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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

#201

Post by Cthulhu_ »

azemetre wrote: post #52

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…

I've been a frequent and undiscriminating Reddit user, and while the "idyllic life" / showing off posts make up a nontrivial portion of its content, there's a lot of things to offset it as well. Depression memes, deep fried ridiculous humor, cute animals, car accidents, the adventures of Florida Man, world news, etc. They used to have a lot more - "punching down" content, porn - but they've cleaned the site up over the years to appeal to a wider audience / advertisers / investors.

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

#202

Post by emteycz »

smallnamespace wrote: post #198
lrvick wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you abstain from alcohol you can always have a soda in hand and usually still stay socially connected with most if not all friends and family. 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…

Do your friends and family ignore direct text messages?

Mine don't but it's always me who has to send them. I don't mind but I can imagine people can feel forgotten.

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

#203

Post by nerdponx »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51

> "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…

Subjectively, when I'm at my worst I just end up mindlessly scrolling through whatever is around. It's a connection to the outside world.

I think the causality here will turn out to be complicated and will be different for different people.

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

#204

Post by paganel »

nlh wrote: post #133
azemetre wrote: post #52

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…

My experience and $0.02: 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,…

> 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 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).

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

#205

Post by DanBC »

WesleyHale wrote: post #77
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51

> "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…

it's true that correlation doesn't equal causation as the article itself pointed out. 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?

> 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.

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

#206

Post by fsflover »

adolph wrote: post #53
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51

> "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…

Facebook may not cause depression but they seem to be cigarette-maker defensive about it.

Indeed, it has something to do with cigarettes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

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

#207

Post by captaincaveman »

jVinc wrote: post #93
detaro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The data being used to back this is very much a "children" issue, a adolescent female issue to be exact. The rate of depression stated to skyrocket in 2012 for this specific group. 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…

You could arguably better correlate that with teenagers gaining access to personal image sharing devices .. i.e. camera phones, and publishing platforms i.e. they can share photos/videos ... systemically the issue is self worth being largely wrapped up in how pretty you are perceived to be, which is a social/cultural problem.

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

#208

Post by tremon »

snerual wrote: post #183
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #51

> "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…

Isn't this a classic ethical problem in psychological research? 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 h…

(creteris paribus)

nb it's ceteris, same root used in et cetera.

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

#209

Post by RikNieu »

azemetre wrote: post #52

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…

Insta is the only social media app that consistently brightens my day.

My secret? Follow topics, not people. My feed is filled with galaxies, animals, art... cool, interesting, inspiring stuff.

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

#210

Post by whitehouse3 »

emteycz wrote: post #202
smallnamespace wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your friends and family ignore direct text messages?

Mine don't but it's always me who has to send them. I don't mind but I can imagine people can feel forgotten.

I don’t see how social media changes this. Life is filled with people who don’t reach out first. It’s not like instagram changes them. The number of direct, meaningful messages between you and them is probably the same, independent of the platform.

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.

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