Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#241

Post by webnrrd2k » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #175

everdrive wrote: post #117

Facebook is an accelerant. The movie "Mean Girls" largely predated social media and highlighted many of the same issues. This seems to be a pretty ingrained issue, although I think most people agree that Facebook makes it worse. Here's a theory that's nearly guaranteed to land me in hot water: Why are young girls so awful to each other? I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that is has to do with "hormones," new…

Your theory seems backwards. Cut-throat competition for mating opportunities should be a strategy for the least desirable, who have the greatest need to compete for the scarce resource. If you're top of the desirability scale, you are the scarce resource, and your job is to discern the best suitor amongst the many who put themselves forward.

This is just speculation on my part, but maybe being cut-throat is the strategy -- it's just applied to both potential suitors and potential competition. If you're at the top of the pyramid then the easiest way to discourage both unsuitable competition and unsuitable suitors is to be mean about it.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#242

Post by everdrive » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

throwaway306744 wrote: post #203

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory doesn't explain why boys don't act the same. Their attractiveness also dwindles with time - you could argue it's happening less steeply, but still.

I read that there is pressure on boys to appear nonthreatening for as long as possible. They benefit when the growth spurt from aw cute to damn hot is quick.

That's really interesting. I've always observed anecdotally that female preferences change drastically between very young women and older. Specifically, teen magazines aimed at young girls always seem to have very feminine, boyish, non-threatening males. My observation has been that this preference is dropped pretty sharply as women get a little bit older.

I never knew (and still, don't know) to what degree this trait is actually universal. (ie, perhaps it's just a weird quirk of teen magazines in the last 30 years) Do you have links to that study or anything like it? I'd like to check it out.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#243

Post by joelbluminator » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #171

joelbluminator wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company will push whatever it needs to maximize user attention.They are all out there selling ads to make money, I don't think the other players are different than Facebook.

Please stop with the incessant whataboutism. Nobody is saying that this is not a general social media problem, just that this article is reporting on FB hiding crucial information.

Quite a few people here argued that Facebook is somehow doing a special evil, so yes people are kinda saying that.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#244

Post by muglug » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

foolinaround wrote: post #210

franga2000 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment doesn't sound to me like blaming the girls, but just taking the core of the blame off of Facebook. And it's really pretty clear that Facebook didn't create any of these problems and that removing it won't solve them. Facebook makes it easier for girls to bully each other in the same way that relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people. Or, as Londoners will tell you: "you can't solve kni…

> relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people A little O/T, but this trope needs to please stop. The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. It should go without saying that criminals without definition would not care about laws.

> The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws

Only in America. Other western nations have tough gun laws and also low gun crime, because you can't hop in your car and pick up a gun in a neighbouring state.

And actually the correlation is only seen in parts of America. New York City has tough gun laws, comparatively low gun crime and a lower homicide rate per capita than the rest of the country.

Time and time again people say "tough gun laws lead to more gun crime" but really they mean "in a country where it's really really easy to buy guns, we mostly see the negative impact of gun ownership in high-density poor neighbourhoods".

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#245

Post by magicink81 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #117

Facebook is an accelerant. The movie "Mean Girls" largely predated social media and highlighted many of the same issues. This seems to be a pretty ingrained issue, although I think most people agree that Facebook makes it worse. Here's a theory that's nearly guaranteed to land me in hot water: Why are young girls so awful to each other? I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that is has to do with "hormones," new…

> "Facebook is an accelerant."

What is the shape of evolution? Many believe the shape of evolution to be a line of deterministic "progress" with a forward and a backward movement that may be accelerated.

Maybe evolution is a process which we are unconsciously subject to and consciously participate in forming. It seems directors, managers, and other employees working for Facebook may be more conscious of the role the Facebook systems play in social, psychological, and evolutionary processes, and the outcomes the systems grow.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#246

Post by aspaviento » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #226

aspaviento wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a personal grudge against anyone saying (...) There is no need to have any grudge against me (I hope). I get it. I never said being a parent is an easy job. I acknowledge how hard it is but... > Facebook and Instagram are drug dealers If you teach your kids not to consume drugs, why Instagram should be any different?

> If you teach your kids not to consume drugs, why Instagram should be any different? Imagine if all the other kids at school used drugs on a daily basis, that there was advertising plastered everywhere telling you that drugs are cool, that successful people use drugs and that your worth in this world can be directly tied to successful use of drugs. I don't mean to sound mean here, but are you a parent? If not I susp…

I don't want to use myself as an example because it's just my experience but when I was young people around me smoked, many of my teachers smoked and in TV and movies smoking was still accepted as something approved by society. But I was taught not to do it and never did it.

With this I just want to say that I know it's a difficult task but presenting it as a lost battle/impossible seems to me wrong.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#247

Post by armchairhacker » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

rendall wrote: post #182

everdrive wrote: post #117

Facebook is an accelerant. The movie "Mean Girls" largely predated social media and highlighted many of the same issues. This seems to be a pretty ingrained issue, although I think most people agree that Facebook makes it worse. Here's a theory that's nearly guaranteed to land me in hot water: Why are young girls so awful to each other? I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that is has to do with "hormones," new…

> If this is the period of their life where they are the most desirable, there might be an evolutionary benefit to be the most cut-throat when it comes to vying for the best mating opportunities. I appreciate the approach, but I do think it is probably (as you yourself warned) a "just so" story. Teenaged girls can be mean. Teenaged boys can be mean. Adults can be mean. Members of all of these groups can be nice, some…

Yeah i think teenage girls are sometimes mean to each other because they have pride, just like every other human being. Some people’s pride makes them work long hours, some makes them work out, some makes them debate, and some makes them dress up and try to be the most popular.

Also i don’t think most teenage girls act like “Mean Girls” in real life. I was once in school and I have a teenage sister. Many girls like to post instagrams and tiktoks to get likes and follows, but they’re not cutthroat about it and the girls are sympathetic to each other.

The places where girls are backstabbing each other, are probably the same places where guys are fighting each other.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#248

Post by nonameiguess » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #117

Facebook is an accelerant. The movie "Mean Girls" largely predated social media and highlighted many of the same issues. This seems to be a pretty ingrained issue, although I think most people agree that Facebook makes it worse. Here's a theory that's nearly guaranteed to land me in hot water: Why are young girls so awful to each other? I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that is has to do with "hormones," new…

Men can impregnate indefinitely many women. As long as we have communities in which an individual mother isn't totally dependent on the father during critical years, there doesn't seem much need for competition here. That's a result of monogamy and nuclear families that probably wasn't the norm when humans were evolving these behaviors hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#249

Post by rendall » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #214

rendall wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this is the period of their life where they are the most desirable, there might be an evolutionary benefit to be the most cut-throat when it comes to vying for the best mating opportunities. I appreciate the approach, but I do think it is probably (as you yourself warned) a "just so" story. Teenaged girls can be mean. Teenaged boys can be mean. Adults can be mean. Members of all of these groups can be nice, some…

I really appreciate your comment. I still think my theory seems reasonable, but we should all be clear that a theory which "seems reasonable to some people" is very far something which is scientifically proven or even likely.

Agreed. Evolution drives our behavior; that fact horrifies some people; and for every observation there is an explanation that is clear, simple and wrong.

We humans are apes and, so, teenaged girls are apes. Apes are obsessed with hierarchy, status and sex. That doesn't change because we communicate using abstract symbols over a ridiculously innovative invention.

Re: Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

#250

Post by hkt » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

foolinaround wrote: post #210

franga2000 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment doesn't sound to me like blaming the girls, but just taking the core of the blame off of Facebook. And it's really pretty clear that Facebook didn't create any of these problems and that removing it won't solve them. Facebook makes it easier for girls to bully each other in the same way that relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people. Or, as Londoners will tell you: "you can't solve kni…

> relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people A little O/T, but this trope needs to please stop. The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. It should go without saying that criminals without definition would not care about laws.

> The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws.

Big claims require some big evidence. In the UK there are strict controls on gun ownership and we have virtually no crimes carried out with legal guns, and more but still very few with illegal ones. Can you give some counter examples?