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

#281

Post by OvidNaso » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

aspaviento wrote: post #246

afavour wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you really think all those people aroubd you eere taught to smoke?

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

#282

Post by justapassenger » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #17

joelbluminator wrote: post #14

Is it Facebook / Instagram's fault or us as a culture? As a culture we adore beauty, wealth, power...Facebook seems to be just a platform where our natural desires can have a play. Facebook hasn't created this impossible beauty ideal, it was created long long ago by Hollywood and the fashion industry. Facebook just makes it super easy for people to become obsessed with something by "connecting" with it. It used to be…

It's their fault. An individual girl in 1995 who was concerned with her looks had at most a couple dozen people in her life to judge her. In 2021 it's hundreds of millions, and a large portion are more than happy to spout things they would NEVER say in real life. Does society value beauty? Sure. Do models set "unrealistic expectations"? Sure. Are some high school girls assholes to other girls? Absolutely. But once up…

> It's their fault. An individual girl in 1995 who was concerned with her looks had at most a couple dozen people in her life to judge her. In 2021 it's hundreds of millions, and a large portion are more than happy to spout things they would NEVER say in real life.

I agree with the 2nd part of your comment. But this part is just dishonest, and sounds like a startup pitch about addressable market. Do you honestly believe that each teen girl is being followed by hundreds of millions, who comment on every single photo of her? Almost everyone still lives in their social bubbles, and yes, it's easier to to communicate and say mean things to each other (totally 24/7 feedback loop), but they almost exclusively come from people you know, not hundreds of millions of internet randos.

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

#283

Post by smithza » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

wussboy wrote: post #186

aspaviento wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The less I want is to defend Facebook but I think lately people don't want to acknowledge their own responsibilities. It's like every time there is a problem, the cause is someone/something else. I don't think Instagram is impossed to anyone. Young people can feel the pressure to use it because their friends use it but they aren't forced to do so. From the article it seems that young girls know about the toxicity in…

I have a personal grudge against anyone saying "Why don't the parents take some responsibility to combat a multi-billion dollar company who puts the resources of small countries in to making their children behave in detrimental ways." But I'll not get in to that. :) Facebook and Instagram are drug dealers. Sure, they're not physically distributing a substance, but the social interactions they provide are every bit as…

I will say emphatically that parents of teens are the most influential people in their lives, whether acknowledged or no. It is likely the case that parents will forever be the most influential people in someone's life and the positions you take, the behaviors you engage in, and what you teach will stick with them for their whole lives. Take a stance and teach them. They may rebel, they may not, but years down the road your opinion will likely inform their reflections and help guide their future actions.

getting off soapbox

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

#284

Post by remarkEon » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #270

remarkEon wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of amazing to me that an observation that anyone could make based on their experience as a human living on planet earth gets discounted because there isn’t some peer reviewed study from Harvard or whatever that confirms the observation. Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. We don’t need an army of data scientists to “look into it”.

> Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. In all societies across time? Or just in American High schools and on Instagram?

Lemme get Yale on the phone, or better yet Oxford. Maybe they can provide us an answer to the question of “are young girls mean to each other, yes or no”.

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

#285

Post by raman162 » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

asoneth wrote: post #151

raman162 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These companies are always going to want to hold our attention but it's us at the end of the day who decide to give them our attention. I think as a society we need to prove that we are smarter than these companies and are capable of discipline and self-control. In corporate america, it's hard for me to see any private owned corporation doing what's in best interest for the public versus their own pockets.

> as a society we need to prove that we are smarter than these companies ... I agree that this is a test of our society. > ... and are capable of discipline and self-control These organizations have enormous resources dedicated to exploiting our frailties and overcoming an individual's discipline and self-control. One option is to continue to expect every man, woman, and child to fight this battle alone in their own…

Yes I agree that it's difficult for us to fight individually. I believe we should start informing children about the dangers of the internet once they begin to consume customized feed-based content. I believe parents also have the right to (and should to a certain extent) regulate consumption of their kid's digital media.

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

#286

Post by everdrive » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

thiagoharry wrote: post #235

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…

Teen girls are always mean, in all cultures? You always can pick any non-universal human characteristic from your culture and with creativity find biological hipothesis to justify this. But this is very dangerous because it can easily naturalize prejudices, taboos and social norms that never were biological. If you want to ask about these things, you first should first ask to anthropology how teen girls behave in dif…

I think this is a really fair counterpoint, and worth looking into. (so far as anyone would look into what I have suggested.) I'd offer a few things, though:

We'd want to measure things like "stress" or "anxiety" rather than simply meanness, it's possible this trend is not always expressed through cruelty. (notably, the facebook article suggests explicitly that it's not.)

I think in general the idea of leveraging sociology and anthropology in these cases is perfectly sound. If this only happened in America, I think there'd be a good argument that there is not a genetic component. (or perhaps, that there is a genetic component which is only activated in some contexts.)

One point I'd like to push back on is something I observed when studying anthropology in college. (and to be clear and fair, I am not suggesting that you have pushed this point of view.) Evidence of a single and rare outlier would be brought forward as proof that a set of behaviors did not have an evolutionary basis. Usually this was taken even further: if an outlier could be found, then the entire trait was completely socially constructed. Evolution affects behavior for certain, but these are experienced as drives an impulses which get filtered through the mind, the contextual social, and more. So, if a behavior is very broadly expressed cross-culturally, it is reasonable to suspect there is an evolutionary component to it. (of course this alone does not prove it.) If the outlier scenarios are sufficiently rare, this is likely proof that although there is an evolutionary basis for the behavior, they are not set in stone, and can be suppressed by the right circumstances.

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

#287

Post by sseagull » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #234

jhardy54 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teenage girls are predisposed to behave in the way described, and Facebook/Instagram is profiting by exploiting that. Has this been studied, or are we taking an arbitrary thought experiment as a foundational axiom?

It’s kind of amazing to me that an observation that anyone could make based on their experience as a human living on planet earth gets discounted because there isn’t some peer reviewed study from Harvard or whatever that confirms the observation. Young girls are mean to each other, that’s a fact. We don’t need an army of data scientists to “look into it”.

Maybe experience shouldn't be thrown outright, but there is a history of "obvious" stuff that falls apart under scrutiny.

Observer expectations can be really strong.

For example, does sugar make kids hyperactive? No real evidence for it (last I checked). But widely believed as fact.

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

#288

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

spockz wrote: post #5

blakesterz wrote: post #2

https://archive.is/egPlc “The research that we’ve seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a congressional hearing... “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues. “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiet…

This shows how a statement can be factually true and completely disingenuous at the same time. Yes 1/3 are effected badly but we just say that it can have positive effects. Just omitting the fact that it often has a detrimental effect…

[deleted]

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

#289

Post by maccolgan » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

Tarsul wrote: post #83

jefftk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, teens blaming Instagram does not mean Instagram actually has that effect.

there was this absolutely devastating graphic about rising suicide rates of teen girls which coincided with mobiles and especially instagram. Sorry can't find it right now.

Correlation isn't causation, society is shifting massively, regardless of Facebook and Instagram.

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

#290

Post by naravara » Tue, Sep 14, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

aspaviento wrote: post #246

afavour wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

The thing is, we made headway in the battle against smoking by disallowing people from doing all those things. You're not allowed to market to kids, you're not allowed to depict smoking in most TV that kids are likely to watch, you're not allowed to smoke in or near schools and teachers who do are frowned upon. Cigarettes themselves are taxed heavily specifically to price young people out of getting into the habit, vendors are required to card, and the cigarette makers are even required to pay into a fund that promotes anti-smoking messaging.

So yes it is definitely not an impossible task. But the things that make it possible require taking it seriously as a danger and addressing it collectively.