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Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups
- rghp 8y agoAnd those groups are full of predators.
- rebornshellfish 8y agoSecrets are a pre-21st century idea.
- antonkm 8y agoI support online groups, however I'd prefer staying anonymous which simply isn't possible without faking your account on FB. Reddit provides similar functionality and let's you stay anon. There's subreddits for pretty much any situation: alcohol abuse, drug abuse, kids growing up with narcissistic parents, spouses living in sexless relationships, etc etc. I did some research into the topic after reading this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/01/05/the-surprising-internet-forum-some-alcoholics-are-choosing-over-aa/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/01... Just Google your specific situation and Reddit will probably have a support sub.
- sodosopa 8y agoReddit is usually a crapshoot of quality. Maybe someone will have something for Y Combinator (et al) soon, that's more of a targeted platform for these types of things. Reddit and Facebook both suck at this.
- blahblahthrow 8y agoIf there isn't a community on Reddit for something, what are the odds people are going to flock to a new platform? The quality issue is because these groups are generally peer-organized and some groups have better organizers. But like, what is technology going to do to make a better Reddit for people with depression, transgender people, people whose partners have cheated on them and people with incredibly rare medical conditions? Those are disparate groups that only have the common thread of needing a support group as far as I can tell.
- sodosopa 8y agoIf a platform is promoted by physician groups or by insurers, it may take off. That would be far better than some of the utter crap on Reddit. A lot is happening in the medical space, with companies like Oscar and appointment scheduling apps. This is just waiting to spring open.
- antonkm 8y agoFrom what I found when I was reading up on it the different support subs seemed to be really good at modding. What are your reasons for claiming this?
- sodosopa 8y agoLooking at companies like Reddit and Facebook in general. Do you really want that vast amount of targeted info in their hands? They can't be trusted. I'd trust a company more adapt with HIPAA and have valid PII measures in place.
- snazz 8y agoAlthough not nearly as specific or targeted, Stack Exchange runs a number of sites (interpersonal relationships, parenting, workplace) that usually have much higher quality questions and answers due to their strong moderation. I agree that there’s a void to be filled between Reddit and SE in terms of amount (and quality) of moderation, but both options are much less intrusive than Facebook and allow you to remain anonymous.
- jackemupguy2 8y agotriggered.
- bad_user 8y agoI joined a group for T2 diabetes at some point because I have a stubborn friend that doesn’t want to receive proper treatment and I basically wanted to ask about available options. Next thing I know is that Facebook started giving me ads for diabetics. Having such an influential company know about your illnesses and sell that to advertisers or healthcare insurance agencies or credit agencies or god knows what else is frankly terrifying.
- tomrod 8y agoSimilar to my experience. I left a high demand religion, and suddenly I'm bombarded with ads to join said religion everywhere because of Facebook's reach. It's disturbing!
- xefer 8y agoSo I'm curious: have you tried removing details from your Facebook ad preferences? On the desktop website go to: Settings | Ads | Your Interests. There is a huge ontology of various subjects that have been algorithmically assigned to you. If you remove these, I believe ads targeted to those interests should go away. I periodically just sweep them all clean so I have no interests. I get very few ads and those that I go get are completely generic. I never see anything that would seem creepily aware of who I am.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- seandougall 8y agoIt’s pretty good that they allow you to do that now, but it can’t retroactively remove those interests from the personal data they’ve already sold about you. So it fixes the smaller issue of what ads Facebook serves, but doesn’t address the larger issue of privacy.
- rock_hard 8y agoFB doesn’t sell your data though, never has! What they sell is the ability to target you based on it. But the data never leaves FBs servers! So if you remove the tags from your settings, advertisers won’t be able to target you with them anymore
- village-idiot 8y agoAnecdote, but it sure seems to me that the need for emotional support groups has skyrocketed within my lifetime. I’m sure all the members of these groups are legitimate (I’m not making a “snowflake” argument) but what in the hell is going on?
- rebornshellfish 8y agoMy guess is that not only is life is much more complex nowadays, but we are continually showered by polished profiles on Instagram et al showing lives that our own do not compare to. This creates feelings of inferiority and missing out, and eventually depression and other emotional problems. Add to that the general pattern towards a society of increasing inequality, and it's possible to see why in this hypercompetitive context so many people are struggling to maintain a baseline of self-esteem.
- dbattaglia 8y agoHas the need really skyrocketed though? Or has the use of them just become more normalized (and perhaps more convenient thanks to the internet), and less people feel the need to just "suck it up" and deal with their problems alone?
- emiliobumachar 8y agoYeah, my stereotype of the distant past which I didn't live in - say, up to the 1980's - is that it was considered uncool to talk about your problems to strangers in a constructive way.
- williamdclt 8y agoMaybe the need didn't skyrocket but the demand did. People used to not have channels to read about their problem, so they were isolated and not talking about it. Now it's easier to anonymously get informed, create support group, join them without much social stigma. But maybe the need did skyrocket, I don't have data to support either or both hypothesis
- kopo 8y agoMy theory - too much information, out of sequence, without a good guide present to clear up misunderstandings. I teach part time. Lot of the anxiety and depression I see in kids seems to be thanks to this constant info overload on the net. Reddit/Youtube/FB all contribute in different ways. 14 year olds busy reading about the problems 35 year olds are facing on the net, is like dropping off your second grader in a tenth grade classroom and asking them what they think about the problems on the board. The natural reaction is to feel overwhelmed. Everyday they get hit with someother issue, someone is depressed or outraging about. The best solution I have heard is to allow internet access, not on a device but in group settings (class room/living room etc). This way when they do get hit by stuff above their pay grade, there is someone around to process the stuff with.
- new_guy 8y agoFacebook is one of the biggest sites in the world. You could replace 'emotional support' with anything and it'd be full of those groups.
- liftbigweights 8y agoSure, but then what would "journalists" at theatlantic have to write about? Journalism today is all about writing nonsense and throwing on Facebook, Google or Trump on the headline for views.
- wufufufu 8y agoIf any Facebook employees are reading this, there's a really annoying "feature" that will show a list of suggested friends to add to a private group. I've accidentally added people to private groups by accidentally clicking a single time while scrolling. Imagine being in an AA group or HIV support group and adding your coworker to it on accident. Please change this.
- eecks 8y agoIt's disappointing to see stuff like this. It means that the decision makers don't dogfood their own features.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoOr that their tiny bubble doesn’t know enough about the real world to be careful with things like this.
- raverbashing 8y agoYes. See also: Google
- wlesieutre 8y agoGoogle Buzz was a much worse disaster for similar reasons. https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery.5_data_breaches/4.html https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bastawhiz 8y agoOr they do dogfood, but the (flawed) engagement numbers support their next promo case.
- 8y ago
- hanoz 8y agoI'd never seen beyond the login screen of Facebook until a site I run started getting sporadic bursts of traffic from there, so I ventured in to try and find the links. I was stunned and devastated to discover how many thriving little communities there were in this niche area (local archeology), it's everything the open web was supposed to be but it has been walled off, completely invisible to outsiders, all for the benefit of one corporation and its advertising customers.
- tomrod 8y agoEconomies of scale, I guess? Easier to host there than to have dedicated hobbyists support the technology needs.
- adventured 8y agoNing showed some promise in being able to provide that. It took off like a rocket initially. Maybe they benefited from launching in 2005, prior to Facebook reaching any meaningful saturation (consuming all the oxygen in the segment). When they figured out the financial side of it wasn't going to work (having raised $119m in VC), they essentially destroyed the old service in 2010, suspended the free offering, and fired half the company. I've always wondered if the original concept of Ning could have in fact succeeded, if they hadn't built the company using the typical boom or die, drive the venture capital into the wall model. I think there's still something big there, if someone can figure out how to do it very, very inexpensively and keep it open. Minimalize the commercial abuse, build in strong spam and trust controls.
- kerrsclyde 8y agoThis is exactly how I feel. The same thing happened in my area of interest (historic transport). Facebook provided an easier interface for user adding content and an easier admin system over old school forums. Everybody drank the kool-aid but we now have islands of content which are impossible to search and keep track of (unless you dutifully tune in each day). The whole things has made me disillusioned to contribute to any sort of online discussion, I certainly have no interest in becoming one of Facebooks unpaid income generators.
- jessems 8y agoI run a facebook breakup support group for men. About half of the people that request to join the group discover the group themselves on facebook. For me as a website owner (rapidbreakuprecovery.com) the group has been a convenient way to offer a forum-like functionality without any of the overhead involved with running forum software. I suspect facebook users have come to expect that these types of groups exist and they're typing things such as "breakup" in the group search field. There other breakup support groups that are routinely recommended in the sidebar as well as a support group specifically for divorced dads. So it seems that facebook's scale is allowing smaller niche communities to exist where they would not have existed before. From a usability perspective it's not great. It's easy to set up and it's easy to get members, but I would happily switch to something more discrete, and that's a better fit for support group dynamics (interesting idea by sodosopa).
- code_duck 8y ago“For example, according to Lewis, the algorithm might keep showing a post whose question has been answered. And it might deprioritize posts from new members that don’t get much engagement—ensuring they get even less engagement in a form of algorithmic ghosting.” Essentially the flaw with facebook’s entire system of selecting posts. When I recently posted on Facebook to my 2000 friends, the only people to react were mother and aunt. I am actually not that much of a loser, but you’d never know from my Facebook page. FB have made Instagram the same way and I spent days looking at posts my friends made 4 days ago while not seeing their newest posts (this is especially annoying at conventions). I have a hard time believing that Facebook actually pays hundreds of engineers above market salaries to realize this sad customer abuse. It’s a serious waste of the potential of the Internet. As far of the rest of the article, yes, Facebook has taken over the independent web forum. And yes, their software is inadequate (the usual total lack of features or confusing UI) but their reach is incomparable.
- teleclimber 8y agoThe secondary effect of this is that some people post less to fb. I hate the feeling of seeing a post I made get near-zero engagement, even from close friends, because some algorithm decided it wasn't worthy. The result is I post less, and many of my friends post less, if at all. The result is FB absolutely stinks at keeping me connected to those I care about.
- bcherny 8y agoHow would you adjust the algorithm? Maybe surface new posts with some degree of stochasticity, like what HN does? Sorting by Hot on Reddit feels pretty similar to FB, and sorting strictly chronologically doesn't scale (just sort by New on HN or Reddit - most posts just aren't very interesting to most people).
- code_duck 8y agoIt’s complex and difficult to say since the algorithm is secret. I could list flaws or ways I think it should work differently. I think it’s been tainted by FB’s business models. I will check back when I have more time to write.
- perpetualcrayon 8y agoMaybe I'm just too paranoid, but first thing that popped into my head is there are a lot of predators out there looking for weak prey. Maybe I need a support group to help with that :)
- darpa_escapee 8y agoThere are. Predators use domestic violence, sexual abuse and other abuse-related online support groups to groom vulnerable people. Strict moderation is absolutely necessary in these communities.
- astura 8y agoThis is actually a problem in AA, it's called "13th Stepping."
- drngdds 8y agoI feel like having to use your real name and identity and hope that Facebook doesn't fuck up is a really bad requirement for secret support groups.