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Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

theglobeandmail.com

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Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#171

Post by [deleted] »

keewee7 wrote: post #38
flycaliguy wrote: post #19

Yeah, I mean, this is among Canadians willing to fill out a survey online. Frankly it feels like another push in the media world to shift blame to FB. As far as specifically Canadian factors, maybe don’t survey us in October when the days are getting noticeably shorter? I feel like we are all a little melancholy right now preparing for our lightless morning commutes.

What I don't understand is the selective outrage against Facebook/Instagram. Why not Twitter, YouTube, reddit and TikTok?

[deleted]

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#172

Post by [deleted] »

legitster wrote: post #30

I know Facebook is the great evil, but we really need to start looking at the mental health impacts of all social media. The unhappiest people I know are not on Facebook - they are religiously devoted to Twitter and Reddit. Heck, I'd like to know what sort of damage this post right here is doing to me. This is our generation's smoking but everyone only wants to know how harmful Marlboros are. Edit: Please upvote this…

[deleted]

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#173

Post by keewee7 »

monkeynotes wrote: post #75
keewee7 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is the selective outrage against Facebook/Instagram. Why not Twitter, YouTube, reddit and TikTok?

I don't think YT or Reddit are any where near as insidious as FB, Twitter, and TikTok. YouTube's feed basically shows me what I am subscribed to which is interesting shit I am legit interested in. I don't see any of my friends talking about their amazing lives, or any political BS, at all. The comments section is a 3rd class citizen in much of their UI and less toxic than friends all piling in and arguing about crap.…

>Reddit is global conversations, the topics and comments can be toxic but it's not an echochamber by design.

Reddit is a de facto echo chamber. The two biggest news subreddits are heavily censored.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#174

Post by mattbk1 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #65
macksd wrote: post #7

As a side note, I'm a little saddened when I see friends apologize for their posts. There's such a reaction to "influencer culture" that people feel like foodgrams and humblebrags are a terrible thing, and in excess they certainly can be, but I think from most people it's a billion times better than strawman political arguments and manipulative media that is far worse for our mental health than just comparing ourselv…

I really do believe there's a solution for that. We need whatsapp/telegram/signal to display a feed based on user's status and nothing more. It's almost free, frictionless and free from ads (for now). But sharing without the widest audience (just to the social graph of your contacts). It could bring back Google+'s circles so you don't share the same stuff with colleagues and friends and family, but your feed page wou…

What do you see as the "huge tech cost and barrier of entry of mastodon"?

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#176

Post by not-elite »

distortedsignal wrote: post #8

Most important paragraph, IMO: > Conducted Oct. 8 to 10, the online poll surveyed 1,545 Canadians and cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered random samples. It's a pretty good sample-size, but we don't get error bars. I don't remember if there was anything FB-critical happening that week (when did the study about teen mental health come out?), but the timeframe could also…

The formula for error bars under the traditional Binomial assumption is:

   +/- sqrt(p * (1-p) / N)
So the errors are around +/- 1% for most values of p in this article. The article (rightly) points out that the binomial assumption is not reasonable given the survey method.

https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/29641/standard-err...

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#177

Post by [deleted] »

nafix wrote: post #137
filoleg wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't ban alcohol, videogames, twitter, tv shows, or buying excessive amounts of food, despite a giant number of people in the US suffering from addiction to those. War on drugs was a failure. At some point, you have to draw a line at where you take personal responsibility. The utility to those who can use those things I listed above responsibly outweighs the potential danger and plies of those who use "addiction"…

Exactly. How is this even an argument point? If you support banning Facebook because of addictive potential, then add about 50 other things to the list to ban as well. If it's to regulate Facebook more, what exact kind of regulation would make it OK again? Age limit, as in 18+ to use? Don't porn sites use that and children still have no issues logging onto those sites.

[deleted]

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#178

Post by azangru »

quadrangle wrote: post #39
azangru wrote: post #35

Why don't they quit then?

You can ask that for every single behavior that anyone claims goes against their deeper values like good health. Why do people keep smoking or eating junk food or staying up too late or yelling at family and friends when they lose their temper? It's true that deeds speak louder than words. But it's also true that habits are hard to break, and there's the thinking-fast-and-slow ideas that our judgments, actions, and v…

> If you ask "why" in a sincere curious way

No, I was asking why in a frustrated rhetorical way. I get annoyed by the frequency with which people complain about social media, which is usually followed by requests for a government intervention or for a stricter moderation by the network owners. Just quit, I want to say. The internet is huge. Find yourself another hobby. A better network. Or, if you think you are addicted, as you may be to alcohol or drugs, seek help. It should be your responsibility, don't put it on others.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#179

Post by klyrs »

not-elite wrote: post #176
distortedsignal wrote: post #8

Most important paragraph, IMO: > Conducted Oct. 8 to 10, the online poll surveyed 1,545 Canadians and cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered random samples. It's a pretty good sample-size, but we don't get error bars. I don't remember if there was anything FB-critical happening that week (when did the study about teen mental health come out?), but the timeframe could also…

The formula for error bars under the traditional Binomial assumption is: +/- sqrt(p * (1-p) / N) So the errors are around +/- 1% for most values of p in this article. The article (rightly) points out that the binomial assumption is not reasonable given the survey method. https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/29641/standard-err...

The traditional binomial assumption assumes independence of the samples, as the accepted answer states. The authors are acknowledging that this assumption does not hold.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#180

Post by megaman821 »

white-flame wrote: post #110
macksd wrote: post #7

As a side note, I'm a little saddened when I see friends apologize for their posts. There's such a reaction to "influencer culture" that people feel like foodgrams and humblebrags are a terrible thing, and in excess they certainly can be, but I think from most people it's a billion times better than strawman political arguments and manipulative media that is far worse for our mental health than just comparing ourselv…

> Forget the rest of the trash on Facebook The thing is, Facebook actively pushes the trash at you, because trash content monetizes the best. The only effective avoidance mechanism is to not use it (unless there's some facebook-specific browser plugin that strips it all out).

Claims like these hurt your case against Facebook. For most people Facebook shows completely innocuous stuff. I have absolutely nothing political timeline, and the only political thing I have seen in 5 years was by an Aunt (who I muted). For those who love heated political debates and conspiracy theories, Facebook will serve up that content (trash). Other people hear about all the awful stuff on Facebook, check their feed, see pictures of their grand-babies, and wonder what the heck everyone is talking about.
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