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Facebook funded research into how their products affect people's well-being. The studies showed a negative impact, so FB decided to bury the reports and then wh

by sp332 5y ago

Facebook funded research into how their products affect people's well-being. The studies showed a negative impact, so FB decided to bury the reports and then when they leaked, they argued that the research wasn't very good. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/facebook-files-internal-research-harms/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/faceboo... https://web.archive.org/web/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.fb.com%2Fnews%2F2021%2F09%2Fresearch-teen-well-being-and-instagram%2F https://web.archive.org/web/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.f...

convexfunction 5y ago
Did the studies show a negative impact in any meaningful sense, though? "Some teens report that Instagram contributes to or triggers to mental health issues" is my understanding of the most supposedly-damning finding; I understand why this can be turned into a high-engagement news story with (at best) genuine ignorance on the part of journalist and editor about how hard it is to defensibly turn survey results into interesting causal psychological claims or (at worst) mild deception, but I really don't think it tells us much about whether a world with any plausibly different Instagram or no Instagram at all would have less extreme or less frequent mental health issues in teens overall, or even in many of the specific people who report these problems. I don't think declining to publicize the results of an internal study that will be predictably grossly over-interpreted by media and therefore by the public is actually wrong, and I read the FB response you posted an archive link to as saying "this research has been grossly and selectively over-interpreted", not "this research isn't very good".
passivate 5y ago
Your link says "This research, some of which relied on input from only 40 teens, was designed to inform internal conversations about teens’ most negative perceptions of Instagram" I think its a bit of a stretch to consider this as research.

by sp332 5y ago

convexfunction 5y ago

Did the studies show a negative impact in any meaningful sense, though? "Some teens report that Instagram contributes to or triggers to mental health issues" is my understanding of the most supposedly-damning finding; I understand why this can be turned into a high-engagement news story with (at best) genuine ignorance on the part of journalist and editor about how hard it is to defensibly turn survey results into interesting causal psychological claims or (at worst) mild deception, but I really don't think it tells us much about whether a world with any plausibly different Instagram or no Instagram at all would have less extreme or less frequent mental health issues in teens overall, or even in many of the specific people who report these problems. I don't think declining to publicize the results of an internal study that will be predictably grossly over-interpreted by media and therefore by the public is actually wrong, and I read the FB response you posted an archive link to as saying "this research has been grossly and selectively over-interpreted", not "this research isn't very good".

passivate 5y ago

Your link says "This research, some of which relied on input from only 40 teens, was designed to inform internal conversations about teens’ most negative perceptions of Instagram" I think its a bit of a stretch to consider this as research.