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Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

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Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#21

Post by thenerdhead »

I do wish more social media apps took into account the human factor of checking in every so often.

TikTok is the only that I can think of that will try to bring attention to you constantly scrolling and suggest healthy things to do instead.

I think Netflix did something similarly back in the day too and the memes about Netflix knowing you're depressed.

I'm honestly surprised there isn't some kind of moderation from these apps or settings that help you combat addiction across all experiences(mobile/desktop/web/etc), especially when you're depressed. The first thing you might do when battling addiction is remove the apps and only access through a browser. Sadly, that's where all this functionality is built into:

https://www.facebook.com/help/1737706169659354

Instead you have to go nuclear and restrain yourself at the device or internet level instead.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#22

Post by gamesbrainiac »

One of the best decisions I've ever made is to not jump on the Facebook bandwagon. When I was in high school, all the "cool" kids were using Facebook at home and then talking about Facebook in school as well.

I honestly felt a lot of pressure to join and be active. However, I never fully gave in, and it did me a lot of good, since most people who post on Facebook talk about the best highlights of their day or their life. When you see this, and you're having a bad day, it makes that day worse.

People have good days and bad days, but when you look at Facebook it seems as though everyone is having a blast _all the time_.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#23

Post by gamesbrainiac »

thenerdhead wrote: post #21

I do wish more social media apps took into account the human factor of checking in every so often. TikTok is the only that I can think of that will try to bring attention to you constantly scrolling and suggest healthy things to do instead. I think Netflix did something similarly back in the day too and the memes about Netflix knowing you're depressed. I'm honestly surprised there isn't some kind of moderation from t…

I really don't think you can blame social media for designing something that boosts their revenue; they are incentivized to do that. It is better to educate people to stay away from most of the Social Media sites that are harmful or take up too much of their time. We have made smoking a bad habit, why can't we do that same for Instagram or Facebook?

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#24

Post by oldsklgdfth »

I gave up facebook about 3 years ago at this point.

The main result was that the noise was turned down. As a consequence I could listen to myself better.

I feel the same way about following news and really all ad-enabled content. The point is to increase viewership of advertisements. Really the only reliable way to increase engagement is to create something eye-catching (tiktok) or controversy (news).

The genius in FB is that for a long time it crowd sourced optimizing engagement to users. People just ended up posting things that would rile people up and get them to be on FB longer. In this sense people were the product to other people.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#27

Post by oldsklgdfth »

A cynical comment about regulation or curtailing this.

Everyone agrees smoking causes health problems, is costly and doesn't offer anything. Smoking is regulated (taxes, labels, etc), but cigarettes are readily available everywhere - gas stations, convenience stores, etc. You would imagine that something so universally recognized as detrimental would cease to exist (either outlaws or society would just abandon it completely), but it's more accessible than say clean water, healthy food and such.

My point is I don't think we will see this problem going away. As long as there is technology enabling this level of connectedness we will see the side-effect.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#28

Post by thenerdhead »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #23
thenerdhead wrote: post #21

I do wish more social media apps took into account the human factor of checking in every so often. TikTok is the only that I can think of that will try to bring attention to you constantly scrolling and suggest healthy things to do instead. I think Netflix did something similarly back in the day too and the memes about Netflix knowing you're depressed. I'm honestly surprised there isn't some kind of moderation from t…

I really don't think you can blame social media for designing something that boosts their revenue; they are incentivized to do that. It is better to educate people to stay away from most of the Social Media sites that are harmful or take up too much of their time. We have made smoking a bad habit, why can't we do that same for Instagram or Facebook?

I've seen plenty of campaigns about smoking being a bad habit, but never social media or internet addiction. Only books or fringe documentaries that get discredited in the news/media due to their incentives.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#29

Post by ethbr0 »

Depressed people without a life outside Facebook are Facebook's whales, whether it admits it or not.

Endlessly clicking through content, viewing ads, and bumping engagement numbers up.

Ergo, any systemic effort to boost engagement will eventually encourage actions with the end result of "Make more people depressed, so they consume more Facebook."

It's a crime that we don't regulate engagement methods at a government level. We should have started with anything targeted at children, but ultimately established some rules of the road for adults too.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#30

Post by geocrasher »

I started using FB again recently because a group of friends use it, and I regret it. It's so toxic. Even the reels/short videos posted there are absolutely toxic- full of pointless garbage mixed with outright fake stuff like "free energy". I'll keep it because of Groups, which are handy for what they are, but the moment those move elsewhere, I'm out.
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