patiently stood waiting with a plate of his own food in his hands.
Turns out the light hit that specific table so perfectly that these people were ok with letting their food get cold to get the perfect shot before they ate it.
Of course, they could have been food writers but I've seen this type of scenario play out often enough that I tend to look at a lot of social media as a parody of real life.
Choose to follow all dumb meme accounts and you would never have had that experience. Choose to follow all stand-up comedy accounts (or nature or music or comic books) and you would again have an entirely different experience.
It's not social media that is creating those problems, it's the way users choose to use social media. Though I'd readily admit that the proprietors do everything they can to make the initial experience as painfully addictive as possible.
These apps want your attention. But you should only give it to them when you want. Not when they tell you.
It was a fantastic decision. I still have my account, but I only engage with it when I'm sitting at a desktop computer and have a specific community I'm engaging with. I'm a huge Formula 1 fan so on a race weekend, I'll check out some of the posts on /r/formula1, for instance. But no more /all, and most importantly, no more scrolling endlessly for hours. It's been a really great change.
Next step: stop watching the news and feel even better
My secret? Follow topics, not people. My feed is filled with galaxies, animals, art... cool, interesting, inspiring stuff.
Its horribly taken pictures of kinda boring moments
Is it your position that if someone produces content that causes depression, that they are liable for damages? Do you also extend this legal opinion you likely just made up and have no subject matter knowledge on to other forms of media or websites? Depressing music? Depressing novels? Depressing video games? Or is it only depressing social media websites that you feel are held to some kind of standard about depression?
You’re right that they could be sued even if they don’t admit it, but then they would have a defense which would be far weaker if they had already admitted it.
Facebook has practically zero incentive to research damages they might be causing. Sure, they could do the ethically responsible thing and try to discover and mitigate issues... but if they were doing that, we wouldn't be at this state, would we?
Members from the well-being team tried to conduct research but was refused do to it because of “legal and PR” reasons. The well-being team was shut down.
All this will come out in lawsuits if/when they happen. Likely through attorney generals and not individuals.
Do I have no choice but to take you at your word that you're right about what is a pretty big legal claim being made here. Are people just making up things about how the law works, or am I genuinely just very ignorant on this subject?
In other words, can you cite the legal principal here, or precedent, or some kind of actual reference that shows some kind of informed discussion is taking place on this subject instead of a bunch of people making uninformed claims that sound appealing?
From my uninformed point of view that I am happy to be challenged on, suing Facebook for causing depression makes about as much sense as suing McDonald's for obesity. There is no legal principal upon which one could successfully do so and while people have tried, they failed miserably [1] (as in the case was dismissed with prejudice, which is one of the worst outcomes).
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2003/01/22/news/companies/mcdonalds/
I think at this point it's quite clear that people are just speaking from a very superficial understanding or outright just making things up about this topic but are doing so as if they are subject matter experts and while this is a open discussion forum and you can say whatever you want, I suppose I expected better.
[1] https://scholar.google.ca/scholar_case?case=1620366536753369...
> From my uninformed point of view that I am happy to be challenged on
Now you say:
> I think at this point it's quite clear that people are just speaking from a very superficial understanding or outright just making things up about this topic but are doing so as if they are subject matter experts
How would you know, if your point of view is uninformed?
Are you a lawyer?
In my own area of expertise, I have literally been downvoted for providing links to primary sources that conclusively disprove unsourced claims.
So given that I know that discussions in my area of expertise on this site is full of misinformation, I have now come to doubt the quality and reliability of conversations on this site on some other topics that tend to attract a lot of assertive discussion. Topics that don't attract a lot of assertive discussion still seem legit, for example few people make assertions or categorical claims in physics discussions or pure math discussions and the few who do I think are trustworthy since they tend to provide extensive explanations justifications, and sources. Most people in those topics are inquisitive, they ask questions, they make clear that they have an opinion or a belief and wonder if others share that opinion... but when it comes to law people just downright state things as if they're facts and they're qualified to know that it's a fact.
So I now doubt that many people on this site who discuss the law with such authority are remotely informed to do so and that motivated my original line of inquiry; is the original poster and everyone else in agreement with them actually informed to understand the law to make such a big statement on the subject, or are they just making things up the same way people on this site make things up about the topic that I know I am an expert on. Are other readers upvoting comments because they can verify it and upvotes are serving as a kind of quality control mechanism, or are people upvoting comments that sound appealing and that they wish was true, but really are not qualified to know, and hence upvotes are a reflection of this site's ignorance on a topic.
I can only answer that for myself, but I think the replies to my line of inquiry have been poor and misinformed, and so I think the best way to make use of this site going forward is to avoid participating in discussions other than those I think still retain some degree of quality: physics, math, machine learning, things where I trust there are enough experts here that no one would make such strong claims that are false without being shut down by the community for doing so.
Law, biology and health care, the environment, finance/economics are not among those topics.
Not just misinformation, but active disinformation.
> physics, math, machine learning, things where I trust there are enough experts here that no one would make such strong claims without immediately and easily being shut down by the community for doing so.
I think you are overestimating the quality on these subjects. They can be just as bad, and equally there can be highly technical and informative comments on law, biology, etc.
This site does not have consistency. Most answers to questions are poor and uninformed. However there is still good insight to be found.
Kranar is basically right here. It isn't at all clear that FB would be liable, and there isn't even a particularly strong case.
The general argument that it’s a bad idea for them to admit this still holds.
Generically moaning about how people are speaking from a position of being uninformed, especially when one is also uninformed, is a useless behavior here.
Bringing information or asking questions is the only way to solve that.
That's because you're misrepresenting my position, which I have been very careful to explain.
There is nothing wrong or shameful about being uninformed on a topic and wanting to discuss topics that one is uninformed about. I am uninformed on a lot of topics, including law, and I'd love to participate in a discussion to better inform myself. I also encourage people to seek out information and participate in discussions that they do not understand, it's a great way to learn.
My complaint is that on this site, people who are uninformed speak with a degree of certitude that a reader who didn't know any better could confuse with expertise, and that results in widespread misinformation and degrades trust in this site. It also discourages actual experts from participating in discussions since people informed on a topic have to then compete with those who are uninformed, and based on my own experience having done so repeatedly, the amount of effort needed to do so is disproportionate. It's a lot easier to spread false information that's appealing and sounds good than it is to spread truthful information.
Asking questions is great, having experts answer questions is great, having people with different backgrounds relating topics outside of their area of expertise is also great and can lead to unique insights. But having someone make bold, unverifiable claims and everyone else upvoting and giving those claims prominence when they are false, simply because it sounds appealing is not good because it pushes away people who are experts.
I’m not misrepresenting you.
Are you somebody who doesn’t know any better? I don’t think think so, so why are you trying to protect this imaginary victim?
Do you speak with a degree of certitude? I think you do.
It’s pretty easy to question unverifiable claims, whereas complaining about other people’s tone of confidence while doing the same thing yourself just seems like it’s not likely to have a useful effect. It too is just a generic and unverifiable claim.
You aren’t wrong that misinformation spreads on public fora. However there is no evidence that you are an authority on how to resolve that issue.
For example you said that FB can't be sued over this. That's wrong - it's just unlikely to succeed under current laws.
The rest of their problems with it are probably true, but the specific point is incorrect. That's the point being made here.
Are you sure? Where?
> The issue is that statements here about topics people don't understand are often outright wrong, but go unchallenged.
Are you sure you are responding to the correct commenter? Here’s something I did write:
> It’s pretty easy to question unverifiable claims…
Which is what I recommend when you see something that you think is outright wrong.
Moaning long windedly about the fact that people say things you think are wrong is pointless.
If you see something you think is wrong or unclear to you, you can contribute to the conversation by asking a clarifying question.
> Are you sure? Where?
To quote:
"zepto> This may be true, in the sense that they cannot be sued at the drop of a hat.."
Due to the tone of your over-confident first post, initially I thought you were a lawyer on Facebook's payroll making a deceitful argument.
You really think Facebook's lawyers would advise disclosing a link between Facebook usage and depression found in their internal studies? Do you really think that Facebook would even ever allow for that conclusion to be reached in this particular internal study? Come on.
Admitting to this fact could just be bad PR. Or bad for their growth and retention metrics, while not changing their legal liability.
Actually yes, I completely agree with you even though it's depressing. Calling it "inconclusive" is probably the least offensive response they could've executed.
Instead we get all this flowery ultra-inclusive PR nonsense that makes dealing with tech far more cringe-worthy than it should be
Smile, while social media milks you like the cash cow that you are! We'll throw in a cute mascot, a curvy font, and a bunch of highly diverse group photos if that makes you feel better! Oh, does this attitude make you feel worse, not better? Well maybe the studies you're reading are wrong! Chin up, suckers, we have more ads for you to consume!
To the requests made so far, you are correct.
Depositions and subpoenas would change that. And if you know who to ask inside FB, there are some ugly skeletons in their closet.
Realistically I think that it just so happens that the people who would work at facebook are the people who naturally don't believe that facebook is a force of badness in the world because their worldview already aligned with facebook before they joined.
Take a look at the history of litigation against tobacco companies and the policy consequences over the decades as the harm became known and public.
If not legal issues at the very least Facebook would face severe regulatory problems if administrations and consumers actually started to look at digital media consumption from a public health perspective.
It's also illegal to own a tank.
Honestly, companies are prohibited from selling dangerous products unless there is some reason they are viewed as being dangerous but of more value being legal than illegal.
While libertarianism is rife in America - there is no inherent right to trade in dangerous products. If I decided to sell needles full of deadly poison at my store - even if very clearly labeled and even if I sat you down for a twenty minute presentation before each sale occurred - it's quite likely I'd be shut down.
> It's also illegal to own a tank.
It isn't.
It's estimated there are around 1000 private tanks in the US, and there are tank dealers in the US, UK, and Australia. Surely other places too.
Here's some in Australia https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-19/tinkering-with-tanks-...
Also, he tried to explain how you shift, but I never quite understood it. the clutch was a lever, with some sort of handle to spin the flywheel up or down to the next gear.
Of course this is not a cheap hobby, and if you want explosive shells you'd need to do paperwork for each shell. Even if you only want to fire inert projectiles, it's not as though you can buy those at walmart.
Here are the prices for the Sherman tank:
SHERMAN TANK
$1,850.00 – Drive the tank
$950.00 – Ride the tank, driven by a Cadre
$2,800.00 – Drive & Shoot the tanks 76mm main gun (1 round)
Here is a guy who rented a tank and shot it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqC2kJNdJjE
> Correlation is not causation, and one area of further study is whether greater social media usage leads to poor mental health outcomes or whether those who are depressed and unhappy are drawn to spend more time on social media.
These are correlational studies. They aren't saying that they have evidence that Facebook causes depression. They're saying that increased social media usage is correlated with depression.
Stepping back, it appears that screen time is correlated with depressive symptoms, with or without social media. One such study: Association between screen time and depression among US adults https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5574844/ This includes watching TV or simply using a computer for leisure of any sort.
I know Facebook is a popular villain, but we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions that this data means Facebook causes depression or that Facebook is uniquely worse than other forms of screen time in its correlation with depression.
I think the causality here will turn out to be complicated and will be different for different people.
You can measure the correlation all you want, but to prove causation you have to be able to control the source (creteris paribus).
It's hard to get a study approved that intents to expose subjects to something you know is harmful.(?)
With sigarettes, researcher could just prove the material harm, and conclude causation, but proving purely psychological harm seems hard to prove
nb it's ceteris, same root used in et cetera.
But emphasizing this point feels uselessly contrarian. There's not a doubt in my mind that social media is a disaster for mental health, especially in kids growing up with it, especially on platforms like Instagram that emphasize projecting an image of a perfect trendy life. It's ridiculous to ask to wait for more evidence instead of figuring out how to act now.
Social media profits from being addictive and divisive, and is therefore incentived to hurt mental health. Facebook's R&D budget is larger than the NSF, I'm sure they have tons of internal knowledge about exactly how they manipulate users' mental health, and I doubt much of it is good.
You might have some other study to back it up, but from the study you've cited we can't conclude that, because they measure screen time without any such breakdown. Social media could as well be the most important hidden variable.
The lit review cites two prior studies, both are quite interesting:
> People who spend > 4 h of screen time such as: TV watching and computer use, are at higher risk of developing depression (de Wit et al., 2011, Hamer et al., 2013). While, it is also reported that people with depressive symptoms spend significantly more hours in a day, watching TV and using computer (de Wit et al., 2011).
From the abstract of the first reference (de Wit et al):
> Our study sample consisted of 2353 participants (age 18–65) of whom 1701 had a current anxiety and/or depressive diagnosis and 652 were healthy controls. Anxiety and depression diagnoses were conducted using the DSM-IV based Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Controlling for sociodemographics and physical activity level we found that persons with a major depressive disorder (MDD) spend significantly more leisure time using the computer. We found that persons with dysthymia, panic disorder and agoraphobia spend significantly more daily hours watching television compared to controls.
So interestingly, the choice seems to correlate with severity of depression.
The other study was looked at possible causal mechanism between sedentary behavior (as defined by TV time) and depression. Since they focused on TV you can look at their own lit review and find TV-specific studies such as:
Lucas, M., Mekary, R., Pan, A., Mirzaei, F., O’Reilly, E.J., Willett, W.C., Koenen, K., Okereke, O.I., Ascherio, A., 2011. Relation between clinical depression risk and physical activity and time spent watching television in older women: a 10-year prospective follow-up study. Am. J. Epidemiol. 174, 1017–1027.
Is there another event besides the releasing of the first smart phone in conjunction with social media that we is a possible contributor to the rise of suicide and depression from 2009 - 2015?
Global economic collapse.
People love to look at social media as a cause for misery because it means they can avoid looking at the hard stuff - unemployment, precarious housing, poverty.
I agree that smartphones could play a role and they are easy to point to as a new way to consume media (Was there a similar rise in depression when TVs were becoming common? When newspapers or tabloids became common?), but since the early 00s a lot went for the worse in terms of future outlook and expectations on what a happy life is or can be, not to forget wars, and economic depression, which all would maybe not immediately have an effect on mental depression statistics and slowly caused a rise from 2008.
But let's say it was the smartphone, then I'd still argue that the emergence of the smartphone (and the iPad) as a whole is likely more at fault than Facebook itself. Many many more people started to spend time looking at small screens doing all kinds of things as a distraction, including people who never had a computer or played games or browsed the web before for leisure.
I'm sure Facebook and Instagram were factors as common places where that time is spent, but there's also so much more than social media, for instance the fact that people are more connected in general via chat Apps and chat groups, where they also share photos or have discussions, though it's not really falling under the "social media" umbrella.
As someone who has struggled with depression their entire life, 2016 was the year I deleted my Facebook account. I have absolutely no regrets doing so and I encourage everyone to consider breaking free.
A couple of studies referenced
https://news.uark.edu/articles/55480/increased-social-media-...
This one is not limited to Facebook it includes reddit on the list of "social media" sites. I think reddit's one of the most depressing places on the internet so I wouldn't be quick to point the finger at FB here.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
This study looks at all screen time including playing video games and watching TV. It's not very useful for making a case against Facebook
The article, precisely, asks for more research
The side effects of attempting to bar social media usage by teens might further amplify the problem, driving them away from carefully moderated platforms.
It's popular to demonize Facebook, but the reality is that sedentary activities in general are highly correlated with depressive symptoms. This goes both ways: Being sedentary instead of active is unhealthy and can exacerbate depression, and being depressed can exacerbate sedentary behavior.
Facebook is just one example of a sedentary activity, but watching TV and using a computer for leisure are also highly correlated with depression.
It's entirely possible that Facebook has some unique properties that make it worse than other sedentary time-wasting activities, but we need to be honest that it might simply be equivalent to other sedentary screen time activities in this regard. Without actual data, we're just guessing and projecting our feelings about Facebook onto correlation studies.
If you had a well formed hypothesis before conducting a correlational study, and the outcome supported your hypothesis, it is not "just speculative causation" anymore. In fact, short of human experimentation, that is as good of a data as we could ever get.
> The side effects of attempting to bar social media usage by teens might further amplify the problem, driving them away from carefully moderated platforms.
Is there any data, even correlational, for this particular speculation?
FB does seem to have a moderation system of sorts but it cannot possibly cope with the tsunami of incoming content. FB cannot be considered moderated in any meaningful way unless FB employs a significant proportion of the world's population.
So, I do not agree with you that FB effectively moderate their forum/network. I don't care about other forums/networks - that's whataboutery.
I assert that FB routinely allows: misogyny, misandry, racism and all other forms of hate speech to permeate their network without effective detection, identification and control of such.
Call me out.
There was a strongly negative reaction here on HN when ISPs started blocking access to the killer’s live stream.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/facebook-chief-operating...
For instance, with Facebook, is it more because of the ads?
Or is it more because of the engagement algorithms?
Or, would it happen even if Facebook were just a reverse-chronological feed, populated only by your chosen friends, with zero advertising?
Hacker News is ad-free and not particularly aggressive with engagement-optimizated sorting, yet I often walk away from HN sessions with mild depression. Also inspiration, defeat, numbness, laughter, and a sense of subtle superiority.
My point is that digital connection, content, and curation is completely novel to ours or any species. Facebook’s use of the technology may be greedy and or detrimental, but the entire paradigm is without precedent.
We never heard about RSS feed readers causing depression, except when Google cancelled the most popular one.
It's possible that having all of your friendship interactions being quietly censored and reorganized to financially benefit a giant multinational is actually the depressing thing.
Delete your Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp accounts. If you think these systems are bad (and you're right if you do), stop donating content to them to make them more attractive to your friends and family. It's rude and antisocial to push your loved ones toward these abusive systems.
Binging TV shows, binging Facebook, and binging internet usage in general are all highly correlated with depression.
With correlation, it's important to remember that causation doesn't necessarily flow in only one direction. It's likely that depression causes increased sedentary activity, including Facebook usage. It's also entirely possible that social media usage encourages depression by displacing more productive, healthier activities.
Some people can become addicted to food, shopping, television, etc. Does that mean that each person that eats food will become addicted? No.
People who become addicted are often people with issues in their dopamine or endorphine systems, and a common way to end up that way is by having a difficult childhood.
From the article. Sorta gets at what you're asking.
Presumably there is some subset of the population that *really is* having much better lives than another subset of the population. I don't think anyone here would deny this, but it must feel different to know this fact in an abstract sense than it is to actually see it.
The topic of meritocracy comes up here from time to time. I don't think such a society could exist, but if it did, wouldn't it be an absolute nightmare for the bottom 20% (50%?) of the population?
An app where the user watches a 5 second video of some rich 18 year old from LA making smoothie bowls. Then the user swipes up to a video of some 22 year old lifting half the weight of an economy sized car. The fact that this isn't obviously depression inducing is concerning.
I know by posting on this site, I'm contributing very little. But there needs to be a campaign against social media. Something that tells the world, this is mood altering and unnaturally over-stimulating. That we weren't meant to lay down slide up at our screens like brain dead slugs watching 5 second clips for 5 hours after work.
Maybe I've become too programmer minded, but we were meant to make things, read books, listen to music, even watching TV shows is more meaningful.
Does HN count as social media?
Where do you draw the line?
To me HN is nothing more innocent than a virtual programming club.
So, it can be quite the same as Instagram. The comments on HN are often similar in nature to the Instagram posts in that they only show people at their best, in the sense that they generally wouldn't post if they didn't have something smart to add. But there are so many folks in tech that don't necessarily understand everything.
I am exaggerating a bit here for the sake of argument. There is certainly a difference, but the core reason is often identified as comparing yourself with unrealistic representations of what life, abilities, looks, etc. of others is like. And that can happen in any forum.
The difference between this, HN and social media is that you have an encapsulated view of what you think is someone's personal life.
Some guy on the headline of HN makes a career out of implementing Ruby interpreters. That's great, but that's his work life. He could be divorced with 4 kids. The rich guy with the hot wife that cut you off, he could be an attorney for ExxonMobil or some other miserable high paying role.
Social media is false proof that regardless of status or true well being, you have the opportunity to paint the shape of your life.
On HN we can look into each other's post history to profile each other which does constitute something of a peek into however much of our lives we have decided to share, and I often see people mention it when disagreeing on each other. There's upvote/downvote/flagging wars on tribally charged matters, as much as Dang does his best to moderate it. All of this has to be driving up cortisol and furthering people's fear and suspicion.
But, on the other hand, HN's design is very web 1.0, and that does curtail the effects a little. You have to click instead of infini-scrolling. If you really want to profile someone, you again have to click through many pages of their post history. I think the warring that happens is endemic to the society and any medium would carry some of it, and I've seen it spilling over into "meat space".
Is HN use V.S. some other social media stemming the tide of poor mental health? I say probably not by much, if at all. Would annihilating all "engagement optimized" social media have positive results on our mental health? I say probably a considerable amount, but not enough to fix what's already broken in too many of us. Being highly optimistic it could drive some sort of "positive feedback loop" if the mental health benefits were somehow reinvested into further healthy decisions for society, but I think a lot of people would just end up in another vice because that's part of the current human condition.
My Instagram is basically the same. Cars, hobby painting, and to be fair, puppies as well.
It's made me feel better.
We will one day look back at social media like we did at cigarettes and soft drinks. The Internet is still developing, it's a shame most people I know simply accept 'this is the way it is' instead of doing something about it.
People worry about ai operating in software, this is an ai that has been running in the collective wetware of humans for some time that is significantly hindering us.
If researchers can produce a result that convinces the powers that be that facebook is a mental health issue they can produce a result that gaming or violent movies or maybe something you indulge is a mental health issue.
It's a great analogy because it also works well for adults: we're free to use the product/service, we have our freedom! Even if it slowly (or quickly) kills us.
We are seeing this everywhere already. Examples:
- Voting for republicans means you are killing gay people. Some will go as far as 'no vote' means you kill gay people.
- Working at Facebook means you killed Rohingya.
There is another option: nobody cares _really_ because working at Facebook is in no way as evil as working for the companies that you mentioned.
If we followed the same logic, then TV would be evil. It's addictive and sure cause depression. Hell, Hacker news makes me miserable sometimes with all these Show HN posts...
Unlikely; I still see resumes with Palantir on them and they're taken seriously in SV companies even outside of the military-industrial complex.
Ultimately most people don't have the energy or economic incentive to care as long as their $15k paychecks show up every month.
Apple - some things good (well designed products), some things bad (phone addiction is a real problem, but they do at least try to make a token attempt to curb it)
Amazon - some things good (cheap products at my door instantly almost, don't have to drive and go shop and get ripped off/not find what I need), some things bad (warehouse workers treatment, every product is 4.5 stars even if it is boxed dog crap)
Netflix - sure, probably ok, not harming humans
Google - losing my respect, don't be evil mantra turning into irony
Consider wiktionary's definitions of the word 'binge':
> A short period of excessive consumption, especially of food, alcohol, narcotics, etc.
> (by extension) A short period of an activity done in excess, such as watching a television show.
The word 'binge' is often used by people to describe their netflix habits (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=netflix%20binge&sort=byPopular...). Insofar as the design of netflix encourages binge consumption, I think netflix is harmful.
Funny, a bunch of years ago I'd look at groups like the Amish or religious Jews, whose ways naturally kept them out of these trends - as somewhat backwards, and missing out. But now it seems like their ways shield and protect them from these things in a way that may soon be the envy of most others.
But no one ever listens. People who post stories about how they "quit social media and never felt better" get tons of attention because most people recognized that social media is bad for them. But just like a drug, everyone is aware of these feelings but never listens to them. Those posts also remind people of their bad relationship with social media which puts them in an even deeper spell of unhappiness. So, in order to feel better about themselves they go on Facebook and watch Dude Perfect videos until they're numb.
Here is some unsolicited advice: just stop. That's it. It's the same with other forms of addiction (with the exception of drugs that can kill when you go cold turky. Luckily, social media is not one of them), you just stop doing them. What do they do in rehabilitation? They distract you from thoughts about drugs and try to create other avenues for you to get the reward mechanisms drugs gave you before. But really all that boils down to is you just stopping and moving on.
We've had Elvis's hips, communists, hippies, satanic rock, video-nasties, murder-simulating computer games, raves and have worked our way through at least 3 waves of 'internet panic' My guess is we'll rank this discussion in retrospect the same way as those previous 'issues'
When I read a story about "the Republican congresswoman from Washington confronted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg" I can almost hear the mantra instilled in Mark's head "Don't say nobody under 30 is using Facebook, say anything, admit anything, just appear relevant"
Now I'm definitely not saying social media is blameless - but it's not invented aspirational capitalism or bullying. It existed, will always exist, and just uses the conduits available.
If we consider the message, not the messenger, I actually think "the youth of today" is far better adjusted than I was at their age.
But we're not allowed to say that are we? There's never been a generation than looks at the new one, and collectively says they're better than us.
This also seems to be an obvious counter to the implied hypothesis that "rate of depression increases linearly with facebook usage" since they launched in like 2005 or so, grew steadily from at least 2007, and also have most likely seen a significant decline in usage among adolescents in the recent years.
Does your politican campaign on a policy that specifically sets out reduces self-harm or suicide in their adult electorate?
"Let me be judged if I don't reduce suicides by 5% in my term!"
No. Because that's not what we want to hear. We want to be left alone with our guns and alcohol, but by all means help me with my teenager listening to "rap music" or being upset as her bullying classmate was unkind to her on tiktok.
I think if I had to summarize, voters will vote to give themselves choices (however harmful) - whilst patting themselves on the back for voting to restrict others for their own protection.
There's an additional aspect, though. Voters will vote against new restrictions for themselves, but will vote to keep existing restrictions that have been around a long time.
A fun example (quoted from https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/11/self-serving-bias):
> Oregon is one of two US states that bans self-service gas stations. Recently, they passed a law relaxing this restriction – self-service is permissible in some rural counties during odd hours of the night. Outraged Oregonians took to social media to protest that self-service was unsafe, that it would destroy jobs, that breathing in gas fumes would kill people, that gas pumping had to be performed by properly credentialed experts – seemingly unaware that most of the rest of the country and the world does it without a second thought.
So maybe we like freedoms that we're used to, but also like the benefits (or perceived benefits in the above example) of restrictions that we're used to.
(I don't know if disapproval of allowing self-service was widespread or was just a small number of people posting on social media, but it makes a good story.)
Several years of off of it for multiple months. Very happy.
On it for a couple of months. Depressed and nasty. Every single time. We were always the bad guys for restricting.
She’s moved out and married now. Now talks about how depressed she gets on it.
I like your post.
I'd be humbly interested to know what populist historical saving of youth policy (specifically when you were a youth), you think was worthwile.
After posting I did realize I'd omitted the "parental advisory" sticker on CDs.. I still think this is my favourite.
That made me a bit sad. I thought I'd made a good point, hadn't meant to upset anybody, would have been open to discussion on it, but..
I've been dealing with various forms of stalking, hacking, harassment and targeting since, almost certainly tied back in large part to that brief association in 1997. Last spring (2020), this man who I haven't seen or communicated with since the late 1990's, was scheduled to be released from federal prison. Around that day, my Facebook's "people you may know" was littered with county sheriffs and task force types in his area, all shown to me in a row. I have been thousands of miles away from that area since the mid 2000's.
I'm at a major low point now, middle aged, broken down, homeless, defeated with learned helplessness well-established. Being targeted for so long was a major contributing factor. The irony is that I didn't engage in criminal activity with this person, and only hung around him briefly.
Facebook, I'd like to see all of the data you keep on me. The secret dossier, the govt lists, the algos you use, the logs you've created, the supposed "ai we don't understand". All of it. Same for google, twitter and the rest.
Information asymmetry isn't making end users happy in many cases. I'm fucking creeped out by these malicious machines we've allowed SV to create. Thank God I don't have kids because I plan on departing this shithole ape planet soon -- it ain't gonna get better any time soon.
Needless to say, I don't use FB any longer.
Fsck Facebook. And Google, twitter and reddit. I've been targeted on all of these platforms and more.
Your question is akin to asking why are crack dealers not worried about the health of their customers.
"They sell tasty food, to keep them eating it"
or
"They mow the green to keep them golfing on it"
What business can you possibly think of tha manages to succeed without making their consumers want to consume?
If the consumption, and hence value, is high, the LTV can be maximized even if the lifetime is low.
They don’t, except incidentally, because they have an orthogonal pursuit - that of the preservation, maintenance, and accessibility of our forests.
However, Instagram is supposed to be Public Enemy No 1. So that’s clearly not the problem.