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Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

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Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#121

Post by tayo42 »

CSMastermind wrote: post #95
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #23

Anecdotally, Facebook seems relatively tame these days compared to the firehose of doom & gloom, violent videos, outrage porn, and outright misinformation that fills Reddit and Twitter. Browsing Reddit’s default feeds or popular posts is a wild experience these days.

Completely agree, Reddit at this point seems detached from reality. It's hard to believe it's the same site I was on 10 years ago. I scan Facebook once every few days for updates from family members and frankly I find the experience entirely pleasant. Cutting out Twitter and Reddit is one of the best decisions I've ever made for my mental health. For me it's Hackernews and the Wall St. Journal.

Outrage on reddit is so ridiculous in the last year. I think its so insane that I don't even feel like I need to disconnect from it, its just that unrelatable. r/all is just all outrage topics all the time. The political stuff, the antiwork stuff, white and black ppl twitter, the woe is me crap. I cant believe these are real people. Just angry all the time?

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#122

Post by TylerE »

wfbarks wrote: post #61

I took a long break (maybe 5 years or so) but I have recently started using both FB and Instagram and have been surprised at how positive my time has been on these platforms. On FB I have been finding interesting local groups and events (just moved to a new city) and on Instagram, I have been enjoying seeing updates from real friends. On the other hand I recently deleted Twitter from my phone. I love twitter for gett…

The key to happy Facebooking for me is to keep it to people I don't routinely have any other way of keeping in touch with - so it's mostly hobby groups, people I've met while traveling, a few former co-workers...

In particular, I do not friend or follow any family, neighbors, current co-workers, etc.

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#123

Post by classified »

dylan604 wrote: post #110
nkingsy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a tragedy of the commons situation because people cannot help themselves. What we are actually seeing is users going to TikTok because it is even more engaging. People may say they want to keep up with their friends, but they will choose the more engaging activity. There is no regulating or out-competing it. Governments should provide identification, communication, community, payments, etc platforms for their…

>This is a tragedy of the commons situation because people cannot help themselves. SOME people cannot help themselves. I spend 0 minutes on social platforms. I can help myself just fine. Some people have much more addictive personality traits than others. Please, don't paint everyone with the same broad brush. It doesn't help the conversation in a meaningful manner

> I spend 0 minutes on social platforms.

You're spending time on HN.

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#124

Post by colordrops »

holoduke wrote: post #77

Today I disabled Facebook and Instagram. I also removed all shortlinks to various newssites. I want to avoid them as well. Including Reddit . The only thing I am allowed to read is hackernews. I find that one of the few good sources. Even for general news.

An RSS reader with a curated list of sources is good too.

Google News has become a trash heap, full of gossip and propaganda, and changes constantly in relation to what I last searched. It's converging with the Facebook feed

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#125

Post by Tainnor »

random314 wrote: post #115
Tainnor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a low-effort, shallow dismissal that doesn't even address anything specific to the article. If you have specific criticism regarding the methodology of this study - which doesn't, prima facie, appear unsound - please let the rest of us participate.

I will take a stab. Mind you, I have not even clicked on the article, much less read it or know what the methodology is. Here goes ---- "The have used a correlational model, not a causal model. There are several confounding variables the paper doesn't consider, hence it is not proven from the evidence that Facebook has a negative impact "

In most fields of study you can't really perform double-blind experiments. We know that smoking is linked to cancer through decades of correlational studies and careful analysis of confounding factors, for example.

The article discusses how the study looked at different universities during the same time period, some of which had access to facebook and some of which didn't, and discovered that in the first case there was an increase in mental health issues over that period. There could still be confounders, sure, (or the sample size could be too small etc.), but at a first glance, that's not an unreasonable approach, as it tries to isolate the variable "facebook yes/no".

That said, if you haven't read the article, I'm not sure why you even felt the need to comment? This is exactly the same kind of shallow dismissal I was calling out.

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#126

Post by classified »

giantg2 wrote: post #82
gergov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, engagement at all cost it is, but there is a fundamental difference. Television required professionals where even wrestling and reality TV is scripted: it requires some sort of willful ignorance from the viewer to engage with it. Social media pushes the illusion that you are not engaging with professionals but peers, and the dominant signals (how many views, likes, comments, etc.) of this day and age were not…

"Right, engagement at all cost it is" Ha I actually read this as en rage ment, which I don't think is even a real word.

It has become a real word by now. Culture changes, language adapts.

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#127

Post by sixstringtheory »

random314 wrote: post #115
Tainnor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a low-effort, shallow dismissal that doesn't even address anything specific to the article. If you have specific criticism regarding the methodology of this study - which doesn't, prima facie, appear unsound - please let the rest of us participate.

I will take a stab. Mind you, I have not even clicked on the article, much less read it or know what the methodology is. Here goes ---- "The have used a correlational model, not a causal model. There are several confounding variables the paper doesn't consider, hence it is not proven from the evidence that Facebook has a negative impact "

FWIW, the article claims the exact opposite

> While many studies have found a correlation between the use of social media and various symptoms related to mental health, so far, it has been challenging to ascertain whether social media was actually the cause of poor mental health. By applying a novel research method, researchers have now succeeded in establishing such a causality

But doesn't elaborate on the new method. We'll have to wait for the study to be published I guess.

Re: Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health

#128

Post by BrainVirus »

ranger47 wrote: post #93

Who needed a study? We've known this for years, and it was even speculated at the dawn of Friendster, MySpace, etc. Watching a society (the US, for example) slowly say "social media is bad" then continue to use it is like watching a stumbling drunk declare their ability to quit drinking anytime they want.

Who needed it? People who like to deny the obvious, even when the obvious is stated by Ph.Ds. in psychology like Jonathan Haidt.
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