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Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

theatlantic.com

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Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#31

Post by emiliobumachar »

pcr0 wrote: post #26
wufufufu wrote: post #15

If any Facebook employees are reading this, there's a really annoying "feature" that will show a list of suggested friends to add to a private group. I've accidentally added people to private groups by accidentally clicking a single time while scrolling. Imagine being in an AA group or HIV support group and adding your coworker to it on accident. Please change this.

Playing devil's advocate, I've found the feature useful for meme pages and university groups. However, I think they should add another tap to the process as it's too easy to send accidental invites on mobile.

Alternative: keep it one tap, but hold it for a couple minutes while an "undo" option is visible. Possibly also a "confirm" option for those in a hurry.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#32

Post by kopo »

village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anecdote, but it sure seems to me that the need for emotional support groups has skyrocketed within my lifetime. I’m sure all the members of these groups are legitimate (I’m not making a “snowflake” argument) but what in the hell is going on?

My theory - too much information, out of sequence, without a good guide present to clear up misunderstandings.

I teach part time. Lot of the anxiety and depression I see in kids seems to be thanks to this constant info overload on the net. Reddit/Youtube/FB all contribute in different ways.

14 year olds busy reading about the problems 35 year olds are facing on the net, is like dropping off your second grader in a tenth grade classroom and asking them what they think about the problems on the board. The natural reaction is to feel overwhelmed. Everyday they get hit with someother issue, someone is depressed or outraging about.

The best solution I have heard is to allow internet access, not on a device but in group settings (class room/living room etc). This way when they do get hit by stuff above their pay grade, there is someone around to process the stuff with.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#33

Post by Itaxpica »

village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anecdote, but it sure seems to me that the need for emotional support groups has skyrocketed within my lifetime. I’m sure all the members of these groups are legitimate (I’m not making a “snowflake” argument) but what in the hell is going on?

I’d imagine the hollowing-out of local IRL communities is a major contributor. Fifty years ago you would have gotten companionship and (what at the time passed for) emotional support from your church, or the local rotary club, or similar. We’ve witnessed an enormous hollowing-out of local support networks over the last decade or two for a wide variety of reasons; it makes sense that people would seek an alternative wherever they can.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#34

Post by emiliobumachar »

dbattaglia wrote: post #12
village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anecdote, but it sure seems to me that the need for emotional support groups has skyrocketed within my lifetime. I’m sure all the members of these groups are legitimate (I’m not making a “snowflake” argument) but what in the hell is going on?

Has the need really skyrocketed though? Or has the use of them just become more normalized (and perhaps more convenient thanks to the internet), and less people feel the need to just "suck it up" and deal with their problems alone?

Yeah, my stereotype of the distant past which I didn't live in - say, up to the 1980's - is that it was considered uncool to talk about your problems to strangers in a constructive way.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#35

Post by [deleted] »

xefer wrote: post #19
bad_user wrote: post #6

I joined a group for T2 diabetes at some point because I have a stubborn friend that doesn’t want to receive proper treatment and I basically wanted to ask about available options. Next thing I know is that Facebook started giving me ads for diabetics. Having such an influential company know about your illnesses and sell that to advertisers or healthcare insurance agencies or credit agencies or god knows what else is…

So I'm curious: have you tried removing details from your Facebook ad preferences? On the desktop website go to: Settings | Ads | Your Interests. There is a huge ontology of various subjects that have been algorithmically assigned to you. If you remove these, I believe ads targeted to those interests should go away. I periodically just sweep them all clean so I have no interests. I get very few ads and those that I g…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#36

Post by adventured »

tomrod wrote: post #21
hanoz wrote: post #16

I'd never seen beyond the login screen of Facebook until a site I run started getting sporadic bursts of traffic from there, so I ventured in to try and find the links. I was stunned and devastated to discover how many thriving little communities there were in this niche area (local archeology), it's everything the open web was supposed to be but it has been walled off, completely invisible to outsiders, all for the…

Economies of scale, I guess? Easier to host there than to have dedicated hobbyists support the technology needs.

Ning showed some promise in being able to provide that. It took off like a rocket initially. Maybe they benefited from launching in 2005, prior to Facebook reaching any meaningful saturation (consuming all the oxygen in the segment).

When they figured out the financial side of it wasn't going to work (having raised $119m in VC), they essentially destroyed the old service in 2010, suspended the free offering, and fired half the company. I've always wondered if the original concept of Ning could have in fact succeeded, if they hadn't built the company using the typical boom or die, drive the venture capital into the wall model.

I think there's still something big there, if someone can figure out how to do it very, very inexpensively and keep it open. Minimalize the commercial abuse, build in strong spam and trust controls.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#39

Post by dymk »

wufufufu wrote: post #15

If any Facebook employees are reading this, there's a really annoying "feature" that will show a list of suggested friends to add to a private group. I've accidentally added people to private groups by accidentally clicking a single time while scrolling. Imagine being in an AA group or HIV support group and adding your coworker to it on accident. Please change this.

It's really easy to complain about this, but it's very hard to actually come up with a solution.

Did you have any suggestions how cases like this could be detected?

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#40

Post by seandougall »

xefer wrote: post #19
bad_user wrote: post #6

I joined a group for T2 diabetes at some point because I have a stubborn friend that doesn’t want to receive proper treatment and I basically wanted to ask about available options. Next thing I know is that Facebook started giving me ads for diabetics. Having such an influential company know about your illnesses and sell that to advertisers or healthcare insurance agencies or credit agencies or god knows what else is…

So I'm curious: have you tried removing details from your Facebook ad preferences? On the desktop website go to: Settings | Ads | Your Interests. There is a huge ontology of various subjects that have been algorithmically assigned to you. If you remove these, I believe ads targeted to those interests should go away. I periodically just sweep them all clean so I have no interests. I get very few ads and those that I g…

It’s pretty good that they allow you to do that now, but it can’t retroactively remove those interests from the personal data they’ve already sold about you. So it fixes the smaller issue of what ads Facebook serves, but doesn’t address the larger issue of privacy.
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