Facebook Calls Links To Depression Inconclusive. These Researchers Disagree (npr.org) 100
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: At a hearing this March on Capitol Hill, the Republican congresswoman [Cathy McMorris Rodgers] from Washington confronted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai with a list of statistics: From 2011 to 2018, rates of teen depression increased by more than 60%, and from 2009 to 2015, emergency room admissions for self-harm among 10- to 14-year-old girls tripled. "It's a battle for their development. It's a battle for their mental health -- and ultimately a battle for their safety," McMorris Rodgers told the tech leaders. But when she pointed a question specifically to Zuckerberg, about whether he acknowledged a connection between children's declining mental health and social media platforms, he demurred. "I don't think that the research is conclusive on that," replied Zuckerberg.
It's a position that he and his company, which is working on expanding its offerings to even younger children, have held for years. But mental health researchers whom NPR spoke with disagree. They describe an increasingly clear correlation between poor mental health outcomes and social media use, and they worry that Facebook (which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp) in particular may be muddying the waters on that connection to protect its public image. "The correlational evidence showing that there is a link between social media use and depression is pretty definitive at this point," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. "The largest and most well-conducted studies that we have all show that teens who spend more time on social media are more likely to be depressed or unhappy."
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. But researchers also worry that not enough government funding is going toward getting objective data to answer these sorts of questions. Facebook also almost certainly knows more than it has publicly revealed about how its products affect people. Zuckerberg told McMorris Rodgers that the company has specifically researched the mental health effects Facebook has on children, but when McMorris Rodgers' staff followed up the company declined to share any of its research.
"I believe that they have done the research. They're not being transparent," McMorris Rodgers told NPR in an interview. "They seem to be more concerned about their current business model, and they have become very wealthy under their current business model. But the fact of the matter is we're seeing more and more evidence ... that their current business model is harming our kids."
It's a position that he and his company, which is working on expanding its offerings to even younger children, have held for years. But mental health researchers whom NPR spoke with disagree. They describe an increasingly clear correlation between poor mental health outcomes and social media use, and they worry that Facebook (which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp) in particular may be muddying the waters on that connection to protect its public image. "The correlational evidence showing that there is a link between social media use and depression is pretty definitive at this point," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. "The largest and most well-conducted studies that we have all show that teens who spend more time on social media are more likely to be depressed or unhappy."
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. But researchers also worry that not enough government funding is going toward getting objective data to answer these sorts of questions. Facebook also almost certainly knows more than it has publicly revealed about how its products affect people. Zuckerberg told McMorris Rodgers that the company has specifically researched the mental health effects Facebook has on children, but when McMorris Rodgers' staff followed up the company declined to share any of its research.
"I believe that they have done the research. They're not being transparent," McMorris Rodgers told NPR in an interview. "They seem to be more concerned about their current business model, and they have become very wealthy under their current business model. But the fact of the matter is we're seeing more and more evidence ... that their current business model is harming our kids."
It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
All "social media", including the crap they are serving up on TV is to blame. Between body shaming and unrealistic expectations, teens who aren't part of the in crowd don't have a chance. We have to try and make parents understand how toxic this bombardment of excrement is to children. It's worse than pron.
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Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:5, Interesting)
TV didn't make it seem like every teenager should be a rock star, TV star
Sure it did, although it's tempered by the reality that there's only a limited number of rock stars, TV stars, etc. Shows for decades have peddled in that dream. When I was a kid in the 80s, being a rock star or popular actor was a dream lots of kids had.
or Instagram celebrity
But there's the rub, isn't it? It's social media that fuels the expectation that celebrity/popularity is accessible to everyone - it's a direct pillar of the sales pitch in using it. It's a conflict of social-health interest television doesn't really have as a technology because subscribing to television services doesn't enable customers to broadcast or publish or make claims that they can become famous/liked/etc.
That's what's new about social media technology and that's what we as a society have to grapple with.
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"Shows for decades have peddled in that dream."
Yes, they have. But it used to be that it wasn't every goddamn teenager in every goddamn show.
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I watch tv - including kids tv - and I think you're suffering from "back in my day"-itis.
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In my teenage years there were no children's tv shows that encouraged us all to be famous for being famous. In fact they actually took the mickey out of people like that - See "The Fonz" from this show, who starts as a comic character with the "epitome of cool" as a high school drop out and along life's trail earns actual coolness by going back to school and civic minded activities like learning sign language to talk to the deaf.
Happy Days is an American sitcom television series that aired first-run on the
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Wow, ain't that the truth. I never wanted to emulate "the Beav" or Wally. They were both dopey and so simple-minded, in their own inimitable ways. None of the "My Three Sons" were worth much. Maybe Mork - he was cool.
Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:5, Interesting)
The current "trans-panic" is an example of young people growing up in an environment where nobody really cares about them. Not their biological family, not the church family sadly so few have, and certainly not corporate America with its relentless need to market to them and slot them into a demographic.
I don't deny some people are deeply confused about their sex but acknowledging them as trans, isn't helping them at all.
Back in the 'free to be you an me era' we correctly worked out that gender stereotypes are not rigid inviolate rules that have to be followed. When four year old Timmy said he thinks he is a girl because he likes pink shoes and Barbie, loving parents told Timmy, "Timmy of course you are boy but some boys like pink shoes and Barbie and that's just fine". Timmy grew older, his body changes his hormones changed maybe he decided he preferred jack knives and bb guns or maybe he got into knitting and handy crafts. His family made him feel loved and accepted either way, Timmy was happy. More importantly Timmy had a community that consisted of more than just other children (not capable of empathy) at school.
Now Timmy has no adults in his life outside the home that see him as anything other than something to be handled as part of their 8-5 gig. His only real social outlet is finding some position in the Lord of the Flies tribal system the other children setup; thanks to social media they can pursue him for abuse even if he decides he will try to go it alone. His own parents are both working, neither has time try to help Timmy understand the world or his place in it; what they do have is money and sloth. If Timmy thinks he is a girl why they will just try to make that a reality, its easier than dealing with Timmy. Pay some hack to fuck up his endocrine system, buy him some make up, and get him some plastic surgery, hire some diversity trainners to browbeat the other kids into calling him "she". Never mind the consequences and limiting of choices for his later life. That isn't love - its SLOTH, its awful, and its no surprise Timmy wants to die.
Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:4, Insightful)
The lord of the flies is a fiction written to sell books, in real life kids don't turn in to psychopaths when marooned:
https://www.theguardian.com/bo... [theguardian.com]
If you want sociopaths, just look at adults and the way they are happy to wreck the planet to avoid any amount of social responsibility or compromise in their lifestyle at all.
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What the trans panic is about is that politicians need to fire up the culture wars to distract from the fact that they're not doing anything of substance.
Why were these things never an issue before? When you go into the bathroom, do you inspect the penises around you to see if they're real or not? I don't - and I even like dicks. If someone wanted to get a sex change a few decades ago, it didn't seem to be any bigger of a deal than a legal name change. Politicians didn't used to campaign on these issues. No
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I wanted to mod this up, but ultimately felt that your gratuitous "church family" add-in meant I couldn't do so in good faith ** - because if there was EVER a hateful, spiteful, petty group that is absolutely unsupportive of "outlier" cases, the church is it. And I don't even need to know WHICH church you meant, because that's the M.O. for ALL of them.
** no pun intended. :) I didn't notice it until I was proofreading my post!
To paraphrase K: a *churchgoer* may well be kind and caring, but a *congregation*
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Children and teenagers are not known for being emotionally stable or emotionally resilient. So-called social media is all the things you're saying it is, plus all the bullying and trolling that it enables because on the Internet there are nigh-unto zero consequences for anything you say, especially if you're not using your real name. Trolling is especially damaging; your average Internet troll does it purely for their own (sick, twisted) entertainment, and oft
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Let's face it, humans: so-called social media is really more like anti-social media. It's a failed experiment, a massive organism that's become cancerous, and let's not forget what it's actual original intent always was: to make money for people like Zuckerberg and Dorsey. It was never about bringing people together, not for a single second.
I
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Why is real name and real indentity social media so damaging for minors because the identity is vulnerable, it is forming and the corporation knows exactly how to control and manipulate that. The addiction of minors trying to control the perception of their identity, when it is subject to attack all of the time, 24/7/365, if they do not log in and protect and promote, some one could attack their indentity for hours, challenge it, pull apart the lies they are required to tell to compete against others.
That i
Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
You're looking at it from the wrong angle. Parents need to be aware of the effect is having on them, and that they in turn are inflicting it on their children.
Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
What social media introduces is active content that kids do not have the down time to process. Screen time is a thing, but the thing is to kids and adolescent brain down time to process. If the teen is constantly on social media, there is no time to think. This is why we love going home and not having to deal with our friends after school. This is why good parents, back in the day, did not allow a kid to spend all night on the phone.
Which is to say if a kid end up suicidal, it is the parents. Raise your kids. Facebook, the tv, Disney, is not free babysitting.
Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:4, Insightful)
Between body shaming and unrealistic expectations, teens who aren't part of the in crowd don't have a chance. We have to try and make parents understand how toxic this bombardment of excrement is to children. It's worse than pron.
The same parents who compare their own lives to the filtered perfection of their own social media "friends". Nobody posts pictures of their vacation if it sucked. Nobody posts photos of their house when it's a mess. Nobody posts about their relationship after a fight. So we compare the shitty parts of our own lives to the highlights of our friends lives, and live with the disappointment.
Facebook may be bad for kids but it's poison to a marriage.
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Nobody posts about their relationship after a fight.
Oh but they do. Demanding artificial sympathy from social media "friends" is quite common. It's the flip side of the "look how wonderful and perfect everything is for me!" It's "look how horrible and awful everything is for me!" Social media demands extremes in both directions. And every other direction as well. Social media trains people to think solely in terms of extremes, because that's the only reliable way to get likes.
And what's more extreme than suicide? Oh right. Mass murder. Live-streamed
Re:It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:5, Interesting)
While the stuff on TV isn't necessarily positive towards people self esteem, however most people even at an early age, know that TV personalities are not representative of most people.
Social Media where you are comparing yourselves with your "friends" is much bigger issue.
1. We will normally only post about exceptional things that happen. So my feed is filled with people having babies, getting new cars, going on vacations, winning awards... While I feel like I may be wasting my life... However when I do scrap enough to buy a new Car, or go on a real vacation after a few years, I may post it online where the others can get envious of me, and think what are they doing with their lives, because they haven't been on a vacation in years.
2. Photoshop, filters and posing. You suck in your gut for the picture of yourself on the beach, Perhaps some photo-editing to get rid of some marks on your skin, or just an all out morph of your body to make it look good. If this is done with a person you know, and you look at yourself without any enhancements you may just seem a bit behind.
3. Nothing stopping you from just lying. Nothing is really stopping me from going to say a Porsche Dealer and take a picture next to one, and say I am going for a ride.
4. The comment section of any site (including Slashdot) is full of stupid people and stupid comments, but because stupid people read them, they up-vote them. So we try to stay in our echo-chambers, as first it seems like it would prevent depression, having everyone tell you are right and a good person. But once you leave that echo-chamber you are in a world that is more complex, and may point out to you all time you are wrong, and being a bad person.
5. Looking at your phone before you go to sleep. The last thing you need before going to sleep is to read something that outrages you, so you go to bed tired but not sleeping because what you had just read outraged you.
6. Marketing is getting good at triggering your emotions. Crap that we never cared about, is suddenly becoming a big deal. The price of Lima-beans went up $0.10 a Ton, it has to be the fault of the party that I don't like. Even if you don't like Lima-beans the news sources make a big deal out of it and try to get angry about it. Bla-Bla-Bla Supply chain effecting the cost of beef, so you are paying $3.00 more a week on meat, but is that really that big of deal to keep you up and angry all the time.
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Agreed and upvoted.
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Well played and modded, sir.
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One of things I have a hard time articulating to people because it's such a rude thing to say and it applies to so many young people is that the adornments people choose to stand out - any asshole can do that. Any asshole can dye their hair some weird color. Any asshole can get huge piercings, giant-ass tattoos, wear strange clothes, have 8 genders, be referred to as 'they/them', etc... They don't make you special, they just make you one of the many, many people who can do the same fucking thing.
Now, getti
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Social media has just made the process easier and quicker. But it also (ironically) leaves an easy-to-follow "paper" trail. Before, such interactions were conducted in private conversations, or people glancing at their neighbor's driv
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Agreed, but CrankyOldEngineer remembers a time before internet. There was a low-tech version of bragging to your friends about how wonderful your life is. It was called a "Christmas letter." I used to get them from a couple very pretentious cousins. I ignored them. I guess the difference is that people think this behavior is normal now.
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The other thing is everything on TV is designed to sell you something. So it's all fake trying to get at your money.
Social media, is treated as "you and me" - like how I might post about my honest experience with a product and people who know me might try it out knowing how I feel about it. I'm certainly not trying to sell you anything, it's an honest review by someone.
Unfortunately, it's been hijacked by commercial interests who realize that this "grassroots" marketing is extremely valuable - we're more li
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All "social media", including the crap they are serving up on TV is to blame.
TV is bad but social media is a scourge on humanity. The reason for this is that TV is a one-way platform thus eliminating the expectation of personal participation. The expectation of participation is absolutely the driving problem with social media because this is why people contemplate personal comparisons, even if they do so subconsiously.
Re: It's not just Facebook and Twitter (Score:3)
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FB et al are different. They allow the entire world to get in your head and live there making constant demands on you, is how a lot of people feel it. That does not help mental health at all.
All that is missing... (Score:5, Funny)
Social Media gives you mental cancer. Should come with a mandatory warning label and a triggered SJW picture with a caption "This could be you".
Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think Social Media is an unnatural aspect that we haven't adapted to, but not because of the screen. But because humans desire to be in a class. Social Media makes us all equal, so we really don't know where we really stand in the eyes of society.
When ever you get into a social gathering, there is someone or perhaps a small few, who are the center of attention, then you have people who get to participate with those in the center, then you have people who just get to watch, then you have people on the o
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Humans were not designed to...
Your subject and this made me chuckle a little. You make a good point though. Digital anything is a terrible substitute for real community.
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It's chuckle-worthy only if you associate design with conscious intent, of which of course evolution has none. Evolution molds lineages to certain purposes that enhance survivability, but does so without intent. I don't think it does too much violence to the word to call that "design."
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Yes, random mutations are in fact more likely to create birth defects than create advantages. Those with those birth defects are less likely to have children of their own, thus those harmful mutations are selected against and tend to disappear from the gene pool (the speed with which they do so will of course depend on whether the mutation is recessive and on just how harmful they are). That is how evolution works, how it "designs".
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It's chuckle-worthy only if you associate design with conscious intent
You're using 'design' as a noun. Unfortunately, the word was used as a verb. Good luck finding a definition that doesn't require forethought (conscious intent).
Humans were not designed to socialize through a computer screen, it's that simple.
I still think it's a funny juxtaposition.
To paraphrase a 90's anti drug ad (Score:2)
"This is your brain," before motioning to a frying pan and adding, "This is social media."
He then cracks open the egg, fries the contents, and says, "This is your brain on social media."
Finally, he looks up at the camera and asks, "Any questions?"
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Finally, he looks up at the camera and asks, "Any questions?"
Generations of children taught not to say "NO" are supposed to say No to drugs, or social media. It's societal gaslighting on a global scale. The headfuckery is breathtaking in it's ambivalence.
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Finally, he looks up at the camera and asks, "Any questions?"
Generations of children taught not to say "NO" are supposed to say No to drugs, or social media. It's societal gaslighting on a global scale. The headfuckery is breathtaking in it's ambivalence.
Not "generations of children not to say NO" but rather a generation of children taught they are special and precious little snowflakes and not being told "NO" often enough. Recently, there was an amber alert for a 12 year old girl who was last seen at 1:30 AM out with her friends at a nearby store. it wasn't that she snuck out or had stayed out past curfew. Her parents decided that they shouldn't prevent her from being out in the early morning hours by giving her a curfew. They didn't tell her "no".
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Recently, there was an amber alert for a 12 year old girl who was last seen at 1:30 AM out with her friends at a nearby store. it wasn't that she snuck out or had stayed out past curfew. Her parents decided that they shouldn't prevent her from being out in the early morning hours by giving her a curfew. They didn't tell her "no".
She is 12, it is still the parent's fault. Teaching children boundaries means saying "No", teaching children they can't say "No" means they wind up without any boundaries of their own, so it is another form of child abuse via dereliction of parental duties. If she had been taught better boundaries she may have been able to say "No" the her friends that wanted her to stay out.
Probably the parents were treated in much the same way.
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Generations of children taught not to say "NO" are supposed to say No to drugs
Recently I had my bong in my hand, loaded with bud so strong that it was purple with that crystal shit growing off it. The image of Nancy Reagan popped up in my head, wagging her finger and saying firmly, "Just ... Say ... No!"
Then the last hit kicked in and shit got REALLY weird.
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That ad never made any sense to me. A raw egg can harm you with salmonella but a cooked egg is perfectly safe to eat (though it is high in cholesterol). Metaphors don't work, you want to show actual addicts and how it ruins their lives. I remember seeing a vid of a gambling addict being so into a slot machine he was literally shitting on the floor instead of just going to the bathroom like a functional adult.
Re: To paraphrase a 90's anti drug ad (Score:1)
The un-cracked egg is the brain's potential. Drugs crack it open and fry it. While a fried egg might be delicious for the next half hour or so, after you eat it you are left with nothing. Your brain's potential has been fried.
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Leave that egg a few weeks and get back to me.
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Yep. Where's the bacon? Can I make toast with that?
Depressing Friends Are Depressing (Score:2)
I really don't think it is Farcebook or social media that is too blame. I think it is just lost ugly folks congregating with more lost ugly folks.
It's all about the pretty people.
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I really don't think it is Farcebook or social media that is too blame. I think it is just lost ugly folks congregating with more lost ugly folks.
It's all about the pretty people.
Funny thing about Social Media..it has a keen ability to peer deep beneath that superficial insta-bullshit persona and showcase just how ugly the pretty people, really are. Oddly enough, the one thing Hollywood has genuinely gotten behind and tried to remove the stigma from, is mental health.
By way of announcing how many of them, need it.
Really don't think we need to be listening to the pretty delusional people. They're just as fucked up as the rest.
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I think social media do what every technology since the lever has been meant to do: amplify human effort. A stick can help you shift a heavy rock, or it can be used to bash someone's brains out.
Easy way to solve this. (Score:2)
Ask every Social Media executive (not just the CEO) one simple question.
Are YOUR kids on social media?
The mathematical formula after that, is based in the level of disproportionate answers (as compared to The Precious Product), cubed times pi squared + 99, which roughly equals the percentage of shit they're full of.
Zuck is a liar and he knows it. Listening to his bullshit excuses is like listening to an arms dealer talk about how you manufacture peace using superior firepower.
Cigarettes don't cause cancer. (Score:5, Insightful)
What a surprise that a giant company that peddles a toxic product would be deny that they peddle a toxic product.
Fuck you, Mark et al...
It's not social media (Score:2)
Re:It's not social media (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook and their ilk are toxic.
It's the tool, not the tool. (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook and their ilk are not toxic - it's the people on social media who are toxic.
Extra-large cups are not toxic - It's the fat people drinking too much sugary soda. So, why did we watch New York, put out a mafia hit on large cups?
Guns don't kill people, it's the mentally ill people using them. So, why do we have a President, wanting to ban "assault" weapons again?
You can stop peddling the idea that the solution is ever that simple. We ignorantly blame the tool all the damn time. Doubly so here when the masses refuse to acknowledge just how fucking addicted they are to social media. You're not going to get a damn one of them to admit any fault.
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Oil is one of these that really cracks me up. We all, as a society, are absolute pigs almost down to a man about oil. We gluttonously consume plastics and other consumables and we burn power at an absurd rate. Then some absolute cunt of an attorney general somewhere will go on the offensive and try to blame the oil companies solely for this and for global warming.
But, but, but how could we know! They downplayed this very obvious scientific fact! We are the poor victims of these giant oil companies, why with
Zuckerberg is correct (Score:2)
The research is inconclusive. The rates of depression, and other mental issues, vary from region to region and country to country, even given similar usage of social media.
Directly linking large-scale health issues to a single source is *very* difficult. There is a virtually unlimited set of variables to control for. The definitive study on the safety of cell phone usage took roughly 15 years, and even with millions of points of reliable data, the reliability of the study is still being debated.
Re:Zuckerberg is correct (Score:4, Interesting)
The research is inconclusive. The rates of depression, and other mental issues, vary from region to region and country to country, even given similar usage of social media.
Directly linking large-scale health issues to a single source is *very* difficult.
Really?
Show me a chart of suicide rates among children as young as 12 today. Now show me that same chart before social media was ever invented.
Don't care how you slice that metric. By country, city, or planet. You're going to likely find the obvious, and we should stop letting Greed, offer excuses to ignore these kinds of facts driven by statistics.
The life of a child circa 1980's wasn't all that different from the life of a child circa 1950's. You grew up, played, interacted, and were even bullied by other children in the physical world, at a finite level. The same, sure as shit cannot be said today. For one primary reason.
A single horribly worded social media post, done by a random human, gone viral, is enough to put a gun to someone's head. THAT is how bad the situation is today. Pathetic that Ignorance can't even learn from history when it comes to Greed. This is the same "harmless" bullshit we heard from the Tobacco Industrial Complex, for decades.
Causation (Score:4, Informative)
The increase in suicide rates also correlates with the large scale recession starting in 2008. It also correlates with the rollout of the Common Core curriculum in the US. It also correlates with huge increases in the numbers of kids playing on-line competitive games.
Now, separate all of those factors out from increased social media usage.
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The increase in suicide rates also correlates with the large scale recession starting in 2008. It also correlates with the rollout of the Common Core curriculum in the US. It also correlates with huge increases in the numbers of kids playing on-line competitive games.
Now, separate all of those factors out from increased social media usage.
If there even is a REAL increase in suicide rates to begin with. It looks like some pretty extreme cherry picking to me.
The data comes from here: some CDC report [cdc.gov]
Take a gander at it. Sure, they show there's an increase in suicide rates across all states...
... IF you ONLY compare the 2007-2009 data to the 2016-2018 data
If you look at the rates from 2000 and compare them to 2018 across all states - it's FAR from clear there's any increase at all.
How about they plot us a trendline? It's absence is suspicious..
Facebook is a canard (Score:3)
I haven't gone on FB since maybe 2015? Personally, I despised Facebook before it was cool.
But the demonization of them specifically when it's SOCIAL MEDIA IN GENERAL that's the problem...that's fucked up. That's giving Instagram, Twitter, and all the other toxic brethren an unjustified pass they're not entitled to.
FB is a scapegoat for the actual problem, which is the well-documented corrosion of young people's well being resulting in skyrocketing statistics in depression, alienation, self-harm, and suicide. They are certainly a well-deserved scapegoat, certainly. I'm not saying they shouldn't be one of the first ones we put up against the wall...but they absolutely shouldn't be alone there either.
Social media is a CANCER. FB may be cigarettes, but Twitter is asbestos and Instagram is chewing tobacco.
Every time I see a "facebook did this bad thing" headline - and there are a LOT of them especially here - I think I hear an actual sigh of relief from Jack Dorsey (whew!).
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I haven't gone on FB since maybe 2015? Personally, I despised Facebook before it was cool.
Pretty late.
I've never had a Facebook account or a Twitter account. I knew from the first time I heard about them that they would make humans stupider and sadder. I don't mind bragging about it. This won't make me popular, but I don't care. Ya'all who used or especially who are still on social media are tools.
Go out into the real world, look up from your tiny little screens, and be free.
Re:Facebook is a canard (Score:4, Interesting)
So yeah, I'm pissed off and completely justified in feeling pissed off. I don't take back what I said: If you're still using social media, you are a tool. I don't care about "I just use it every once in awhile" or "I'm not really addicted" or "But all my associates use it; I'd be ostracized." You're a tool.
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Agreed to a point. If FB suddenly ceased to exist, another co(s) would step into the void. However, the largest social media co's have societal obligations to make reasonable attempts to mitigate the problems. If they don't, then formal regulation may be in order. If you don't self regulate, the metal boot of gov't is next. You've been warned.
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I assume this makes TikTok crystal meth?
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Re: Facebook is a canard (Score:4, Interesting)
Instagram is owned by Facebook.
Twitter's network topology is influencer based. It's more like the traditional top-down mass-media model of information. This is why news orgs and celebrities love it. They can leverage their position to be the center of attention.
Facebook has a near monopoly on the type of small circle networks that seem to have a detrimental affect on people. These networks are dominated by people you know in real life.
I'm with Zuck (Score:2, Interesting)
Increased numbers don't ACTUALLY massage away variables in place of controls like certain people like to pretend because the underlying data isn't actually random or otherwise evenly distributed. There isn't a significant representation of control and opposed population in the sample.
Don't get me wrong. Social media is freaking evil as well, it is addictive and should be bann
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Re: I'm with Zuck (Score:2)
Yep, and real interactions are less subject to the filtering and posing that goes into presenting an online persona. Just as people curate their online presence, people can be prone to comparing their lives to these idealised lives. This is big issue for kids, particularly girls.
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Increased numbers don't ACTUALLY massage away variables in place of controls like certain people like to pretend because the underlying data isn't actually random or otherwise evenly distributed. There isn't a significant representation of control and opposed population in the sample.
Sure there is. Devout Amish still exist. They have their own issues, being a splinter culture embedded in a much bigger culture, but it may be possible to account for that.
I'm getting tobacco deja vu (Score:4, Insightful)
When exactly did the tobacco companies finally admit the evidence for tobacco causing cancer wasn't inconclusive? Because I know they did, eventually.
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Came here to say this. Mod parent up.
I don't know the research is right, or that it's wrong, but the argument against does sound awfully familiar.
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When exactly did the tobacco companies finally admit the evidence for tobacco causing cancer wasn't inconclusive? Because I know they did, eventually.
Since tobacco still kills about 8 million people a year, why do you assume anyone gave a shit when they did? Governments treat tobacco as a benefit to both the Medical Industrial Complex and population control. That deadly product is still legal for a reason.
I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook started advertising their own mental health treatment centers sponsored by the government, so both can pretend to care.
Re: I'm getting tobacco deja vu (Score:1)
It's still legal because the last time we tried to prohibit a substance used by white people, we saw the breakdown of society with the formation of alternative criminal authorities that claimed swathes of the country in their effort to push for black market goods. Much of modern law enforcement is still built around this singular period of history when we tried to tell white people what they could consume.
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Much of modern law enforcement is still built around this singular period of history when we tried to tell white people what they could consume.
I'm going to assume you're referring to that rather minor example we call Prohibition.
You know, since slavery has remained illegal, and you can't really get any more Take it from Whitey, than that.
Zuckerberg: (Score:2)
Also: "I guarantee that lock will protect the chicken coop." said the fox.
Depression? (Score:2)
More like annoyance. I received a 24 hour Facebook ban yesterday for threatening the murder...of a fictional emu.
Yes, my ultra violent post about how I wished the Limu Emu dead was considered banworthy.
There's really nobody running any of this at this point.
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I will not use it on a bus
I will not use it with Google Plus
I will not use it to quote Voltaire
I will not use it anywhere
I do not like to use Facebook
I will not use it, Zuck the Crook
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You don't need a study for this (Score:2)
It's common knowledge. Of course facebook will try to deny they are doing harm and tell you the world over they are doing good, every sensible person knows otherwise.
What a bunch of fucking olds. (Score:2, Insightful)
You can really tell how old the people on SlashDot are on articles like this. Facebook? You're joking right? Very few people under 30 use Facebook other than to chat with the olds in their family.
Besides that, the whole thing is silly anyway. The problem is that any system that expands the amount of contact you have with your fellow man will expose you to increasing amounts of stupidity. Blaming social media is just something dumb people do, ironically, on a form of social media.
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Blaming social media is just something dumb people do, ironically, on a form of social media.
No, you're the one who is dumb here, they created platforms specifically to make money not to serve humankind and it's been abused and twisted to the point where it's just a toxic, cancerous mess that gets used to hurt peoples' lives as often as not. It's a failed experiment that needs to be ended.
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Yes, that's all very well and good but isn't that just something stupid people say?
Also, you can't "end" shit. As long as the Internet exists someone will put up a platform where people can meet and mingle and share their dimwitted opinions. There exists no platform that both allows people to express themselves publicly and which won't eventually become a cesspool because humans are cesspit dwellers by nature in large groups.
You can't stop it, and you are powerless. Wallow in that impotence.
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You can't stop it, and you are powerless. Wallow in that impotence.
Does it make you feel like a Real Man when you post crap like that on the Internets? LOL, pro-tip for you: you're the one who is impotent and powerless.
Many people have been clueless about depression (Score:2)
One thing that social media has allowed, is for those who are isolated for whatever reason to reach out and "scream into the darkness". There are two primary types of depression, the situational type, where some outside stimulus makes people feel sad or "down", and then you have the clinical depression that those who do not suffer from it have very little understanding of. Clinical depression is the sort of thing that could have you win the lottery, and you are still ready to jump off a bridge, or just
Faecebook? (Score:2)
2021: Facebook->Using Facebook doesn't cause depression.
Best thing Steve Jobs said in a lifetime of saying pretty good things: Faecebook? You mean Faecebook?
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Let's be fair: having cancer doesn't usually make you crave a cigarette. Being depressed can make you crave social media out of loneliness and difficulty forming face to face or physical social contacts.
All these corporations are evil and exploitive (Score:2)
oh, and FY /.for getting rid of ACs, what a corrupt evil corporation you are :(
Social Media - Facebook (Score:1)