3 ms·
Since "Facebook bad" is on the front-page of HN every day, I thought some might be interested in a nuanced and contrary view: "Reviews and meta-analyses on soc
by amin 5y ago
Since "Facebook bad" is on the front-page of HN every day, I thought some might be interested in a nuanced and contrary view:
"Reviews and meta-analyses on social media social comparisons, envy, and well-being present a complex set of findings. Earlier research finds social comparison and envy to be common and linked to lower well-being. Yet, increasingly, newer studies contradict this conclusion, finding positive links to well-being as well as heterogeneous, person-specific, conditional, and reverse or reciprocal effects. For instance, two experiments and three surveys observe benign envy to be more common than malicious envy.
They also find inspiration, a positive motivational outcome of assimilative upward comparison, to be frequently associated with social media. The positive side was also apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall and consistent with some earlier research, recent studies indicate that positive reactions to passive social media are plausible and not uncommon. Given contradictory findings and limitations, we cannot conclude that
social media are indeed "worse" we simply do not know yet."