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Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

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Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#81

Why isn’t the mental health of people using its platform a priority for Facebook?

Well, simply because it doesn’t involve itself in it. For instance, one might well ask “Why does the Forestry department not care about the mental health of visitors?”

They don’t, except incidentally, because they have an orthogonal pursuit - that of the preservation, maintenance, and accessibility of our forests.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#82

It's very odd, I use to use Instagram and it would make me depressed. IDK how to explain, I don't even have any friends on there I follow. Just something about seeing everyone at their best 100% of the time, doing amazing things 100% of the time, never facing adversity 100% of the time. 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 week…

It's admittedly an extreme case, but I've been seeing Instagram fairly directly harm a friend's mental health. She is repeatedly seeing people on Instagram doing elaborate things - decoration, cooking, parenting, etc., and it's giving her unrealistic expectations about what standards she should be upholding in everything she does, be it cooking or crafting or interior décor or parenting or whatever. She isn't just trying to keep up with the Joneses, she's trying to keep up with the Joneses and the Nguyens and the Singhs and the Smiths and the Telliers all at the same time. The extreme impossibility of anyone actually doing this has more or less turned her life into (in her estimation) an endless stream of failure, and it's really wearing her down.

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.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#84

It's very odd, I use to use Instagram and it would make me depressed. IDK how to explain, I don't even have any friends on there I follow. Just something about seeing everyone at their best 100% of the time, doing amazing things 100% of the time, never facing adversity 100% of the time. 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 week…

> IDK how to explain, I don't even have any friends on there I follow. 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 sam…

> Social media is best used for keeping in touch with friends and family.

Not even that... Facebook can show you the worst of your friends and family. Doesn't feel healthy.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#85

None of this would be a problem with a user configurable feed and not whatever crap they throw at you

One would think so, but Instagram’s feed is highly configurable. I only see stuff that my friends have posted, all stories are chronological, and there’s a little “you’ve caught up” anti-doomscroller card.

However, Instagram is supposed to be Public Enemy No 1. So that’s clearly not the problem.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#86
post #71
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It must be social media. Teenagers were previously well known for being bundles of joy. And for thanking their parents for imposing rules. Still, good to know that you were right and she knows this now.

fwiw, this comment also isn't really in the spirit of the "open discussion" you miss.

The point was not made in a generous way, but it's worth considering that adolescence is famously - and in Western culture universally - viewed as a time of great emotional distress, raging hormones, rapid physical change, rebellion, and so on. And the OP's point was specifically that every generation seems to blame the "new thing" for this exact phenomenon, to the point where it is now obvious that it is not the "new thing" but instead maybe something less ephemeral.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#87
post #79

It's pretty tiring to see activists and researchers targeting big bad Facebook when clearly the issue is social media as a whole. 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 pos…

What is "social media as a whole"? Does HN count as social media? Where do you draw the line?

Sites where you can peek into other people's lives, or at least what you think is.

To me HN is nothing more innocent than a virtual programming club.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#88

> "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 furth…

> Stepping back, it appears that screen time is correlated with depressive symptoms, with or without social media

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.

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#89
post #33

I've no love for Facebook and the rest of social media - I can't help but hear this latest warning as just the current "think of the children". 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'…

Watching a happy and polite teenage daughter become horrifically depressed and nasty when on social media is a gut punch. 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.

Well, effect size is effect size, but this is non generalizable. Still, it looks like you have a clear intervention in the n=1 case which is great!

Re: Researchers, lawmakers want Facebook's mental health research

#90
post #69
post #33

I've no love for Facebook and the rest of social media - I can't help but hear this latest warning as just the current "think of the children". 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'…

I don't think everyone sees it as just a "children" issue - it's not like the topic doesn't come up when it's about adults. But children is the angle laws can hit the easiest, and it does hit an extra "think of the children" emotional spot. And mental health among adults is more of a taboo topic politically. So I think it is a mix.

To disagree, I don't think the topic does come up when discussing (voting) adults.

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.

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