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I encourage people to have a look at the leaked document that is being referenced here. https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/teen-mental-health-deep-di

by ta20211004_1 5y ago

I encourage people to have a look at the leaked document that is being referenced here. https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/teen-mental-health-deep-dive.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/teen-mental-hea... p24. Teens are about twice as likely to state that Instagram improves their mental health than to state that it harms it. p28. Teens who were already unsatisfied with their mental health tend to think Instagram harms their mental health more than teens who are satisfied with their mental health. Still, teens who are not satisfied with their mental health (in the USA) are more likely to think Instagram is a positive influence on mental health than a negative one. This is not true in the UK. If you're the kind of person who hates when statistics are abused for a narrative, this should be something you dislike. The "damning internal documents" actually show that 80% of teens have a neutral or positive reaction to Instagram, and teens are two times more likely to have a positive reaction than a negative one. Zuckerberg's comments about Instagram having an overall positive effect on teen mental health look a lot less like an obvious lie from this angle. My personal opinion/guess: Instagram and social media does deliver harmful content to some people and can have negative effects on people's mental health. However, in the discussion we've been having this week, every possible positive effect has been discounted to 0 value. That's not really fair, doesn't reflect the actual results of the leaked studies, and certainly doesn't match my anecdotal experience using social media (including fbook, reddit, hn and insta).

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hsn915 5y ago
Is this self evaluation useful at all though? It seems to me a case of a drug addict saying that drugs are good for himself. Or an obese person saying that Pizza helps him cope with life.
- ta20211004_1 5y ago
  That's a fair question! Is there a better way to independently measure the mental health effect of a single variable on a person's life than just asking them?
  - kjgkjhfkjf 5y ago
    You could use diagnostic tests, such as those described in the DSM. This is what psychologists and doctors do in real life to determine whether someone is depressed.
  - ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
    Of course... It has been taught in the most basic courses to design questionnaires since... forever... There is a whole science around that. Not only for mental health. Carefully identifying the best proxies and looking at the internal consistency of multiple answers and/or events/metrics is the intricate part of the design of the questionnaire. A simple/dumb example; you do not ask: "do you constantly read Hacker News?" but "have you heard <name some prevalent news in HN from today> of these news?"
    - ta20211004_1 5y ago
      Did you have a look at the slide deck? I don't design survey's for a living, but the questions seem carefully chosen (often included as a footnote on slides with graphs).
      - ta20211004_1 5y ago
        @ggrrhh_ta It's not showing me the 'reply' button on your comment. That seems like fair criticism. It's not my area of expertise. I'm just here to post the source document because in light of what the study actually claims, the media reaction has been ridiculous.
        ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
        In fact, thanks for the source document; it is much more interesting than what has surfaced in the media. - about the reply button, it sometimes happens to me also, maybe a delay or something like that?
        colejohnson66 5y ago
        Tangent: The “reply” link is hidden in some cases (fast replies) to avoid flamewars. If you insist on replying, clicking the date stamp to go the comment’s permalink will show a reply box.
kelseyfrog 5y ago
Sure, but take it a step further and analyze it. Does Instagram, knowing this information, have any obligations when making choices that affect teen's mental health? Would making choices which negatively affect teen's mental health be an ethical action? One such choice could be segmenting user's by mental health for the purpose of advertisement. Is such a segmentation ethical? What if doing so increases Instagram's profit (say for example teens who struggle are more susceptible to ads), does that change your answer? Should that change Instagram's answer? My point is that we are capable and obliged to dive deeply into these questions. 22% of teens[p24] of a total 22M teens(DAU)[1] are negatively affected by Instagram. This is 4.1 million people - not a small number. By stopping short and simply saying teens are twice as likely to benefit than suffer ignores the 4.1 million teens who are suffering. I'm not sure they take much solace that 8.2 million feel better off. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-tox...
- ta20211004_1 5y ago
  You're right and Facebook should be taking action to reduce the negative effects their products are having on teens. I have no idea if any of the recommendations at the end of the study were actually put into action. To me a charitable interpretation of the tone of this presentation, which focuses on highlighting negative outcomes rather than celebrating positive outcomes, was to identify areas for improvement. Again, interpreting charitably, this means the company is interested in identifying and reducing negative impacts. Again, I don't know if they ever made any of these changes. I would like to see more transparency from the company.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  Instagram certainly has an ethical obligation to act on this and improve the situation. At the time that I left Instagram in early 2020, there were more people working on improving wellbeing, particularly for teens, than working on trying to improve engagement. I wasn't specifically tasked to work on well-being, but like all engineers working on recommendations I was required to work with wellbeing and completely address all well-being concerns before shipping anything.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tuyguntn 5y ago
so you created this account to advocate Facebook?
- ta20211004_1 5y ago
  Yes. I felt I was swimming against the currents and wanted this opinion to exist in separate space from the rest of the opinions I express on this site.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

hsn915 5y ago

Is this self evaluation useful at all though? It seems to me a case of a drug addict saying that drugs are good for himself. Or an obese person saying that Pizza helps him cope with life.

ta20211004_1 5y ago
That's a fair question! Is there a better way to independently measure the mental health effect of a single variable on a person's life than just asking them?
- kjgkjhfkjf 5y ago
  You could use diagnostic tests, such as those described in the DSM. This is what psychologists and doctors do in real life to determine whether someone is depressed.
- ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
  Of course... It has been taught in the most basic courses to design questionnaires since... forever... There is a whole science around that. Not only for mental health. Carefully identifying the best proxies and looking at the internal consistency of multiple answers and/or events/metrics is the intricate part of the design of the questionnaire. A simple/dumb example; you do not ask: "do you constantly read Hacker News?" but "have you heard <name some prevalent news in HN from today> of these news?"
  - ta20211004_1 5y ago
    Did you have a look at the slide deck? I don't design survey's for a living, but the questions seem carefully chosen (often included as a footnote on slides with graphs).
    - ta20211004_1 5y ago
      @ggrrhh_ta It's not showing me the 'reply' button on your comment. That seems like fair criticism. It's not my area of expertise. I'm just here to post the source document because in light of what the study actually claims, the media reaction has been ridiculous.
      - ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
        In fact, thanks for the source document; it is much more interesting than what has surfaced in the media. - about the reply button, it sometimes happens to me also, maybe a delay or something like that?
      - colejohnson66 5y ago
        Tangent: The “reply” link is hidden in some cases (fast replies) to avoid flamewars. If you insist on replying, clicking the date stamp to go the comment’s permalink will show a reply box.

kelseyfrog 5y ago

Sure, but take it a step further and analyze it. Does Instagram, knowing this information, have any obligations when making choices that affect teen's mental health? Would making choices which negatively affect teen's mental health be an ethical action? One such choice could be segmenting user's by mental health for the purpose of advertisement. Is such a segmentation ethical? What if doing so increases Instagram's profit (say for example teens who struggle are more susceptible to ads), does that change your answer? Should that change Instagram's answer? My point is that we are capable and obliged to dive deeply into these questions. 22% of teens[p24] of a total 22M teens(DAU)[1] are negatively affected by Instagram. This is 4.1 million people - not a small number. By stopping short and simply saying teens are twice as likely to benefit than suffer ignores the 4.1 million teens who are suffering. I'm not sure they take much solace that 8.2 million feel better off. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-tox...

ta20211004_1 5y ago
You're right and Facebook should be taking action to reduce the negative effects their products are having on teens. I have no idea if any of the recommendations at the end of the study were actually put into action. To me a charitable interpretation of the tone of this presentation, which focuses on highlighting negative outcomes rather than celebrating positive outcomes, was to identify areas for improvement. Again, interpreting charitably, this means the company is interested in identifying and reducing negative impacts. Again, I don't know if they ever made any of these changes. I would like to see more transparency from the company.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mgraczyk 5y ago
Instagram certainly has an ethical obligation to act on this and improve the situation. At the time that I left Instagram in early 2020, there were more people working on improving wellbeing, particularly for teens, than working on trying to improve engagement. I wasn't specifically tasked to work on well-being, but like all engineers working on recommendations I was required to work with wellbeing and completely address all well-being concerns before shipping anything.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tuyguntn 5y ago

so you created this account to advocate Facebook?

ta20211004_1 5y ago
Yes. I felt I was swimming against the currents and wanted this opinion to exist in separate space from the rest of the opinions I express on this site.