Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

11–20 of 687 posts

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

#11
When does a vice of society get created and the creator not know of its harmful effects? Rarely, it seems.

In actuality, though, as much as I think it's obvious that Instagram was designed specifically for the mindset of teens (and incidentally the countless with Peter Pan syndrome), it's too easy for us to simply blame Facebook. We are also responsible for raising our children to a certain level of emotional maturity and ego awareness, which I believe isn't necessarily a solution but may prevent some from getting sucked into the void of social media. My parent's generation pretty much failed at achieving that with their children, and their children haven't done much better with theirs. Maybe it's an overreliance on institutions which has made us complacent and often careless; as a society we seem to only react to problems rather than be proactive, acting like a deer in the headlights long after the symptoms of the illness have manifested.

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

#12

There should be a term for things we know on an instinctive level that we can use to guide our decision making.

There is, it's called intuition. Unfortunately the new mantra in big tech is "data driven decision making", which is supposed to mean that you do research and collect data prior to making decisions, not that you A/B test everything to a local maxima ignoring intuition and the holistic bigger picture, but companies have taken it to mean the former. Intuition is the basis of taste-making and aesthetic and is one of the most important things to develop if you're doing product design, and it's absolutely something that can be learned, it's not innate. All intuition is, is your mind making inferences and extrapolations from prior knowledge to the current situation before you, which you can't adequately explain or don't follow the strict rules of formal logic / rationality.

Part of wisdom is being able to apply knowledge in new situations, and this is the basis of intuition. Intuition is wisdom in action, and we ignore our intuitions as people and as societies at our peril, both in our personal lives and in business.

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

#14
Is it Facebook / Instagram's fault or us as a culture? As a culture we adore beauty, wealth, power...Facebook seems to be just a platform where our natural desires can have a play. Facebook hasn't created this impossible beauty ideal, it was created long long ago by Hollywood and the fashion industry. Facebook just makes it super easy for people to become obsessed with something by "connecting" with it. It used to be that 40 years ago you watched some supermodel in a commercial for 20 seconds and she was gone. The novelty with the internet is that now you can follow this supermodel and get dozens of alerts a week about her. If it's not Facebook it's gonna be TikTok or something other platform.

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

#15

Is it Facebook / Instagram's fault or us as a culture? As a culture we adore beauty, wealth, power...Facebook seems to be just a platform where our natural desires can have a play. Facebook hasn't created this impossible beauty ideal, it was created long long ago by Hollywood and the fashion industry. Facebook just makes it super easy for people to become obsessed with something by "connecting" with it. It used to be…

Once there are algorithms ranking the posts, they are meddling with the culture.

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

#16

Is it Facebook / Instagram's fault or us as a culture? As a culture we adore beauty, wealth, power...Facebook seems to be just a platform where our natural desires can have a play. Facebook hasn't created this impossible beauty ideal, it was created long long ago by Hollywood and the fashion industry. Facebook just makes it super easy for people to become obsessed with something by "connecting" with it. It used to be…

Facebook and social platforms in general are just very efficient in amplifying all these toxic elements of our culture

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

#17

Is it Facebook / Instagram's fault or us as a culture? As a culture we adore beauty, wealth, power...Facebook seems to be just a platform where our natural desires can have a play. Facebook hasn't created this impossible beauty ideal, it was created long long ago by Hollywood and the fashion industry. Facebook just makes it super easy for people to become obsessed with something by "connecting" with it. It used to be…

It's their fault. An individual girl in 1995 who was concerned with her looks had at most a couple dozen people in her life to judge her. In 2021 it's hundreds of millions, and a large portion are more than happy to spout things they would NEVER say in real life.

Does society value beauty? Sure. Do models set "unrealistic expectations"? Sure. Are some high school girls assholes to other girls? Absolutely. But once upon a time kids would go home and those people would be gone. Now it's a 24/7 feedback loop and it's completely unhealthy.

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

#19
post #15

Is it Facebook / Instagram's fault or us as a culture? As a culture we adore beauty, wealth, power...Facebook seems to be just a platform where our natural desires can have a play. Facebook hasn't created this impossible beauty ideal, it was created long long ago by Hollywood and the fashion industry. Facebook just makes it super easy for people to become obsessed with something by "connecting" with it. It used to be…

Once there are algorithms ranking the posts, they are meddling with the culture.

I kinda agree maybe this can be better regulated but if someone decides to follow Beyonce or Lady Gaga (sorry I'm not really up to date with pop stars) or some supermodel, how are you gonna prevent that? As for algorithm ranking, I suppose 40 years ago it was a "human algorithm" reaching the conclusion that you better have hot chicks drinking coke on commercials, how is that different?

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

#20
It may be more “toxic” for teen girls but it’s more degree than binary. It negatively affects the great majority of people involved.

Keeping up with the joneses and in vs out cliques in school are bad enough things that get amplified multiple times perhaps orders of magnitude more in a setting that promotes and encourages negative social behavior.

It almost validates the attitudes of anti socials.

Post reply on HN