Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 687 posts

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

#461

Post by heywherelogingo »

standardUser wrote: post #449

It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this country, you were shit out of luck. Now, thanks to the internet, there exists inclusive and positive communities for people of every type of background and experience. This simply did not exist for most people just a few decades ago, but now it's accessible to almost…

"Now, thanks to the internet, there exists ... communities for people of every type of background and experience." -- this is good for the individuals, but what if there is a biological/societal/ecosystem negative eg organised crime, gene mutations? ie harmless singletons scaling into destructive masses. Is isolation nature's fire-break, broken by bridging technology? The negative connotations are hypothetical questions about unknowns, not a claim or suggestion.

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

#462

Post by wussboy »

Torwald wrote: post #397
wussboy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very interesting point. As someone who wants to start an organization with a very strong mission statement, it brings a sense of caution. Is it the mission statement itself which is dangerous? Or is it possible to come up with a "good" one?

Michael Hyatt in his "Vision driven leader" book makes a good distinction between vision an mission, which I think is helpful to you. I recommend you read the book, it is right on your avenue.

It's on Audible. I'll give it a listen. Thanks!

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

#463

Post by lxgr »

tester756 wrote: post #455
standardUser wrote: post #449

It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this country, you were shit out of luck. Now, thanks to the internet, there exists inclusive and positive communities for people of every type of background and experience. This simply did not exist for most people just a few decades ago, but now it's accessible to almost…

How about numbers / net outcome? If we trade 10 good things for 10 000 terrible, then is it worth?

Not an ethicist, but I don't think this is how ethical evaluations work in most frameworks.

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

#464

Post by Animats »

atonalfreerider wrote: post #454
wussboy wrote: post #186

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…

Ditto for online pornography. And unlike chemical drugs that have to be transported and administered, these images and videos fly through the wires into childrens' bedrooms. I know, because like most children, I was exposed to online porn at a young age and was addicted to it well into my adult life. These companies need regulation, because they are bad actors.

Ditto for online pornography.

Nah. That's been studied heavily. Here's an overview from the National Institutes of Health.[1] Wikipedia has an overview.[2] The overall conclusion is that most of the research is of terrible quality and there's no big measurable effect.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6352245/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_pornography

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

#465

Post by picardythird »

aspaviento wrote: post #131
andreime wrote: post #106

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…

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…

> From the article it seems that young girls know about the toxicity in the application, why they keep using it?

This is a disheartening take.

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

#466

Post by danuker »

uniqueid wrote: post #459
standardUser wrote: post #449

It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this country, you were shit out of luck. Now, thanks to the internet, there exists inclusive and positive communities for people of every type of background and experience. This simply did not exist for most people just a few decades ago, but now it's accessible to almost…

It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this country, you were shit out of luck. As bad as that was, in the past you could move to another of the 380,000 towns on this planet. Today, if your social media trail renders you unemployable (or the target of persecution) there's no longer any corner of the planet to…

You probably wouldn't want to get hired by someone who wouldn't tolerate (if not share) your views.

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

#467

Post by anigbrowl »

bserge wrote: post #377
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 just said the same thing ha. Yeah, it is difficult for people to admit they're at fault. Blame is justified only when someone is forcing you to do something or keeping you from something.

How about when a person is deceived into doing something? As a general matter, rather in the context of this specific news story.

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

#468

Post by popcorncowboy »

treis wrote: post #374
pfortuny wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits" That statement cannot be false because it is devoid of any content, being a mere hypothetical. The fact that it is surrounded by "research" is meaningless as well, as the aforementioned sentence is like saying "the elements of the empty set fulfil all properties"... So no, they are not contradicting themselves. They are simply a…

The research the GP's quote is referencing said Instagram made 41% feel better, 31% worse, and no impact for the other 28%. It's not clear why that can be used as evidence that it makes some girls feel worse about themselves but that it makes some girls feel better about themselves.

I've come up with a new sports drink. X% of people say it makes them feel good! WOOO! Y% don't feel anything. About one in Z people will absolutely feel worse. If you have suicidal thoughts, about one in ten of those will be able to attribute their suicidal thinking to my drink. When interviewed about my drink, teenagers will unprompted blame the drink on increasing rates of anxiety and and depression. If you feel unattractive, odds are about even you started feeling that way when you started drinking my drink. Teens regularly report wanting to drink less of my drink but lack the self control to do so. In part this is because they report feeling like they have to be seen drinking my drink. I know all this because I employ researchers who say they can't get people in my sports drink company to take their findings seriously because those researchers are "standing directly between people and their bonuses". So my execs don't use our internal research, but cite instead other studies (by orgs that I donate to) that highlight the positives.

I make $BILLIONS from this drink.

(fill in whatever value of X, Y and Z makes this all ok)

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

#469

Post by _bfhp »

standardUser wrote: post #449

It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this country, you were shit out of luck. Now, thanks to the internet, there exists inclusive and positive communities for people of every type of background and experience. This simply did not exist for most people just a few decades ago, but now it's accessible to almost…

It's free to submit another story to HN about the topic you prefer, this one is about teen girls though!

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

#470

Post by smoldesu »

afavour wrote: post #238
rg111 wrote: post #66

I don't blame Facebook (or Twitter, or any particular company) for this. We can only blame scale . Some things are much more scalable than others, and "beauty" scales. And the "occurrence of beauty" does, too. Before the advent of scale on almost every aspect of our lives, a local musician or theatre group found easy income. Now, since after the invention of gramophones, more people can listen to less and less musici…

> I don't blame Facebook (or Twitter, or any particular company) for this. Perhaps I would agree with you that I don't blame Facebook for the root problem here. After all, it's been around a lot longer than Facebook. However, Facebook is actively providing the scale you're talking about. They are an accelerant. Not only that, they're making absolutely wild amounts of money while they do so. So, they have an opportuni…

Who cares?

Everyone makes money by pulling a magic lever that hurts other people. Apple pulls their slave labor lever to make a new iPhone, Facebook holds down their 'moderate content' key until their employees start falling apart, and Microsoft occasionally pulls the 'fuck it, ship it' lever to the chagrin of millions of Windows users. There's always a bigger fish, and sometimes that fish is more shareholders, not more consumers.

I despise Facebook, and they're almost certainly the most evil FAANG member. But at this point, it's nothing more than par for the course. Facebook is in glib obedience of every 3-letter-agency in every country, everywhere. Blaming Facebook for the behavior that everyone practices in the Fortune 500 is a little misguided.

Post reply on HN