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The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

nber.org

301–310 of 527 posts

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#301
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>now everyone else is going ‘how could you be so dumb to believe it’ and/or ‘you sure fucked up by admitting it was fake’ all at the same time. Not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's like professional wrestling, stage magic, or politics. Some lies people really love.

I do judge people who post thought leadership on LinkedIn about the same as people who are really into pro wrestling.

I bet you also tell the Mormons to take a hike when they come visit.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#302
post #121
post #111

Before its fall, I had over 700 followers on Twitter. I could post any random thought and within minutes be having an interesting conversation with some rando about it. For example I pondered why phone manufacturers didn't use a p2p protocol for distributing updates and had an enlightening conversation with a person who worked for a major telco chiming in as to why that would be problematic for their infrastructure.…

My sense is that Twitter’s fall was an opportunity for a lot of people to just drop out. I know for me it’s become a very occasional thing and neither Bluesky nor Mastodon ever achieved critical mass. As far as I’m concerned the format is largely done. Never engaged with the political stuff.

> My sense is that Twitter’s fall was an opportunity for a lot of people to just drop out.

Yeah, that was the case for me. I used Twitter quite a bit from about 2012 through 2020, but I was already phasing it out when the takeover happened, so it was an easy call to just close my account. While I do have an IG and Bsky account, I rarely use them. So Twitter's death basically meant the end of my mainstream social media usage.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#303
post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back. Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances. Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into…

> Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people.

Don't forget FB marketplace. I know a few younger coworkers who have FB just for market place.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#304
post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back. Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances. Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into…

"Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into a hipper LinkedIn, where artists, musicians, and local businesses share career and business updates and advertise their wares."

This is spot on. Facebook proper has supplanted private email chains for a lot of older people. This is ironic because they are moving in the opposite direction as everyone else. Everyone else is moving into private communities, older people are leaving the safety of email chains and, often unknowingly, posting publicly. Facebook (probably intentionally) upholds the illusion that they are posting for their friends. I've seen Facebook actually provide a compelling service to my older dad who keeps in touch with a lot of his old friends on there. It's a much more active community of seniors than you'd guess.

Of course, they are subject to all the ills of Facebook at the same time. Overall I'd rate it as a net loss for society because of that.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#305
post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

I'm inclined to agree. I remember when Facebook (and before that, MySpace) was new and was still mostly a reverse-chronological feed of your friend's updates. It caused zero stress or anxiety at all - and it was kind of nice checking in to see what was going on. Your feed was like an internet forum for your social circle.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#306
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how much of a difference it would make, as then we just become the algorithm. I quit Facebook over a decade ago, because others used it to go “look at my shiny car/wife/house”, and I would use it to lose friends and alienate people. These online environments do not foster any kind of human connection.

I lasted a little bit longer, but it grew shocking to see how eager friends and family were to display how cruel and bigoted they can be. I sometimes wonder if it’s the addictive, attention seeking nature of social media that encouraged such behavior, or if they simply lacked the courage to be so inhumane in person.

I wouldn’t rule out the radicalising properties of social media either. You don’t have to fly out to the Middle East and join a militia to be turned against Western ideals when Facebook can flood your feed with targeted propaganda for a price.

It does say something about one’s character that they would be targeted by this and would also buy into it, though. You’d hope people might see it for what it is and take a step back.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#307
post #41

I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can…

I've been using BeReal this way with a bunch of friends and family for the last couple of years. It definitely fills its purpose of seeing what my friends are up to without occupying too much of my headspace. Can't be happier about it

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#308
post #56

The surprise here is how little of an effect it has. Deactivating facebook makes you only 1/16th of one standard deviation happier. And instagram even less. And this was measured during elections, when the effect is likely to be greatest. Kinda crazy that the magnitude is so small! (my next [admittedly rather cynical] thought is "who funded this?")

> "who funded this?"

Page 7 of the PDF shows the following:

"This project is part of the U.S. 2020 Facebook and Instagram Election Study (Gonz´alez-Bail´on et al. 2023; Guess et al. 2023a,b; Nyhan et al. 2023; Allcott et al. 2024), a partnership between Meta researchers and unpaid independent academics. Under the terms of the collaboration, the independent academic authors had final authority over the pre-analysis plan, data analysis, and manuscript text, and Meta could not block any results from being published."

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back. Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances. Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into…

Google+ by any other name and four years earlier would have been an incredible platform. Circles were so neat.

two years earlier it was Google Buzz. two years before that it was Google Wave.

Re: The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back. Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances. Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into…

Google+ by any other name and four years earlier would have been an incredible platform. Circles were so neat.

100%. I got pulled into Old School Revival TTRPGs there. It was smaller and quieter, and in the sections I read mostly free of politics and other noise. I miss the "anti-social network".
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