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Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

technologyreview.com

21–30 of 46 posts

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#21
post #16

Online social networks are fine on a conceptual level...beautiful even. Its the commercial interpretation that is completely screwed. Profit driven, privacy invading, dark pattern driven kind of bullsht. Today my phone wanted me to install this (additional) facebook app to read my friend's 2 line message to me. i.e. Blocking the 2nd half of the message and giving me two options - link to useless help article and an i…

[deleted]

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#22
post #16

Online social networks are fine on a conceptual level...beautiful even. Its the commercial interpretation that is completely screwed. Profit driven, privacy invading, dark pattern driven kind of bullsht. Today my phone wanted me to install this (additional) facebook app to read my friend's 2 line message to me. i.e. Blocking the 2nd half of the message and giving me two options - link to useless help article and an i…

The faults you are identifying are not related to the article. The implication of the article is broader. It would seem to imply that the statement Online social networks are fine on a conceptual level...beautiful even. may not be true. Of course, this topic needs further study.

I agree. This comment seems off-topic. Not sure why it's the top comment.

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#23
post #16

Online social networks are fine on a conceptual level...beautiful even. Its the commercial interpretation that is completely screwed. Profit driven, privacy invading, dark pattern driven kind of bullsht. Today my phone wanted me to install this (additional) facebook app to read my friend's 2 line message to me. i.e. Blocking the 2nd half of the message and giving me two options - link to useless help article and an i…

The faults you are identifying are not related to the article. The implication of the article is broader. It would seem to imply that the statement Online social networks are fine on a conceptual level...beautiful even. may not be true. Of course, this topic needs further study.

It's entirely likely that the dark patterns mentioned above are part of the driver in the context of the article. Knowing and avoiding those dark patterns likely tip the sociological balance of the network towards a less fulfilling place.

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#24
post #12

The title is misleading. Spending time on social networks doesn't cause unhapiness, in fact it's the opposite. It gives you a jolt of brief happiness. This can explain the correlation. It's not hard to see why people who are unhappy with their lives would spend more time on Facebook. Facebook is an alternative place where you can get a brief sense of "social" feeling. If you're perpetually unhappy and lonely, you cra…

> Spending time on social networks doesn't cause unhapiness > And the more you time you spend on it, the worse you feel about your life These two statements directly contradict each other. If something gives you a brief jolt of happiness and "the more time you spend on it, the worse you feel about your life", it's only superficially true that it gives you happiness, and it's much much more correct to say that it caus…

Because you're taking it out of context

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#25
The online to offline social networks can solve the faceless social networking; however, you can lead the horses to the water, but you cannot make them drink the water.

"They found for example that face-to-face interactions and the trust people place in one another are strongly correlated with well-being in a positive way. In other words, if you tend to trust people and have lots of face-to-face interactions, you will probably assess your well-being more highly."

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#26
Whenever I read about the downsides of social media, for some reason I clearly remember a line from the film To Die For (meant as satire):

"Because what's the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody's watching? And if people are watching, it makes you a better person."

I feel much the same way about it myself. It seems so many are crazily self obsessed.

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#27
I am unconvinced that social networks are the cause of the correlation here. The proposed mechanism, that social network use engenders a loss of trust, just doesn't make sense to me. Exactly what is it about social networks that would cause trust to erode? More plausible is that people who lack strong social ties with mutual trust use social networks more instead of interacting face to face.

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spending time on social networks doesn't cause unhapiness > And the more you time you spend on it, the worse you feel about your life These two statements directly contradict each other. If something gives you a brief jolt of happiness and "the more time you spend on it, the worse you feel about your life", it's only superficially true that it gives you happiness, and it's much much more correct to say that it caus…

They don't contradict each other. It's "correlation does not imply causation" framed differently.

Actually, it's the "it's the feedback loop that increases unhappiness" phrased differently.

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#29
post #16

Online social networks are fine on a conceptual level...beautiful even. Its the commercial interpretation that is completely screwed. Profit driven, privacy invading, dark pattern driven kind of bullsht. Today my phone wanted me to install this (additional) facebook app to read my friend's 2 line message to me. i.e. Blocking the 2nd half of the message and giving me two options - link to useless help article and an i…

A major conceptual issue with social networks is you get the highlights that people are willing to post. Face to face interactions let you see the day to day negatives and positives of peoples lives. However, online everyone seems to doing great, which is vary depressing.

Posts your unlikely to see an old collage buddy post on FB, "My kid just flunked the 8th grade.", "Just found my husband sleeping with X", "The IRS wants to talk to me." etc.

Re: Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Negative Effects

#30
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone has demons, but no one wants to air that to their peers. The only people who would think nobody bitches/whines/complains on FB are those that have never used it.

It's not that people don't whine, it's that when they whine they are always in the right (obviously untrue). It's a part of the creation of an image that the participants want to portray to other participants, just like the cherry-picked photos and favorite media. A person who strongly follows particular trends and styles on facebook is much more likely to share the same favorite medias as those facebook participants…

> Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book?

Or maybe you just didn't know they were interested in the first place. I actually discovered thanks to Facebook that I share interests with many of the people who I didn't ever suspect on being interested in the same things as I.

I'm an active Facebook user with 500+ friends, most of whom I know in real life, and I'm pretty sure almost none of them is consciously trying to "build a better image of themselves" in any other way they don't already do in real life.

Seriously, everybody is "building their image" in "real life" all the time. If you go over to a friend to see the photos from a mountain trip, they will show you the nice one, not the ones when they sleep drunk under the table. Facebook actually makes it somewhat more difficult, because unlike face to face conversations, everything you wrote or posted is there to stay.

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