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

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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending Facebook and I just had some thoughts reading the quotes and am curious what you think of them. 1. I remember that while growing up fashion magazines, actors/actresses and I want to say peer pressure (but am fearful its incorrect) were a big source of body image issues. 2. Maybe it's a side effect of our society or "normal" to have security issues while growing up. We've been having good childhoods…

> 1. I remember that while growing up fashion magazines, actors/actresses and I want to say peer pressure (but am fearful its incorrect) were a big source of body image issues. I remember reading somewhere, can't remember where, something that addressed this point. Broadly speaking, the idea was that "people in magazines" weren't perceived as "peers", so you wouldn't compare yourself to them in the same way as you'd…

To me this sounds like post hoc reasoning to justify the conclusion you already want to make. There doesn't appear to be any real correlation between the introduction of Instagram and suicide rates for girls. Suicide rates are up, but it's for both boys and girls and the beginning of the increase predated Instagram.

Instagram is an easy target like Video games, TV, Cell Phones, and Internet were before it. But like those things I don't think there's much causation going on.

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

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ro…

There are different levels of influence, though. Yes, parents can assert a lot of control over their children, but at a certain age they start looking at their peers and being influenced by them to a tremendous degree.

And not all parents realize, or can realize, everything that goes on in their childrens' lives.

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

#354
Thé issue has always been there, but it is now not only easily accessible, but pushed on us through ever adaptive personal in-app adverts. Search thinspo and it gets scary very quickly. Note : Don’t forget but this is affecting boys as well, with increasing anorexia and muscle dismorphia

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

While there is very little research on this (because Congress banned funding research on this after pressure from the NRA in the 90s), what research does exist does not support your assertion: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-... It's not about criminals not caring about the law. Shooting people is already illegal. It's about making it more difficult to access and acquire these weapons. If…

> what research does exist does not support your assertion

the link you posted does not oppose it as the other comment pointed out.

I hope you will keep an open mind as you look into this, setting aside the agendas of the NRA or the anti-gun groups.

When there is an item (gun, in this instance) which has both good and bad uses ( what they are, we are reasonably argue) -- there needs to be a balance in how the item is procured.

Nowhere in the country does one just go and pick one up. There are (again, we can argue on what is reasonable) checks and balances - checking the person's track history etc.

All this goes out the window when it is possible to skirt the law, or in the case of London, use knives instead of guns for the crimes.

We need to solve the problem at the right level of abstraction.

We need to focus on why the society today sees more shootings in the past decades when the guns have been existing for much longer.

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

#356
post #138

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.

> I think as a society we need to prove that we are smarter than these companies and are capable of discipline and self-control. Kind of like how we said that the answer to alcohol & tobacco was to show self-control, not restrict sales and advertising? Expecting people to go one on one against enormous companies’ profit motives is a recipe for failures.

Or walk into a casino and look at the people pouring their savings into addictive slot machines. It's kind of eerie how modern slot machines actually appear to be converging with mobile games in many ways.

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/todd-matthews-and-emily...

https://www.bestuscasinos.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/slo...

https://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1023380611/thumb/1....

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

#357
I'm not familiar with this particular set of findings, but generally speaking internal research at Facebook are generally either large scale in-app surveys (which suffer from response bias) or small scale (often ~10 participants from a single city) in-person interviews. It's useful for informing product roadmaps, but I don't think we can really draw bigger conclusions from it. Put it a different way, if this research had found that Instagram was NOT toxic for teen girls, would anyone buy that?

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

#358

Our bodies can’t handle large doses of refined/high density compounds (sugar, alcohol, opioids, etc) or social interactions (being judged by 1000s/millions).

I don't think this analogy holds.

Those exogenous compounds bind to endogenous receptors.

Social interactions lead to endogenous release of compounds that bind to endogenous receptors.

A human body limits how much endogenous ligands it produces.

There are different types of limits for exogenous ligands.

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

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ro…

Parental control cannot and can never be used as a singular or even more influential factor to societal level problems. Parents can have all the best intentions in the world but if the society they’re trying to raise children in is broken, they can’t protect those children forever.
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