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>This is an incredibly disingenuous description of the situation. Facebook's own (non-public, now publicly leaked) research indicates that Facebook causes harm
by camdat 5y ago
>This is an incredibly disingenuous description of the situation. Facebook's own (non-public, now publicly leaked) research indicates that Facebook causes harm to teens mental health. The only "US narrative" here is the one backed up my the incredible amount of research supporting the growing issue of mental health in the US (and the world for that matter).
This is disingenuous, that same data shows the majority of the teens surveyed said FB improved their mental health.
- mbesto 5y agoThis is news to me and frankly makes no sense. How does the data say that FB both improved mental health and harmed it? Can you share your source?
- makomk 5y agoThat seems pretty straightforward to me - there are a huge number of teenagers who use Facebook, some of whom say that it improved their mental health and a smaller group who say it made it worse. The media reporting only talked about the teens who said Facebook was harming their mental health rather than the broader picture. Which, if accurate, would mean that closing down Facebook would actually hurt teens' mental health overall but anyone getting their news from the mainstream media would falsely think it'd help. This kind of deception using facts that're technically true is really common in the mainstream media, and Facebook in particular has pissed off journalists by hitting their industry hard both in the pocketbook and in terms of the amount of power they hold in society.
- mbesto 5y agoI just double checked and we don't have access to the Facebook study (only excerpts and interpretations from WSJ - i was originally referring to external studies). So let's just state the obvious, if the conclusion of the study was that Facebook has an overall net benefit to mental health then why wouldn't Facebook be forthcoming with the report? Congress has explicitly asked them for it, so why wouldn't they produce. That's what I'm confused about.
- camdat 5y agoSorry about the delay getting back here. They have been forthcoming with this data. See here: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-and-instagram/ https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a... I will correct myself and say the majority surveyed believe Instagram has a neutral or better impact.
- LordHumungous 5y agoAlso there's the problem of a lack of a control group in this data. If you asked people in an online questionnaire how the Coca-Cola corporation was affecting their mental health what sort of responses would you get?
- camdat 5y agoThis is addressed in the discussion of the study they completed. This wasn't a formal survey and shouldn't have been interpreted as such. WSJ were the ones who contextualized this as a valid study. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-and-instagram/ https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/research-teen-well-being-a...