At Facebook / Meta, employees often questioned Mark Zuckerberg whenever a study like this came out. Zuckerberg noted that the same held true for news media. Reporters do not like to mention this.
This is not obvious to me personally. I don't think it matters how much you consume the news as much as it matters what the news is.
And the news these days is almost entirely negative, even in a half-hour-long evening news segment.
This does presume that that half hour or hour is not a purely editorial function (think Walter Cronkite vs Tucker Carlson), and that the goal is to actually cover the news of the world, not create partisan wedges and glue eyeballs (again, same comparison). But even if it's negative, understanding what is going on matters, and is likely a net gain for society, with a minimal individual cost.
What isn't a net gain is being so consumed by world events (or worse, editorialized versions of world events) that you lose sight on your personal world, and are unable to enjoy the moments around you. A similar effect is at play with social media.
This doesn't ring true for me at all.
What percentage of broadsheets were dedicated to crime/murder back in the day? Now estimate the same for crime/murder being covered in the local evening news.
From my experience it's not even close. Broadsheets were actually informative, cable news is a lot of fear-mongering.
"Studies have linked poor mental health to news exposure during negative and traumatic events such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters; the more news a person consumes during and after these events, the more likely they are to suffer from depression, stress and anxiety. For example, a 2014 study surveyed 4,675 Americans in the weeks following the Boston Marathon bombings and collected data on how much media they consumed. Participants who engaged with more than six hours of media coverage per day were nine times more likely to also experience symptoms of high acute stress than those who only watched a minimal amount of news."
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/science-doomscrolling/stor...
Case in point, I think someone that watches 1 hour of news about the Boston Marathon bombings is going to be worse off than someone who watches 12 hours of news that happens to be mildly positive. The problem is (as I said) that the news these days is almost entirely negative, because that is what sells.
Not all news is designed for outrage. Several publications publish in-depth articles in a neutral way, where you can actually learn something. Investigations are also often genuinely useful for a better society. Zuckerberg's position therefore doesn't hold true for all news media.
Separately, depending on how your social media feed is set up, you can be feel jealous/lesser due to seeing the high points of the lives of people you know (depending on your personality type), seeing news on your feed, or seeing neither due to subscribing to accounts in niche fields.
I don't think I get anxiety from content "designed for outrage". But if I go to the front page of the Washington Post, here's what I see:
>Buffalo shooting suspect wrote of plans months ago, online messages show
>Only 22 saw the Buffalo shooting live. Millions have seen it since.
>A barrage of ‘never-ending gunshots’: Inside the Buffalo massacre
>Ukraine ends bloody battle for Mariupol, evacuates fighters in steel plant
>Republicans are bringing extremism to the mainstream
>White Americans must speak out against white supremacy
>Russia is losing. That might make Putin more dangerous.
I'd say that these headlines are more in the "giving me anxiety" camp than not.
>Tiger Global slashes bets on tech groups after stock market sell-off
> News in-depth. Military briefing: why Russia and Ukraine are fighting over a Black Sea outcrop
> Investors pull $7bn from Tether as stablecoin jitters intensify
> Buffett buys $3bn Citi stake in value-hunting stock splurge
> Ethiopia atrocities cast long shadow as city of Lalibela prays for peace
> Qantas says synthetic fuel could power long flights by mid-2030s
Some of the news itself is tragic. But it's a false equivalence to claim that the headlines and article content between news sources (e.g. Washington Post vs. the FT) are equally outrage-provoking or informative. The Washington Post was listed in the middle because their articles are usually highly informative (from the number of interviewed people and documents analyzed), though their headlines are more clickbait.
Both The Washington Post or the FT are different from (typically) Salon, and each is a far cry from social media. Also, the debate of news media in place of discussing social media is exactly the effect that Zuckerberg intended with his comment.
- Bitcoin has no future as a payments network, says FTX chief
- Putin signals acceptance of Finland and Sweden joining Nato
- China’s economic activity plummets as Covid lockdowns hit growth
- "Russia learns a hard lesson about the folly of war"
- Harrow Beijing school loses its hallowed British branding
Or Wikipedia's Current events Portal:
- Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (pictured) is elected as President of Somalia.
- In the United States, ten people are killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
- Ukraine, represented by Kalush Orchestra with the song "Stefania", wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
- Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan inherits the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and becomes President of the United Arab Emirates after the death of Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
> Picture of a the blood moon eclipse a friend took
> A Picture of a CD cover of a song a friend is listing too
> Pictures from my sister visiting her best friend in another state.
> A funny gif from a friend making fun of crypto crashing
> A poster of the new Japanese Ultraman movie and a friend saying he saw it and really enjoyed it and is looking forward to the Masked Rider movie.
> More pictures from my sister
> A collection of doodles from an artist friend
> A picture of my sister with 2 x-neighbors I haven't seen in 35 years
> A friend saying he loved the video game "The Final Station"
> More pics from my sister
> A friend posting a link to a music video she loves
> A friend posting about a game they made at a game jam
> A friend saying he started doing trip planning for families going to Disneyland.
> My aunt posting a picture of flowers my uncle bought her.
> A friend posting about a show he went to in Argentina
> My sister posting a words of wisdom type picture
> A friend posting he can't believe he's had the same job he loves for 8yrs already
> A friend posting an artist concept drawing of Cassini taking a picture of Saturn
> A friend who makes one off dresses on etsy posting her latest creations
> A friend posting he likes "Picard" but it should have had a "Shut up, Wesley" scene.
No outrage in my feed.
To put it another way, social media is what you make of it. If you don't want the outrage the stop following the outrage.
But somehow that’s not what happening to the population as a whole.
My guess, is the mere fact you’re on HN means you’re separate from the population writ large
I'm latching onto your post because a number of those are advertisements / promotions; social media has turned a lot of people into unpaid marketeers. In a sense, I mean I get that people are fans of e.g. TV shows, but still. Anyway here's some that I think are advertisements in disguise:
> A Picture of a CD cover of a song a friend is listing too
> A poster of the new Japanese Ultraman movie and a friend saying he saw it and really enjoyed it and is looking forward to the Masked Rider movie.
> A friend saying he loved the video game "The Final Station"
> A friend posting a link to a music video she loves
> A friend posting about a game they made at a game jam
> A friend saying he started doing trip planning for families going to Disneyland.
> My aunt posting a picture of flowers my uncle bought her.
> A friend posting about a show he went to in Argentina
> A friend who makes one off dresses on etsy posting her latest creations
> A friend posting he likes "Picard" but it should have had a "Shut up, Wesley" scene.
News also provides common conversational topics with different types of people. A lot of people in business read The Wall Street Journal, and it’s easier to find common talking points with them if I read the news (especially on news about their industry). Similarly, a lot of academics and people in education read The New York Times. Though reading the news isn’t necessary to start a conversation, it’s often an easy starting point.
The distinctions are actually fairly profound and include established practices and professional norms concerning information sourcing, verification/due diligence, and editorial discretion. This is all before the agent-principal relationship, contractual obligations, and regulatory oversight to which news organizations are subject.
I understand why Zuckerberg needs to make the false equivalence, but we don’t (necessarily) share his profit motive and can be more objective here.
Firstly, traditional news media’s intrusion is not as severe or wide ranging. To give one example, the surge in teenage mental health problems that Facebook and Instagram in particular seem likely to have caused.
Second, there is a very large qualitative difference between social media and traditional media. Social media is monitoring your every action, and adapting to it, and creates a tight feedback loop where you are manipulated into staying engaged and consuming more adverts. That personalised real-time feedback loop, based on giant datasets that are very invasive, is incomparable to traditional media.
Finally, the extent of attention capture by social media cannot be compared to traditional media. This can be observed by simply taking a walk down the high street and seeing how many people are staring at their phones. Traditional media do use apps as a medium, but there aren’t many people who would seriously argue that most of those glued to their screens are likely to be reading an online newspaper and not looking at Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok.
The only doubt I have is whether Zuckerberg actually believes what’s he saying, in order to have a clean conscience, or whether it’s a cynical argument used to reassure his staff.
I just want to add here that YouTube, while not exactly a social medium and not a traditional medium, also has a tight and instantly adaptive feedback loop. With this argument, staying off YouTube should be similarly relieving than staying off at least TikTok. At least, the hours you can waste are comparable.
The difference may be that it is better and more enlightening, or it may be that it is more addictive and intrusive. But, it is not the same.