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

#251

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

joelbluminator wrote: post #243

yunohn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You’re probably confused because you’re speaking quite generally, while most of us here are commenting after reading the article:

> “They came to the conclusion that some of the problems were specific to Instagram, and not social media more broadly. That is especially true concerning so-called social comparison, which is when people assess their own value in relation to the attractiveness, wealth and success of others." "'Social comparison is worse on Instagram,' states Facebook's deep dive into teen girl body-image issues in 2020, noting that TikTok, a short-video app, is grounded in performance, while users on Snapchat, a rival photo and video-sharing app, are sheltered by jokey filters that 'keep the focus on the face.' In contrast, Instagram focuses heavily on the body and lifestyle."

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

#252

Post by everdrive » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #195

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…

Let’s suppose you’re correct: teen girls are evolutionarily predisposed to be especially cutthroat. Does this make it acceptable that a corporation like Facebook exploits this tendency for profit? Should we not recognize this vulnerability and protect our children against it?

I'm very opposed to Facebook and social media in general. I think social media is bad for almost everybody. (and certainly bad on the whole for any large cohort.) Even if teenage girls were not predisposed to this sort of behavior, Facebook would still be bad for them. It would simply be bad for them in the ways which it is bad for everyone else. Instead, it's bad for them in all the other ways it's bad for people, and additionally bad for them when it comes to these particular social behaviors.

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

#253

Post by q3k » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #159

earthscienceman wrote: post #98

I'll make a comment that tries to be different than the range of criticism here already. Instagram is toxic for everyone . For reasons too personal to put here, I've been pretty depressed and dysfunctional lately and I've unintentionally discovered the experience of doomscrolling. The output of the instagram algorithm is absolutely terrifying. It has the perfect metrics (swipe time, profile browsing, etc etc) to prey…

Instagram basically wouldn't allow you see anything if you don't login. All you need to do is delete your Instagram account, then you are out. I never have an Instagram account, and never see the need to create one. I had a Facebook account, but I deleted it years ago. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, this shit is addictive and implying that the solution is _just_ for people to delete their account is effectively blaming the victim.

Some people never start smoking and never have a nicotine addiction problem. Some people smoke a few times or even occasionally but don't pick up a habit. Some people get addicted but manage to quit easily, some manage to quit after many attempts. Some can't quit ever, but we don't tell them that they just need to try harder or they shouldn't have started smoking in the first place.

Try quitting smoking or drinking in a place where it's socially expected to do one of these, and you'll be quite close to how difficult it's for someone to quit social media in a society where using social media is the social norm.

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

#254

Post by marjoram » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:19 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…

Mean Girls wasn't a documentary, and as a former teen girl, I'd argue that girls aren't actually uniquely awful: what they are is especially sensitive to social cues and influences. You may note that the article here isn't really about bullying, it's more about girls making themselves miserable by comparing their lives and their bodies to what they see online. I do actually think there may be an evolutionary element to the fact that females are (on average) more oriented to language and interpersonal skills, more attuned to social feedback, and on the flipside, more prone to anxiety as a result, but I think it's a mistake to view that through too simplistic a lens.

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

#255

Post by whydoyoucare » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #57

> “When I went on Instagram, all I saw were images of chiseled bodies, perfect abs and women doing 100 burpees in 10 minutes,” said Ms. Vlasova, now 18, who lives in Reston, Va. I just logged into my Instagram. I saw a guy fixing an old "roundie" television set, someone baking food, some through-the-microscope photos of soldering surface-mount components by hand, a home-made 3D printer, and a couple of clips from mus…

The "targeted" content diversifies based on what FB thinks would interest you. FB is better at predicting your interests and hobbies than you do, which eventually leads to doomscrolling.

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

#256

Post by webnrrd2k » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

webnrrd2k wrote: post #241

jl6 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now that I think about it a little more, it's probably more applicable to be mean to anyone in an outgroup.

And now that I think about it even more, I really have no idea of what I'm talking about. Most of the time that I've been mean to people, when I was younger, it was basically because I was an immature and confused jackass. And, as far as relationships go, who hasn't made a complete ass of theselves at one point or another?

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

#257

Post by datavirtue » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

justToAddLink wrote: post #188

wussboy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Males aren't sexually selected for attractiveness. They are selected for their ability to provide for a mother and baby. So, human male's desirability increases with time, peaking at some point where their peak wealth crosses their inability to procreate.

this can also be seen through the fact that females are four times more sensitive than males to economic status cues when rating opposite sex attractiveness [1] [1] - Guanlin Wang, Minxuan Cao, Justina Sauciuvenaite, Ruth Bissland, Megan Hacker, Catherine Hambly, Lobke M. Vaanholt, Chaoqun Niu, Mark D. Faries, & John R. Speakman (2018). Different impacts of resources on opposite sex ratings of physical attractiveness…

My old boss used to say he would just hold up a picture of his paycheck on Tinder if his wife ever dumped him. Unfortunately it would also show the child support deduction.

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

#258

Post by franga2000 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:21 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.

I meant criminals in this context as anyone who commits a crime using a gun. If you shoot someone you're a criminal regardless of whether you used an illegally acquired gun like a "career criminal" certainly would or if you had the gun legally and then decided to commit a crime.

And I can't really agree with your assertion either. See stats in [0] and a gun law map in [1]. At best it's a correlation without causation, but the correlation certainly isn't the inverse as you suggest.

I also don't see how it's not a relevant example - it's Thing A making Thing B worse, but Thing B would still happen without Thing A and so Thing A can't be blamed for Thing B. Regardless of whether the underlying assertion is correct (less gun control leading to more gun crime), the logic is valid.

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation

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

#259

Post by AlotOfReading » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:21 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.

Part of the reason I dislike many evo-psych explanations as an archaeologist is that they end up reflecting a lot of the author's assumptions about the nature of human societies and not the diversity of forms we actually observe. You can support virtually any argument by just narrowing or widening this scope appropriately. One example here is that young women are free to actually decide which "suitors" to accept. In some gerontocracies, young women generally don't have that choice, socially at least.

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

#260

Post by mpweiher » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:21 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.

In addition to the other comments: have you considered that the causality is reversed?

That is, tough gun laws are enacted exactly because of a high rate of gun crime?

And of course those tougher laws can have at best a mild moderating effect when guns can freely enter that area with the tougher gun laws from other areas that do not have them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...