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Facebook's own data is not as conclusive about teens and mental health

136 points by zenmaster10665 5y ago

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pelagicAustral 5y ago
I appreciate the importance of sharing these articles, but beyond that, I'm really starting to feel Facebook-fatigue lately (as a non FB user). At one point, escaping the negativity of it was enough, these days you're plastered with its toxicity even when not being a part it. 'no such thing as bad publicity' I guess.
- rickspencer3 5y ago
  That's the problem with the downsides of social media. Even if you don't use Facebook, Twitter, and the like, their negative impacts still reach you through the people around and the rest of society. I suppose it's a bit like second hand smoke now that I think about it. That said, the article makes what I think is an important point, that social media is not universally negative, it has some positive effects for some people. I usually use the word "cancer" to describe my attitude to Facebook and Twitter, and why I won't use it, but that is intentional hyperbole to stop further discussion.
  - StingyJelly 5y ago
    Not buying that point at all... Fill the missing word(s) in the following statement. "43% of respondents said using _________ usually makes them feel better"
    - pixl97 5y ago
      Heroine.
- 0des 5y ago
  Perhaps there is a browser extension that an HN power-user has created to weed out topics by keyword. I had a similar extension filtering out animal abuse content on Reddit in the past, so something like that could easily weed out undesired topics.
  - pelagicAustral 5y ago
    Sure thing. Except that its not just on HN, its on regular media, blogs, colleagues, etc. I used to believe that rhetoric like 'permeates the fabric of society' was so cheesy used when used to refer to the outward damage generated by social media, and yet here we are today when even when not being a part of it you are made to be a part of it. You even see it everywhere, ads, media, recruitment agencies asking you for social profiles, etc... I dont know a single person [IRL] that does not have a Facebook account, not a single one. And everybody acts like they actually depend on them... How sad is that?
    - zenmaster10665 5y ago
      Is it social media as a technology that you feel is sad/negative? What is the negative or damage that you feel is caused to people who participate?
      - pelagicAustral 5y ago
        Not social media, I've been around for the last 20 years on all kinds of scenes. I created my Facebook account on 2006 and closed it in 2014. I used to enjoy web forums a lot, back in the PHP dominated era (MyBB, PHPBB, SMF, vBulletin, Invision, etc). I was an active part of that culture... Had Fotolog, MySpace, DeviantArt, and the like for ages... Grew up as social media evolved and enjoyed Facebook as much as the next guy at a time... I even evangelized for it when other social networks were leading... matter of fact, I reported a XSS vulnerability to them back in 2006, never got thanked for it... But it changed... It became dark, negative... I felt worse after logging in, and became antagonized by it... So I figured it was me, and maybe I was just too old for it, just like that old pub I used to go, 'its all kids these days'... So I quit... And now more people are realizing the same... Maybe its an age thing... A lot of people go with 'but that's the way I reach my loved ones', bullshit... I live half way across the world and got no problem reaching my fam through Telegram or whatever... I grew out of Facebook, I guess...
- dominik-2020 5y ago
  I like Facebook. Always have. Ways will - I stay in touch with friends I'd have a hard time otherwise. If you're unhappy, don't use it.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    OP doesn't use it. That was exactly the point. Even if one doesn't use it one can't escape Zuck's empire.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    I don't. Unfortunately teenagers and everyone at Jan 6 does.
  - pelagicAustral 5y ago
    I don't use it.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  There's an unfortunate "us vs them" rhetoric that I feel is going to bite a lot of people in the butt. It all begins with this misconception that Facebook is a common carrier: they're large and valuable, but much like Microsoft Teams, iMessage and AWS, they're still private entities. There's an EULA, clear as day that states who's right and who's wrong here, and they've got your digital signature to corroborate it. It's not like the US government has any interest in giving up these invaluable domestic data sources, so they'll happily turn a blind eye to every complaint you can draft. It's a catch 22, a total stalemate where your only option is to spin your wheels. Without any practical way forwards, it seems like most people just default to complaining online as a way to vent their frustration towards Facebook's oblique victory.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > At one point, escaping the negativity of it was enough, these days you're plastered with its toxicity even when not being a part it. Most people I know have Facebook accounts and use sparingly to keep up with friends, family, and hobby groups. For the majority of users, the realities of Facebook are relatively boring. Nothing like the hyper-dramatic portrayal of social media as a "threat to our democracy" or an incurable, society-destroying addiction. I think traditional media is overplaying their hand by cherry-picking the most problematic Facebook users and trying to tell everyone that those rare edge cases are actually the norm on Facebook. These stories are extremely popular with people who don't use Facebook because they validate their decision in an almost self-congratulatory manner. Everyone likes being told they made the right decision, so reading stories that Facebook is evil is some nice validation for someone who happens to fall into the non-Facebook camp. Meanwhile, I think the general public is going to tire of these hyper-dramatic Facebook stories. The anti-Facebook news stories are starting to feel like an exaggerated moral panic relative to the boring realities of the average person's Facebook experience. I am, however, concerned about the second-order effects of this new anti-Facebook culture war. What, exactly, do people expect to come of all of these calls for more regulation of speech on the internet? It's starting to feel like the tech communities are being tricked into rallying behind calls for more government intervention and censorship of speech on the internet, which is not something I would have predicted a decade ago.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I don't think people are asking for a regulation of speech, but really a regulation on usage of dark patterns, and FB practically wrote the book on these.
  - Oddskar 5y ago
    A decado ago we didn't expect the following either: * That a complete madman would be elected president of the US. * That people would gobble up all kinds of nonsense facts on an ongoing pandemic; which for many lead to them not getting vaccinated which ultimately lead to their death. * Some LARPers on a chan forum would garner a cult following in and outside the US and "anon" would be an almost household name. Many people believed this cult so strongly that it in many cases lead to families being shattered; a few even lead an insurrection on the US capital.
- deleted 5y ago
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tvanantwerp 5y ago
> That reliance on self-reporting — the teens' own opinions — as a single indicator of harm is a problem, says Candice Odgers, a psychologist who studies adolescence at University of California, Irvine and Duke University. That's because teenagers are already primed by media coverage, and the disapproval of adults, to believe that social media is bad for them. And since when do teens care about the disapproval of adults? When I was a kid, video games were the terrible thing. I didn't know any kids who bought into that narrative—we knew they were harmless fun and kept playing.
- savanaly 5y ago
  Oh, I definitely bought into all sorts of notions my parent consciously or unconsciously tried to instill in me about video games, reading, etc. It's not all powerful but it is powerful. I'm fully ready to believe there are some segments of kids that don't feel that effect but for me and my immediate peers it existed.
- Forbo 5y ago
  I often would internalize the idea that I was "wasting" time by enjoying video games when I was growing up. I can trace my entire career back to gaming sparking my interest in computing. However, having experienced childhood trauma and lifelong depression, even though what I was doing was perfectly acceptable behavior, I would spin it into evidence that my negative self-perception was accurate. I still struggle with this idea, and have been working to overcome feeling immense guilt when I take some time to blow off steam playing a game for a few hours.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    My parents also taught me that video games are a waste of time growing up, and now it is something I am very grateful that they did. I recall a classmate in college relating to me that he had put in over 8000 hours in various games. I almost pitied him. A year of his life gone, unproductively looking at a computer screen. Of course plenty of people have similar habits. Older people watch a ton of television, others sink themselves into social media. But I'm glad I never got addicted to gaming.
jsean2004 5y ago
"Editor's note: Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters and since publishing her book, The Art of Screen Time, Kamenetz's husband took a job with Facebook. He works in an unrelated division."
- Forbo 5y ago
  Ouch. I missed this when I was reading it. Ugh, trying to navigate what is factually based and what is (potentially manufactured?) knee-jerk outrage is getting exhausting. Then there's the possibility that this piece is a manufactured wet blanket trying to douse the dumpster fire of negative reporting surrounding FB.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  How is this not a conflict of interest that would preclude this particular journalist from covering this particular story? Facebook pays a portion of her bills. She owns Facebook stock. Her husband’s career at Facebook (and beyond) could be derailed by what she writes about Facebook. She has a material and vested interest in portraying Facebook in the best light possible. At the very least an editors note disclosing such a substantial conflict ought to be at the top of the page, not the bottom. This really colors my opinion of NPR’s editorial and ethical standards.
  - duud 5y ago
    Is it more of conflict of interest than the whistleblower potentially being entitled to a multi billion dollar commission from the SEC? Because that's barely been mentioned in any of the negative articles. https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      What is the conflict? She only gets paid if her claims are substantiated and lead to a substantial enforcement action. And perhaps I’m a bit too in the weeds on this sort of thing but when I read “whistleblower” I assume there is some avenue for remuneration either from the SEC or a qui tam suit or some other private right of action. Why would anyone blow their whole career up to bring fraud to light if they’re going to be financially hung out to dry? I think most people view whistleblower protections as aligning the interests of the public and the whistleblower.
Forbo 5y ago
Trying to sort through what's real and what's being spun. Even here on HN, the thread[0] for a related article is being discussed much more. Maybe it's because of the ragebait headline that was used for the original post, I dunno. My daughter is getting to the age where some of her friends are starting to get smartphones, so I'm trying to sort out what will actually be best for her long-term development. I don't want her to be socially stunted, but I also don't want her to expose her to something that could be detrimental to her mental well-being. In an ideal world, these kinds of networks would be based on open, federated platforms a la Mastodon, Pixelfed, etc. As it stands I don't feel comfortable trusting the advertising industry to determine how these things should be run. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28812310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28812310 Edit: As pointed out by another poster, FB pays NPR, even further muddling the waters. Aaaaaggggghhhhh
- zenmaster10665 5y ago
  Who is responsible for policing content on Mastodon or other similar decentralised social media platforms? Like it or not some entity or group need to be responsible for handling illegal and dangerous content. As to the article, yeah NPR receives money from a lot of places. Is anyone asking about the motivation of NYT, WSJ, etc? Just trying to remain open minded about motives on all sides!
  - FormerBandmate 5y ago
    The WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch who is very open about his distaste for his view of Big Tech as having a liberal bias and taking away money from journalists. Every newspaper faces an existential threat from Google and Facebook redirecting advertising revenues towards themselves. That being said, this doesn’t mean that Facebook doesn’t have harmful effects. Facebook can lead to negative effects on users, but you have to take content by media platforms notoriously publicly opposed to it with a grain of salt
    - piggybox 5y ago
      The very first time I went to visit Hearst Castle, I wondered how come someone selling newspaper could be that rich half a century ago? Then I realized they were the "Google" and "Facebook" then.
ravenstine 5y ago
To be honest, I don't really care about studies, let alone Facebook's own studies. I've seen enough. Life immediately became less depressing after leaving social media for good. Because my family, especially my cousins, use Facebook and Instagram for communication I'm still forced to use them to a minimal extent. When I do use them, I don't see a lot of happy people. In fact I see a lot of signs of mental instability in the profiles that these two sites want me to see and friend/follow. Lots of narcissism.
- zenmaster10665 5y ago
  So you prefer to use anecdotes to decide how technology is affecting society, rather than data?
  - listless 5y ago
    I can backup that experience with my own. I can also say my life has even more dramatically improved since I stopped paying attention to the news cycle. But nobody is going to study that.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    I weigh data with experience, and after enough "here is why X is bad" and "why X isn't bad after all", I heavily weigh my experience over corporate/journalistic poppycock. Guess what? Not all data is good.
    - pixl97 5y ago
      So anecdotes it is.
      - ravenstine 5y ago
        I hope you don't live life just believing what people tell you and not forming your own opinions. That would be a sad, robotic existence.
totalretention 5y ago
This is a great piece. It’s almost like huge numbers of researchers forget how to evaluate evidence when the study in question makes a hated outgroup look bad.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  That's because almost no researchers were included in those discussions.
wombatpm 5y ago
Tobacco companies also used to publish studies showing no links to cancer and smoking. Oil companies funded research that said climate change was limited and transitory. And OxyContin manufacture said is was not addictive.
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throwaway_1237 5y ago
> Editor's note: Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters and since publishing her book, The Art of Screen Time, Kamenetz's husband took a job with Facebook. He works in an unrelated division.
- Calvin02 5y ago
  This type of innuendo based commentary is a staple of Fox and conservative media. Your point would be stronger if you attacked her arguments directly.
  - dvt 5y ago
    Ok, here's one. Check out this paragraph, emphasis mine. > According to Facebook's own annotations of the leaked slides, the finding broadly reported as "30% of teen girls felt Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies" was based on 150 respondents out of a few thousand Instagram users surveyed. They only answered the question about Instagram's role if they had already reported having body image issues. So the finding does not describe a random sampling of teenage girls, or even all the girls in the survey. It's a subset of a subset of a subset. Can you see how insane this paragraph is? It's like Big Tobacco getting caught with a study that shows that smoking causes cancer. But then they annotate their leaked internal slides saying "well it only cause cancer in 150 out of like thousands of people.. trust us, we annotated the slides." My emphasis is to show how biased the author is -- are we seriously giving credence to the very company that the Wall Street Journal reporting was criticizing? And now we're trusting an employee that has a material stake (stock options, her salary, reputation) in protecting the company? I'm not sold that social media is the "worst thing ever," but NPR really needs to have higher journalistic standards. > This type of innuendo based commentary is a staple of Fox and conservative media. It really isn't, and I think this is a really unfair criticism of GP. It's pretty much just being skeptical 101.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      I actually disagree with your read on this. I think a better analogy to smoking would be "30% of smokers felt that cigarettes caused them to cough chronically" in a survey of people who already had a chronic cough. That's not the same thing as "smoking causes chronic cough in 30% of people" - rather "smoking makes coughing worse in 30% of people who already had a chronic cough." Maybe they got that from smoking, maybe they didn't, but the data doesn't show that, and it cannot be extrapolated to the general population. More data is needed. It is in fact a subset of a subset. [edit] btw 150 people can be enough to draw statistically significant conclusions but you need to properly design your survey and you need a suitably random sampling of your target population. Not sure this has either?
crvdgc 5y ago
The first research [0] mentioned in the article uses the following ways to measure "adolescents’ academic, psychological, and physical wellbeing": > Academic achievement (n= 2,020) was obtained from administrative records providing the end-of-grade standardized test scores for reading and math for the 2014–2015 school year. > School belonging (n= 2,104) was assessed with the six-item Psychological Sense of School Membership23 self-report scale of school membership (e.g., I feel like a real part of my school; People at my school are friendly to me; [0] Not at all true to [5] very true), α= 0.84. > Conduct problems (n= 2,103) were assessed using the 26-item Problem Behavior Frequency Scale24 of behavioral aggression and violence in the last 30 days (e.g., In the last 30 days, how many times have you …skipped school; stolen something from another student; [0] Never, [1] 1–2 times, [2] 3–5 times, [3] 6–9 times, [4] 10–19 times, and [5] 20+ times). This scale was converted into a count of reported problems (binary for each item rated >1 then summed). > Psychological distress (n=2,104) was assessed using the six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale25 to measure the frequency of participants’ feelings of distress over the past month (e.g., During the past 30 days… about how often did you feel worthless; about how often did feel restless or fidgety? [0] None of the time to [4] all of the time), α= 0.66. > General physical health (n= 2,097) was assessed with an item from the Add Health General Health and Diet survey26 (i.e., In general, how is your health? [0] Poor to [4] excellent). I find it not surprising that having a social media account is not statistically related to the results of these measurements. And I suspect for example, being exposed to online sexual contents will also not affect as well. When talking about these things, I tend to be skeptical of behaviorism and feel like a more nuanced methodology should be taken. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570431/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570431/
gandutraveler 5y ago
I was talking to a vc friend of mine and he told me about this (conspiracy?) theory : Facebook is losing the teen/Gen z users on its platform to Tiktok and a regulation from congress would actually favor them, The leaks timed with FB subpoenas etc are to nudge the government to take action.
markenqualitaet 5y ago
How could you objectively measure the impact of social media, when pretty much everyone in that age group uses it. And those who don't, probably have factors not applicable to all. The very decision to abstain from social media may hint at a different neuronal setup/vulnerability. If the research we got is the best we can realistically get, this author is making a dishonest and misleading argument.
prossercj 5y ago
> Some ideas researchers are currently looking at: connecting young people with information about mental wellness or health; promoting accounts that have been shown to make people feel better about themselves; or prompting teens to check in with peers who are having a rough day. I'm not a huge fan of Facebook (been off the platform since 2012), but these are great ideas, especially the last one. It's refreshing in the midst of all the doom.

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I appreciate the importance of sharing these articles, but beyond that, I'm really starting to feel Facebook-fatigue lately (as a non FB user). At one point, escaping the negativity of it was enough, these days you're plastered with its toxicity even when not being a part it. 'no such thing as bad publicity' I guess.

rickspencer3 5y ago
That's the problem with the downsides of social media. Even if you don't use Facebook, Twitter, and the like, their negative impacts still reach you through the people around and the rest of society. I suppose it's a bit like second hand smoke now that I think about it. That said, the article makes what I think is an important point, that social media is not universally negative, it has some positive effects for some people. I usually use the word "cancer" to describe my attitude to Facebook and Twitter, and why I won't use it, but that is intentional hyperbole to stop further discussion.
- StingyJelly 5y ago
  Not buying that point at all... Fill the missing word(s) in the following statement. "43% of respondents said using _________ usually makes them feel better"
  - pixl97 5y ago
    Heroine.
0des 5y ago
Perhaps there is a browser extension that an HN power-user has created to weed out topics by keyword. I had a similar extension filtering out animal abuse content on Reddit in the past, so something like that could easily weed out undesired topics.
- pelagicAustral 5y ago
  Sure thing. Except that its not just on HN, its on regular media, blogs, colleagues, etc. I used to believe that rhetoric like 'permeates the fabric of society' was so cheesy used when used to refer to the outward damage generated by social media, and yet here we are today when even when not being a part of it you are made to be a part of it. You even see it everywhere, ads, media, recruitment agencies asking you for social profiles, etc... I dont know a single person [IRL] that does not have a Facebook account, not a single one. And everybody acts like they actually depend on them... How sad is that?
  - zenmaster10665 5y ago
    Is it social media as a technology that you feel is sad/negative? What is the negative or damage that you feel is caused to people who participate?
    - pelagicAustral 5y ago
      Not social media, I've been around for the last 20 years on all kinds of scenes. I created my Facebook account on 2006 and closed it in 2014. I used to enjoy web forums a lot, back in the PHP dominated era (MyBB, PHPBB, SMF, vBulletin, Invision, etc). I was an active part of that culture... Had Fotolog, MySpace, DeviantArt, and the like for ages... Grew up as social media evolved and enjoyed Facebook as much as the next guy at a time... I even evangelized for it when other social networks were leading... matter of fact, I reported a XSS vulnerability to them back in 2006, never got thanked for it... But it changed... It became dark, negative... I felt worse after logging in, and became antagonized by it... So I figured it was me, and maybe I was just too old for it, just like that old pub I used to go, 'its all kids these days'... So I quit... And now more people are realizing the same... Maybe its an age thing... A lot of people go with 'but that's the way I reach my loved ones', bullshit... I live half way across the world and got no problem reaching my fam through Telegram or whatever... I grew out of Facebook, I guess...
dominik-2020 5y ago
I like Facebook. Always have. Ways will - I stay in touch with friends I'd have a hard time otherwise. If you're unhappy, don't use it.
- sdoering 5y ago
  OP doesn't use it. That was exactly the point. Even if one doesn't use it one can't escape Zuck's empire.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I don't. Unfortunately teenagers and everyone at Jan 6 does.
- pelagicAustral 5y ago
  I don't use it.
smoldesu 5y ago
There's an unfortunate "us vs them" rhetoric that I feel is going to bite a lot of people in the butt. It all begins with this misconception that Facebook is a common carrier: they're large and valuable, but much like Microsoft Teams, iMessage and AWS, they're still private entities. There's an EULA, clear as day that states who's right and who's wrong here, and they've got your digital signature to corroborate it. It's not like the US government has any interest in giving up these invaluable domestic data sources, so they'll happily turn a blind eye to every complaint you can draft. It's a catch 22, a total stalemate where your only option is to spin your wheels. Without any practical way forwards, it seems like most people just default to complaining online as a way to vent their frustration towards Facebook's oblique victory.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> At one point, escaping the negativity of it was enough, these days you're plastered with its toxicity even when not being a part it. Most people I know have Facebook accounts and use sparingly to keep up with friends, family, and hobby groups. For the majority of users, the realities of Facebook are relatively boring. Nothing like the hyper-dramatic portrayal of social media as a "threat to our democracy" or an incurable, society-destroying addiction. I think traditional media is overplaying their hand by cherry-picking the most problematic Facebook users and trying to tell everyone that those rare edge cases are actually the norm on Facebook. These stories are extremely popular with people who don't use Facebook because they validate their decision in an almost self-congratulatory manner. Everyone likes being told they made the right decision, so reading stories that Facebook is evil is some nice validation for someone who happens to fall into the non-Facebook camp. Meanwhile, I think the general public is going to tire of these hyper-dramatic Facebook stories. The anti-Facebook news stories are starting to feel like an exaggerated moral panic relative to the boring realities of the average person's Facebook experience. I am, however, concerned about the second-order effects of this new anti-Facebook culture war. What, exactly, do people expect to come of all of these calls for more regulation of speech on the internet? It's starting to feel like the tech communities are being tricked into rallying behind calls for more government intervention and censorship of speech on the internet, which is not something I would have predicted a decade ago.
- asdff 5y ago
  I don't think people are asking for a regulation of speech, but really a regulation on usage of dark patterns, and FB practically wrote the book on these.
- Oddskar 5y ago
  A decado ago we didn't expect the following either: * That a complete madman would be elected president of the US. * That people would gobble up all kinds of nonsense facts on an ongoing pandemic; which for many lead to them not getting vaccinated which ultimately lead to their death. * Some LARPers on a chan forum would garner a cult following in and outside the US and "anon" would be an almost household name. Many people believed this cult so strongly that it in many cases lead to families being shattered; a few even lead an insurrection on the US capital.
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tvanantwerp 5y ago

> That reliance on self-reporting — the teens' own opinions — as a single indicator of harm is a problem, says Candice Odgers, a psychologist who studies adolescence at University of California, Irvine and Duke University. That's because teenagers are already primed by media coverage, and the disapproval of adults, to believe that social media is bad for them. And since when do teens care about the disapproval of adults? When I was a kid, video games were the terrible thing. I didn't know any kids who bought into that narrative—we knew they were harmless fun and kept playing.

savanaly 5y ago
Oh, I definitely bought into all sorts of notions my parent consciously or unconsciously tried to instill in me about video games, reading, etc. It's not all powerful but it is powerful. I'm fully ready to believe there are some segments of kids that don't feel that effect but for me and my immediate peers it existed.
Forbo 5y ago
I often would internalize the idea that I was "wasting" time by enjoying video games when I was growing up. I can trace my entire career back to gaming sparking my interest in computing. However, having experienced childhood trauma and lifelong depression, even though what I was doing was perfectly acceptable behavior, I would spin it into evidence that my negative self-perception was accurate. I still struggle with this idea, and have been working to overcome feeling immense guilt when I take some time to blow off steam playing a game for a few hours.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  My parents also taught me that video games are a waste of time growing up, and now it is something I am very grateful that they did. I recall a classmate in college relating to me that he had put in over 8000 hours in various games. I almost pitied him. A year of his life gone, unproductively looking at a computer screen. Of course plenty of people have similar habits. Older people watch a ton of television, others sink themselves into social media. But I'm glad I never got addicted to gaming.

jsean2004 5y ago

"Editor's note: Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters and since publishing her book, The Art of Screen Time, Kamenetz's husband took a job with Facebook. He works in an unrelated division."

Forbo 5y ago
Ouch. I missed this when I was reading it. Ugh, trying to navigate what is factually based and what is (potentially manufactured?) knee-jerk outrage is getting exhausting. Then there's the possibility that this piece is a manufactured wet blanket trying to douse the dumpster fire of negative reporting surrounding FB.
elliekelly 5y ago
How is this not a conflict of interest that would preclude this particular journalist from covering this particular story? Facebook pays a portion of her bills. She owns Facebook stock. Her husband’s career at Facebook (and beyond) could be derailed by what she writes about Facebook. She has a material and vested interest in portraying Facebook in the best light possible. At the very least an editors note disclosing such a substantial conflict ought to be at the top of the page, not the bottom. This really colors my opinion of NPR’s editorial and ethical standards.
- duud 5y ago
  Is it more of conflict of interest than the whistleblower potentially being entitled to a multi billion dollar commission from the SEC? Because that's barely been mentioned in any of the negative articles. https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    What is the conflict? She only gets paid if her claims are substantiated and lead to a substantial enforcement action. And perhaps I’m a bit too in the weeds on this sort of thing but when I read “whistleblower” I assume there is some avenue for remuneration either from the SEC or a qui tam suit or some other private right of action. Why would anyone blow their whole career up to bring fraud to light if they’re going to be financially hung out to dry? I think most people view whistleblower protections as aligning the interests of the public and the whistleblower.

Forbo 5y ago

Trying to sort through what's real and what's being spun. Even here on HN, the thread[0] for a related article is being discussed much more. Maybe it's because of the ragebait headline that was used for the original post, I dunno. My daughter is getting to the age where some of her friends are starting to get smartphones, so I'm trying to sort out what will actually be best for her long-term development. I don't want her to be socially stunted, but I also don't want her to expose her to something that could be detrimental to her mental well-being. In an ideal world, these kinds of networks would be based on open, federated platforms a la Mastodon, Pixelfed, etc. As it stands I don't feel comfortable trusting the advertising industry to determine how these things should be run. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28812310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28812310 Edit: As pointed out by another poster, FB pays NPR, even further muddling the waters. Aaaaaggggghhhhh

zenmaster10665 5y ago
Who is responsible for policing content on Mastodon or other similar decentralised social media platforms? Like it or not some entity or group need to be responsible for handling illegal and dangerous content. As to the article, yeah NPR receives money from a lot of places. Is anyone asking about the motivation of NYT, WSJ, etc? Just trying to remain open minded about motives on all sides!
- FormerBandmate 5y ago
  The WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch who is very open about his distaste for his view of Big Tech as having a liberal bias and taking away money from journalists. Every newspaper faces an existential threat from Google and Facebook redirecting advertising revenues towards themselves. That being said, this doesn’t mean that Facebook doesn’t have harmful effects. Facebook can lead to negative effects on users, but you have to take content by media platforms notoriously publicly opposed to it with a grain of salt
  - piggybox 5y ago
    The very first time I went to visit Hearst Castle, I wondered how come someone selling newspaper could be that rich half a century ago? Then I realized they were the "Google" and "Facebook" then.

ravenstine 5y ago

To be honest, I don't really care about studies, let alone Facebook's own studies. I've seen enough. Life immediately became less depressing after leaving social media for good. Because my family, especially my cousins, use Facebook and Instagram for communication I'm still forced to use them to a minimal extent. When I do use them, I don't see a lot of happy people. In fact I see a lot of signs of mental instability in the profiles that these two sites want me to see and friend/follow. Lots of narcissism.

zenmaster10665 5y ago
So you prefer to use anecdotes to decide how technology is affecting society, rather than data?
- listless 5y ago
  I can backup that experience with my own. I can also say my life has even more dramatically improved since I stopped paying attention to the news cycle. But nobody is going to study that.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I weigh data with experience, and after enough "here is why X is bad" and "why X isn't bad after all", I heavily weigh my experience over corporate/journalistic poppycock. Guess what? Not all data is good.
  - pixl97 5y ago
    So anecdotes it is.
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      I hope you don't live life just believing what people tell you and not forming your own opinions. That would be a sad, robotic existence.

totalretention 5y ago

This is a great piece. It’s almost like huge numbers of researchers forget how to evaluate evidence when the study in question makes a hated outgroup look bad.

lalaland1125 5y ago
That's because almost no researchers were included in those discussions.

wombatpm 5y ago

Tobacco companies also used to publish studies showing no links to cancer and smoking. Oil companies funded research that said climate change was limited and transitory. And OxyContin manufacture said is was not addictive.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwaway_1237 5y ago

> Editor's note: Facebook is among NPR's financial supporters and since publishing her book, The Art of Screen Time, Kamenetz's husband took a job with Facebook. He works in an unrelated division.

Calvin02 5y ago
This type of innuendo based commentary is a staple of Fox and conservative media. Your point would be stronger if you attacked her arguments directly.
- dvt 5y ago
  Ok, here's one. Check out this paragraph, emphasis mine. > According to Facebook's own annotations of the leaked slides, the finding broadly reported as "30% of teen girls felt Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies" was based on 150 respondents out of a few thousand Instagram users surveyed. They only answered the question about Instagram's role if they had already reported having body image issues. So the finding does not describe a random sampling of teenage girls, or even all the girls in the survey. It's a subset of a subset of a subset. Can you see how insane this paragraph is? It's like Big Tobacco getting caught with a study that shows that smoking causes cancer. But then they annotate their leaked internal slides saying "well it only cause cancer in 150 out of like thousands of people.. trust us, we annotated the slides." My emphasis is to show how biased the author is -- are we seriously giving credence to the very company that the Wall Street Journal reporting was criticizing? And now we're trusting an employee that has a material stake (stock options, her salary, reputation) in protecting the company? I'm not sold that social media is the "worst thing ever," but NPR really needs to have higher journalistic standards. > This type of innuendo based commentary is a staple of Fox and conservative media. It really isn't, and I think this is a really unfair criticism of GP. It's pretty much just being skeptical 101.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I actually disagree with your read on this. I think a better analogy to smoking would be "30% of smokers felt that cigarettes caused them to cough chronically" in a survey of people who already had a chronic cough. That's not the same thing as "smoking causes chronic cough in 30% of people" - rather "smoking makes coughing worse in 30% of people who already had a chronic cough." Maybe they got that from smoking, maybe they didn't, but the data doesn't show that, and it cannot be extrapolated to the general population. More data is needed. It is in fact a subset of a subset. [edit] btw 150 people can be enough to draw statistically significant conclusions but you need to properly design your survey and you need a suitably random sampling of your target population. Not sure this has either?

crvdgc 5y ago

The first research [0] mentioned in the article uses the following ways to measure "adolescents’ academic, psychological, and physical wellbeing": > Academic achievement (n= 2,020) was obtained from administrative records providing the end-of-grade standardized test scores for reading and math for the 2014–2015 school year. > School belonging (n= 2,104) was assessed with the six-item Psychological Sense of School Membership23 self-report scale of school membership (e.g., I feel like a real part of my school; People at my school are friendly to me; [0] Not at all true to [5] very true), α= 0.84. > Conduct problems (n= 2,103) were assessed using the 26-item Problem Behavior Frequency Scale24 of behavioral aggression and violence in the last 30 days (e.g., In the last 30 days, how many times have you …skipped school; stolen something from another student; [0] Never, [1] 1–2 times, [2] 3–5 times, [3] 6–9 times, [4] 10–19 times, and [5] 20+ times). This scale was converted into a count of reported problems (binary for each item rated >1 then summed). > Psychological distress (n=2,104) was assessed using the six-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale25 to measure the frequency of participants’ feelings of distress over the past month (e.g., During the past 30 days… about how often did you feel worthless; about how often did feel restless or fidgety? [0] None of the time to [4] all of the time), α= 0.66. > General physical health (n= 2,097) was assessed with an item from the Add Health General Health and Diet survey26 (i.e., In general, how is your health? [0] Poor to [4] excellent). I find it not surprising that having a social media account is not statistically related to the results of these measurements. And I suspect for example, being exposed to online sexual contents will also not affect as well. When talking about these things, I tend to be skeptical of behaviorism and feel like a more nuanced methodology should be taken. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570431/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570431/

gandutraveler 5y ago

I was talking to a vc friend of mine and he told me about this (conspiracy?) theory : Facebook is losing the teen/Gen z users on its platform to Tiktok and a regulation from congress would actually favor them, The leaks timed with FB subpoenas etc are to nudge the government to take action.

markenqualitaet 5y ago

How could you objectively measure the impact of social media, when pretty much everyone in that age group uses it. And those who don't, probably have factors not applicable to all. The very decision to abstain from social media may hint at a different neuronal setup/vulnerability. If the research we got is the best we can realistically get, this author is making a dishonest and misleading argument.

prossercj 5y ago

> Some ideas researchers are currently looking at: connecting young people with information about mental wellness or health; promoting accounts that have been shown to make people feel better about themselves; or prompting teens to check in with peers who are having a rough day. I'm not a huge fan of Facebook (been off the platform since 2012), but these are great ideas, especially the last one. It's refreshing in the midst of all the doom.