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Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#121

Post by dylan604 »

amelius wrote: post #83
cblconfederate wrote: post #53

We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company, and it has always been, and it's just sad to see the support it gets among technologists. Zuck doesn't strike me as particularly deep thi…

> Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation? > We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Sorry, we can't leave this to armchair psychologists.

>To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation?

If we're talking about music, movies, fashion styles, etc, I'd say yes. However, no previous generation has had the juggernuat that is FB to compare to. FB has had more (at least potential) than any other source of influence on the younger generations especially those that are young enough to never know life without FB.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#122

Post by Nextgrid »

numair wrote: post #112
Nextgrid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was approaching the problem from the financial/business angle of it. Facebook and similar businesses work on the basis of "engagement" - the more you get people to "engage", the more they look at ads and the more money you make, so your incentive is to maximize this engagement by any legal means possible. This isn't specific to Facebook. Whether there are more sociopaths in Facebook than a typical social media comp…

Yeah, you can’t just sort of observe things from a distance and make hand-wavy statements regarding regulation. You’re not the only one to do this, of course — it’s actually one of the Facebook’s preferred talking points for journalists and politicians, as it turns their specific problems into an “industry-wide problem” — but your position is not accurate given the specific context of the company, its strategy, its e…

> it turns their specific problems into an “industry-wide problem”

Facebook says this to escape liability. I say this so that we nuke the entire industry.

> What you’re saying is a bit like, “we need stronger regulations on knives or we are just going to keep having a serial killer problem.”

The knife analogy doesn't really work. Knives have tons of legitimate usage, and are easy enough to manufacture that even if knives can no longer be obtained retail it will not be that hard for a serial killer to acquire one so regulation wouldn't work.

Non-consensual data collection & unregulated advertising? That's not something ordinary customers benefit from and better regulation there could help curtail the toxic effects of social media platforms by making their pursuit of "engagement" unprofitable and making them convert to a paid service (where there is no longer incentive to generate engagement).

> If you don’t know the specifics of the situation — which, sorry you don’t, and simply being a user of these products or working in tech doesn’t give you any deep insight — you should try to avoid making claims that imply expertise.

You're welcome to enlighten me then. Let's say what you say is right and Facebook (as opposed to the current regulatory framework) is the problem and it gets killed off. What happens next? My worry is that a competitor takes over that will in time (if not right away) become equally scummy in their pursuit of profit (as the current regulatory framework allows this). Worse, that competitor could be based outside of our jurisdiction and/or have even less laws/morals to keep them in check and/or have an ulterior motive beyond just profit (TikTok?).

> It’s a bit like defending [...]

I am not defending anything here. I just think that solving the symptom of a disease does not cure the disease itself.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#123

Post by hiptobecubic »

dylan604 wrote: post #121
amelius wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation? > We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Sorry, we can't leave this to armchair psychologists.

>To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation? If we're talking about music, movies, fashion styles, etc, I'd say yes. However, no previous generation has had the juggernuat that is FB to compare to. FB has had more (at least potential) than any other source of influence on the younger generations especially those that are young enough to never know life without FB.

I'd say tv and radio were both comparable.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#124

Post by StriverGuy »

Nextgrid wrote: post #79
cblconfederate wrote: post #53

We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company, and it has always been, and it's just sad to see the support it gets among technologists. Zuck doesn't strike me as particularly deep thi…

> Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company I don't want to defend Facebook, but this is not specific to Facebook. We have legitimized the modern concept of targeted advertising and Facebook just happens to play the game perfectly. Facebook is not 100% fault here (in fact there are others in this space). The fault is that we don't have regulation against something that is clearly detrimental to society.…

Facebook doesn't just play the game, they are the game.

There is no other ad delivery platform as influential to teens and young adults. Full stop.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#125

Post by Nextgrid »

StriverGuy wrote: post #124
Nextgrid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company I don't want to defend Facebook, but this is not specific to Facebook. We have legitimized the modern concept of targeted advertising and Facebook just happens to play the game perfectly. Facebook is not 100% fault here (in fact there are others in this space). The fault is that we don't have regulation against something that is clearly detrimental to society.…

Facebook doesn't just play the game, they are the game. There is no other ad delivery platform as influential to teens and young adults. Full stop.

> There is no other ad delivery platform as influential to teens and young adults. Full stop.

But as soon as you kill Facebook those people will just move on to the next competitor such as Snapchat or TikTok - you haven't actually solved the underlying problem.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#126

Post by dylan604 »

cblconfederate wrote: post #104
Nextgrid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is such a terrible human manipulation company I don't want to defend Facebook, but this is not specific to Facebook. We have legitimized the modern concept of targeted advertising and Facebook just happens to play the game perfectly. Facebook is not 100% fault here (in fact there are others in this space). The fault is that we don't have regulation against something that is clearly detrimental to society.…

afaik no other company tries so hard to manipulate people using their base feelings of social competition/envy/jealousy. at least not among the major ones.

The only thing close is Big Tobacco's manipulation of the product specifically to tweak the addictiveness of the product. It's one thing for the product to naturally be addictive, but by hiring people to study ways to make the product even more addictive, then to hire people to implement those ways into the product goes towards showing intent on creating a harmful product.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#127

Post by dylan604 »

rfvisuals wrote: post #115
maram wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it I wonder why Snapchat is never included in any discussion regarding behavioral experiments. Facebook/Instagram to Snapchat stories is like Time/Vogue Magazine to tabloids. (This is not to defend FB) I’m just curious why Snapchat and its st…

I use both products daily and while Snap is not immune from similar effects it seems to be designed to reduce the problems that IG is facing (body issues, viral misinformation). No one can see how popular you are or aren't unless you choose to reveal it and there's less focus on every post being 'perfect'. It's closer to iMessage on the communications apps spectrum.

the only thing that separates SC from other messaging apps is that SC wanted to make it a social platform with accepting "followers" from any random person rather than people you know. Their use of the snap codes etc to help promote yourself is another example.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#128

Post by dylan604 »

hef19898 wrote: post #89
treis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that [radio, movies, magazines, TV, video games, the internet, cell phones] has a bad effect on teens. Just observe a teenager Every generation has complained about the impact of some technology on kids. I don't really see a causitive link between teenager happiness and Instagram. It's an easy target to blame for sure. Especially compared with the stark increase in econom…

Well, radio and cinema paved the way for modern mass propaganda. Sure, as a society we figured mass media out. The experiments involved a world war so. Sometimes I think that we will learn to handle social media, sometimes I worry about the damage social media, either directly or indirectly, do until we learned our lessons.

>Sure, as a society we figured mass media out.

Are you saying this as in mass media is "safe" from manipulation? I would 100% disagree with that. Stating that it only took a world war to figure out mass media seems very odd as a qualifier. Along those same terms, social is leading us to world wide civil wars.

Re: Facebook Struggles to Quell Uproar over Instagram’s Effect on Teens

#130

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

cblconfederate wrote: post #120
amelius wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just observe a teenager of your family to see the values that are being taught through it. Is this how you want the next generation to be? To be fair, isn't this how every generation looks down on the next generation? > We don't even need clinical reporting to tell that instagram has a bad effect on teens. Sorry, we can't leave this to armchair psychologists.

i m not talking about looking down, this isnt teenagers being edgy. Narcissism is something most people can easily recognize and it s generally considered unhealthy. Parents usually dont feed their children unhealthy stuff, addictive drugs or habits. Same way maybe they should stop being dazzled by technology and reconsider what is happening. If you suggest that compulsive narcissism is a harmless thing, maybe it is,…

I think the primary point of the parent comment is that saying "Heck, just look at your own kids" may be fine for your own family, but, as we love to say, anecdotes are not data.

If the internet has proven anything it's that you can always find someone with "proof" of something based on their own personal experience ("My kid got a lot of vaccines, now my kid has autism, ergo..."). The reason we have scientists that do research studies is so we can examine these issues systematically.

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