12 ms·

Open letter to Mark Zuckerberg: act now on child and adolescent mental health

144 points by mcguire 5y ago

sfblah 5y ago
Unrelated to the actual content, but in Russian is it normal to decline the last name of someone who is not Russian as they did at the beginning of the letter? "Открытое письмо господину Цукербергу"
- YeBanKo 5y ago
  The didn’t decline the last name. They omitted the first name. “господину Цукербергу” = “to Mr. Zuckerberg”, which is acceptable in English as well.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    If it's not being declined, why is there a "у" at the end of Цукербергу? It even matches the ending of господину, which -- without the у -- sure looks like the courtesy title "Gospodin". You're sure that's not a case marker?
    - filoleg 5y ago
      Russian "У" sounds the same as english "oo". And here, it is placed at the ends of both words as dative preposition, to indicate that it is "*to* Mr. Zuckerberg". If it was Putin instead of Zuckerberg, it would work just the same, "господину Путину". No difference at all, regardless of whether the last name is Russian or not.
      - stavros 5y ago
        And yet it's not in the dative case (ie declined)?
        filoleg 5y ago
        It is declined. The point I was making is that it was declined not because it was a foreign last name. Swapping Zuckerberg for Putin in that sentence would decline Putin's last name in the exact same way.
        stavros 5y ago
        I see, thank you. As an aside, you would not decline the transliteration of a foreign name in Greek. They used to "Greekify" the names a century ago and decline them, but now that sounds extremely dated and odd.
        aasasd 5y ago
        In Russian, the amount to which words were assimilated has also changed depending on which foreign language was in vogue at the time, and to what extent. In the past, pronunciations of English borrowed words became closer to Russian standards. But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Afaiu it was the same in the past with French borrowings and then German ones (or perhaps in the reverse order)—kinda similar to English flirtings with French and Latin, but thankfully without such a mess in spelling. However, Цукерберг/Zuckerberg is quite natural for Russian due to being an obviously Jewish name. The first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, because that's how analogous Jewish names are pronounced here.
        stavros 5y ago
        > But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Now that you mention it, that's exactly what happened with Greek too. Branding used to be Greek, then sort-of-foreignified Greek (eg Greek words with a foreign suffix) and now just English. > first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, That's probably because of the German pronunciation, no?
    - anonymfus 5y ago
      Yes, the endings are case markers here. YeBanKo probably misunderstood your question.
    - YeBanKo 5y ago
      I misunderstood the question. I think the question is why both "господину" and "Цукербергу" are declined, given that "Цукербергу" has non-slavic origin. I think typically the rule is that only names of Slavic origin are declined along with generic name, such as "в город Минск", "в город Киев", "в город Москву". But the foreign names it is not, e.g. "в город Сан Франциско", "в город Сан Сиэтл". I think it definitely true for geographical names, and probably for last names as well. However, even for geographical names there many names that considered long assimilated, e.g. "в городе Санкт-Петербурге". I think the same true for a last name such as Цукербергу. There are plenty of people with Germanic last names, especially ending with -berg, -man, -baum, etc, so maybe it is considered assimilated enough that it follows rules for Slavic based names.
- anonymfus 5y ago
  Here and generally yes, but there are some exceptions, which are too complex to explain in a comment here.
- aasasd 5y ago
  Pretty sure you're asking whether the name shouldn't be in the nominative case instead. The answer is, basically any word is inflected in Russian, with some exceptions where the dative case can be identical to the nominative—and even such words can be quite naturally bent into the different cases, in casual speech. The ‘nationality’ of the name doesn't matter, though foreign names or words may initially not be assimilated in the language enough for the inflections to be established and accepted. One example of a case when the dative form would be the same as the nominative, is if the recipient was a Mrs. Zuckerberg, since this specific kind of the last name isn't inflected when it's of the feminine grammatical gender. There's also the dubious trend of avoiding inflection of brand names for any and all purposes—but that's just contrary to how Russian works, and is dictated instead by whims of marketing people who lack the sense for the language.
- pvg 5y ago
  The grammar applies whether the name is Russian or not with some edge-case exceptions that can roughly be described as 'when it sounds weird and/or like something else' i.e. they tend to be almost 'phonetic'. A name ending in -berg or the like, though, is a perfectly regular (for Russian) name that could just as easily be a Russian last name. An example off the top of my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ehrenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ehrenburg
lnxg33k1 5y ago
I think we're wasting time here, as much as I hate Jeff Bezos, during his "meeting" with Boris Johnson he said something that is I think relatable to the current situation, I quote: “that this is a job for governments. And tax isn’t something that he’s going to pay as an ex-gratia act of kindness. It’s up to governments to come up with the right framework.” (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/26/jeff-bezos-boris-johnson-new-york-jennifer-arcuri-amazon-tax https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/26/jeff-b...). We need to stop wasting time appealing to the human-side of billionaires, we need to stop talking to them and create regulations and punishments, to prevent them to exploit the population
- version_five 5y ago
  Agreed- an "adversarial" system is what makes strong policy. People / corporations will always try and exploit loopholes or flaws in regulation. When this happens, the regulation can get adapted to align with its actual objectives. Having flawed laws on the books an expecting actors to behave differently than the laws are written doesnt make any sense
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    It looks like recently our politicians have forgot that it's their duty to create regulations for the wellbeing of the society, or like they're acting like regulators with common populations and youth ministers with the rich
    - version_five 5y ago
      It's probably always been this way to some extent, bit with the concentration of power in tech companies and few others, it's optimal for people who want to get elected to focus on influencing the powerful and ignoring the masses. I think this effect has just gotten stronger recently.
    - fastball 5y ago
      Well, at least in the US, Congress hasn't been legislating for a while now. They handed over that responsibility to the Executive and Judicial branch a long time ago so that they don't have to deal with unhappy voters because it's always someone else's fault.
savant_penguin 5y ago
"Establish an independent oversight trust for child and adolescent mental health on Meta platforms" When I read that my impression is that what's actually being asked is :"give us power over the platform" The "independent fact checking" on YouTube does not seem to be going well. I see no reason to think that this would
- smt88 5y ago
  Oversight is never going to be perfect, but "independent" is still a positive step. Meta's profit motive will never, never be more important to them than the safety or happiness of their users. Even if you personally don't use Facebook or don't want to, we still all have to be around people who use it all the time.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- newbie789 5y ago
  When I read "give us power over the platform" when that sentiment was in no way expressed in the text, my impression is “It’s important to express that I’m a contrarian because I’m so very smart”
golemiprague 5y ago
Why they go to this one specific company? what about tiktok? what about omegele? what about many other social networks. They should ask governments to regulate the field for everyone, not some specific company. I also got my doubt about this "science", social sciences are not really sciences, a lot of the research in those fields is not replicated or just based on asking people questions rather than actually observing behaviour. I don't understand how they claim as if there is some scientific truth that we have to follow when it comes to those issues, in most cases it is more assumptions, loose correlations mixed with ideologies and politics.
geoalchimista 5y ago
So, these scholars think Meta has more state capacity than NHS to act in this area and can work wonders that NHS cannot?
- ChainOfFools 5y ago
  Meta most significantly has funding state agencies can only dream of, and no responsibility or mandate to run its human experiments past an institutional review board
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    There's only a couple dozen country governments that have more revenue than Facebook
- ska 5y ago
  How did you draw that conclusion?
temp8964 5y ago
I think for an open letter to be more credible, the signatories should list their title and position. Like the open letter from mathematicians and scientists https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13658 https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13658 Just put a university after your name means nothing. Do I need to search each of your name to know whether you are a scholar in the related field, or just simply a student studying in the university?
- sackofmugs 5y ago
  Absolutely, the point of listing a university is to show status and expertise. No one is going to listen to a bunch of people whose main accomplishment is getting accepted into Cornell and San Diego State. The prestige of those institutions come from the professors, doctors, scientists, researchers, who are pushing the state of the art, not the students doing homework.
- thawSeh6s2p 5y ago
  Does it invalidate the content if they're one but not the other? Why does it matter if they're professors, researchers or students? It's not like they're making profound statements or putting forward some bold crazy theory, they're asking for FB's internal stats to be validated published so it can be used for research.
temp8964 5y ago
Is Facebook as a platform really extremely unique? Should there be a call on Steam or XBox or PS to act on mental health science because so many (like millions) young kids play video games on them? And how about YouTube or traditional TV networks? Or is that because millions is not a sufficient number, and billions is the number to become what matters? For the purpose of scientific research, it is not a good argument to ask for the platform to cooperate with you. Researcher should develop their research methods totally independent of the subject.
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  Facebook is the only major platform that studied its impact on mental health, so it's the only one that can be punished for what they found.
  - adolph 5y ago
    A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    Snap, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, [...] execs scrambling to lock or destroy their mental health research programs. I'm obviously not the only person saying this, and I don't want to brush Facebook and Instagram issues under the rug, but I fear the series of articles that arose from this whistle-blowing has created all sorts of twisted incentives for every player whose digital product can be abused. What's the upside of making such research looking into negative effects if, when leaked, (1) only the negatives is headlined and presented, (2) the positives are ignored and (3) no acknowledgment of the research existing in the first place is made? I'm conflicted myself writing this, especially #3 as it may (I'm not informed enough to have a strong opinion) be akin to historic examples of tobacco and petroleum industries ignoring their R&D, but #1 and #2 seem pretty clear. Why are these researchers not addressing the industry at large, if only as a bullet point/segment? It seems like scapegoating while these issues are widespread and no company/executive will position itself to be the next scapegoat in line to be ousted. Research on FB-Insta could be useful to expand to the rest of the industry, but why would they be inclined to respond to this piece where they are made out to be as the nefarious actor when it comes children's health?
quinnjh 5y ago
Literally nothing will change fir the better unless meta can profit off of positive mental health outcomes. Right now they profit from engagement. Engagement =/= good mental health Metas definition of good mental health =/= my definition If a depressed person who scrolls all day gets off and leads a better life how does that make meta money? Asking genuinely, as im sure some change oriented folks within meta are.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  Makes me think about how other businesses have handled user addiction and whether they did so on their own volition—casinos, bars, lottery, etc. Just spit-balling: I think bars will kick people out once they've had too much to drink, sometimes from a legality standpoint, but also from a place of sympathy or even fear (this person will disrupt the environment). How would you say other businesses have handled this without government regulation?
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > Just spit-balling: I think bars will kick people out once they've had too much to drink, sometimes from a legality standpoint, but also from a place of sympathy or even fear (this person will disrupt the environment). There's heavy regulation, policing and liability here. Bars will cut people off and kick them out because if they let a person get tanked and they go hit someone with their car while drunk, that puts the business in jeopardy. Not only are there laws that make it a criminal offense, that's how a business loses its liquor license and gets held liable for potentially significant damages. My state has negligent serving of alcohol laws, and it also holds businesses responsible for any injuries, damages or deaths a drunk driver causes.
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      Ah, so maybe it's more about legal compliance than I had thought. Do bars still cut off people for any non-legal reasons? Trying to find if these establishments do anything to curb addiction even when not forced by outside regulators.
rkk3 5y ago
Isn't this the traditional corporate strategy for not taking responsibility? Have corps fund research and pretend to do something, while really just kicking up doubt about causality. Like the Tobacco, Energy and Food/Drink companies did... And it's not just Meta, you should really look at IOS & Android's culpability. Smartphones changed the game.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I mean what else can you really do? Mental health outcomes are a second order effect of FB’s stuff. Their actual relevant products are a microblog and a photo sharing site. And FB already has lots of content moderators trying to filter things like hate speech, bullying, and thinspo. What would you have them change? How do you know for sure your suggestion will work?
  - rkk3 5y ago
    > I mean what else can you really do? Mental health outcomes are a second order effect of FB’s stuff. I don't think Mr. Zuckerberg can do much, besides pivoting to a new-flagship product which is what he might be trying to do with "Meta". With FB/IG they are just responding to demand in the market. Maybe there are low hanging ways to make it fundamentally better for mental health, but at a certain point that objective will clash with $ and who know's if it's what consumers want if given the option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_(cigarette) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_(cigarette) The government should probably step-in to research and regulate but its more systemic than just FB. Apple/Google don't get their fair share of the blame, they are selling Skinner Boxes as a service to all these companies. It's ridiculous you can't have more control of notifications. If I want to get a notification for a New Message, Tagged in a post or an update from Delivery driver... I have to also let these apps poke me whenever they want to try to get me addicted to their platforms.
joelbondurant 5y ago
In the holy name of the Science we pray
rce 5y ago
Do we really want for-profit companies more responsible for mental health on a day where one of the biggest stories is how a mental health company was cutting corners? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29480988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29480988
sebow 5y ago
How about no? Do we really need someone as deranged, corrupt, and irresponsible to get involved on this?I mean seriously, just because he has money/influence/power doesn't mean jack shit. If anything, Zuck would be stupid to response to this "open letter": he PROFITS from the fact that some people are mentally ill.What a joke.If you want people to be more stable mentally, you would tell them to f#ck off social media, socialize, eventually keep some traditions or norms within smaller groups which create stronger bonds, those are things that keep you sane.Oxford at this point repeatedly showed that they're a shit institution, and i have to wonder if there's any substance on this besides a PR move.
aasasd 5y ago
Feels kinda weird to mentally put myself in the position of Zuck the billionaire robot, but the letter does read like a counter-example from Dale Carnegie's books. The words ‘profit’ or ‘revenue’ aren't mentioned once—instead it's just ‘why don't you do this thing we want you to do’. Edit: I think it might even help to imagine a ‘comedy in characters’ of this situation: Previously in FB. — Zuck, they say FB is bad for the brain! — Well, how bad, if this is gonna blow in our faces? Several months later. — This bad. Zuck spins for some cycles, counting zeroes on the bank balance. — I can live with that. A bunch of researchers see that FB funds research. — Yo, we also can tell you in detail how bad it is! Give us some funding. Zuck: — ???
- slg 5y ago
  There is an underlying argument that one shouldn't put a price tag on the mental health of the world's children therefore "profit" and "revenue" shouldn't even be introduced into the conversation. If the Meta counterargument is anything along the lines of "that is too expensive", then they already lost any ethical standing they could have had on the issue.
  - aasasd 5y ago
    Well, I think I can tell you exactly what FB's response to the letter will be. It's this:
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    Do you want ethical grandstanding or do you want the letter you write to change anything?
    - slg 5y ago
      Why are those mutually exclusive? Ethical grandstanding can be a method to motivate change. To me it seems like a stronger argument than economics as those incentives are all currently pushing in the opposite direction.
      - 5y ago
jimkleiber 5y ago
Two questions come to my mind, slightly unrelated: 1) If there is such a stigma with "mental health", why do people not use a different term for it, e.g., "emotional health"? 2) Why do they only focus on the impacts these platforms have on children (younger humans), do these platforms not have similar harms to us older humans?
- dgfitz 5y ago
  Meta Health. Game. Set. Match.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  The stigma isn't from the words. Some of the contributors research child or adolescent psychology. Maybe all. And including adults would lose public support from people who think adults can look out for themselves. No one thinks children can and adults can't.
- aasasd 5y ago
  > If there is such a stigma with "mental health", why do people not use a different term for it, e.g., "emotional health"? That's called ‘euphemism treadmill’: newly invented euphemisms will soon be hijacked for pejorative use. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill (and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift) IMO this is a part of a more general process that many words shift meanings or are re-appropriated to describe emotional or political judgement. E.g. ‘autistic’ became trendy as an invective about ten years ago; and ‘awesome’ doesn't cut it anymore for clickbait, so different words are in vogue now—until they too become overused to death. Anyway, science and healthcare can't and shouldn't change its vocabulary every time fourteen-year-olds on Reddit decide they are done with one pejorative term and start stigmatizing another one.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    > That's called ‘euphemism treadmill’: newly invented euphemisms will soon be hijacked for pejorative use. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill (and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift) Ah, I wrote a paper on euphemisms in first and second languages when I was in college but hadn't heard about this before, I'm excited to check into it more, thank you! > Anyway, science and healthcare can't and shouldn't change its vocabulary every time fourteen-year-olds on Reddit decide they are done with one pejorative term and start stigmatizing another one. I agree that I don't want science to necessarily change its terms because a sub-cultural group decided it offended them; sometimes maybe, but not always, as having consistency of terms can make it easier to replicate research. I think the irony with the case "mental health" is that it used to be called "mental hygiene," so the term did change over time. I also think one of the aspects of science is trying to come up with new linguistic ways to parse the world—recategorizing things as more research is conducted. Maybe it's less getting rid of the term "mental health" but creating a new category that distinguishes from it. I think the challenge with the term "mental health" is less about a new stigma and more about the history of the term[0]: > The mental hygiene movement, in its origins and reflecting Beers’ experience in mental hospitals, was primarily and basically concerned with the improvement of the care of people with mental disorders. In Beers’ own words: “When the National Committee was organized, in 1909, its chief concern was to humanize the care of the insane: to eradicate the abuses, brutalities and neglect from which the mentally sick have traditionally suffered.” 4. > It was at a later stage that the Committee enlarged its program to include the “milder forms of mental disability” and a greater concern with preventive work. The rationale behind this shift was the belief that “mental disorders frequently have their beginnings in childhood and youth and that preventive measures are most effective in early life”, and that environmental conditions and modes of living produce mental ill health. I think the term "mental health" can carry that cultural history, of being used to treat the more extreme versions of mental health, not the more common, less severe occurrences. I also found this quote and wonder how much what the term covers has changed over time: > The First International Congress of Mental Health was organized in London by the British National Association for Mental Hygiene from 16 to 21 August, 1948...Only one concept of mental health was put forward, by J.C. Flugel, Chairman of the Conference’s Programme Committee: “Mental health is regarded as a condition which permits the optimal development, physical, intellectual and emotional, of the individual, so far as this is compatible with that of other individuals.” It almost seems as "mental health" was proposed to encompass physical, intellectual, and emotional development. Which may make sense if "mental" is defined as overarching, however, I imagine many today would see the "mental" as related to the brain. So while I think yes, sometimes we change terms because they've gained new stigma over time, I think this may be a case where it started with stigma. Maybe not. -- [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2408392/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2408392/
xwdv 5y ago
The irony is the more data Meta collects the more they can truly learn what it means to be a mentally fit and healthy human being.
deft 5y ago
He shouldn't be allowed to act on it. That's how we are in this mess. His ability to do any more damage should be immediately removed.
trhway 5y ago
That pleading to mighty Zuck is like traditional Russian pleading of plebs to tzar (these days to Putin). Why do we allow Zuck to affect child and the adolescent mental health in the first place? I mean it's your children, people. Do you ask tobacco companies CEOs or drug cartel leaders to spare your children? And I suppose comfortable oversight board positions should go to the activists researchers who organized the open letter.
shivaraj1996 5y ago
HOT TAKE: I think the parents are responsible for regulating the social media hours of their kids, not Mark Zuckerberg. Even If facebook changes, kids will find something else to hook onto, leading to more mental health problems.
- kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
  How effective are parents at regulation? I feel like at some point, it becomes hard, and kids will find ways to circumvent limits.
  - ldiracdelta 5y ago
    My kids aren't getting a smart phone and no screens except within sight of other members of the household. The house router shuts down internet during the night. Welcome to North Korea. I will win.
    - onion2k 5y ago
      That effectively deals with the problem of your kids accessing screens right now, but you have no idea what the impact of denying access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term. Maybe it'll work out and they'll develop a healthy relationship with tech, or maybe they'll be traumatized by that denial and be far more susceptible to screen addiction in later life because there's no one there to regulate it for them and they haven't had the opportunity to learn how to self-regulate. There's no way to know. This stuff hasn't been around long enough to study it properly.
      - blitzar 5y ago
        > you have no idea what the impact of denying access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term you have no idea what the impact of allowing access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term Its all a massive guessing game.
    - didibus 5y ago
gorgoiler 5y ago
Not their first PR stunt: I remember when Oxford Internet Institute gave Max Schrems some kind of fluff award back when he was starting out as a professional FB agitator. This whole letter reads as a somewhat patronising attempt to force FB into sharing their toys without offering anything in return. Once you go down the path of publicly shaming someone into working with you all hope for cordial collaboration must go out the window. Frankly, if OII want a slice of the company, shares are trading at $300 a pop right now. Not that I condone it, but shareholder activism feels like a more viable (and morally defensible) route. Bullying via PR fluff does not. Keep this up and the mob will be back to rattling pitchforks over Facebook harming kids by “refusing to add a Panic Button”. Perhaps that’s the goal — OII’s funding is proportional to the level of public anti FB sentiment? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/uk/8616980.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/uk/8616980.stm
arpa 5y ago
top comments are like: yeah, we're poisoning kids, but where's the profit if we stop. Guys, you're the baddies. Try invoking Godwins' law on your words.
- trentgreene 5y ago
  [flagged]
trentgreene 5y ago
Lukewarm take: It's hard to isolate FB as a major determiner in kids well being when its rise (and controversy) coincides with declining economic opportunities and massive political instability. Was Facebook the reason I was depressed as a teenager, or was it that my single mom was visibly living paycheck to paycheck? Hard to say.
- 202112061130 5y ago
  > Was Facebook the reason I was depressed as a teenager, or was it that my single mom was visibly living paycheck to paycheck? Probably, the collapse of nuclear family in western society and ultimately the sexual liberation. Personal circumstances aside, statistically speaking.
- trentgreene 5y ago
  Related: Does anyone know of any studies that actually isolates social media as harmful to well being? Time spent on social media is a poor indicator given that it could be valuable escapism. Like any comparison of kids who have _no_ exposure to social media, but share otherwise identical socio-economic situations?
  - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
    Do you mean besides Facebook’s own internal research that shows it’s harmful? It seems like their employees would know best, since they have access to the most data. https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is...
    - trentgreene 5y ago
      TBH, having worked in big companies, I don't really trust the quality of their research without really thinking through it myself -- is there a non-paywall version of that article that has specifics about what the data showed? More direct to your question: Not necessarily anything more than their research, but something that details what specifically their research shows and what those research methods were? FWIW: I did end up finding a nonpaywall version, and the research wasn't super reliable / great. They asked people specifically how instagram made them feel, which is subject to a lot of biases and not a solid objective indicator. I understand it may be the best we do, but that's not a great reason to trust it.
kingcharles 5y ago
Twist: All the kids already abandoned Facebook and Instagram.
- blitzar 5y ago
  Did Facebook ask them to write this letter so investors still think kids are on facebook? With the kicker that the only reason a kid would go on facebook would be if it was banned, as bad for you as drugs or otherwise made to look sexy and dangerous.
yosito 5y ago
Zuck don't give a fuck.
arthem 5y ago
Parents should be responsible for regulating the access they allow and time that their children spend on social media. There needs to be laws on how addictive social media can be intentionally made by companies. Furthermore I don't see any reason why any children <16 should be on or have access to Facebook, Twitter, etc... TLDR: Companies need to be prevented from making their applications excessivly addictive and parents need to parent their children more when it comes to social media.
dsign 5y ago
I think this malady of social media is (kind of) temporary. It is becoming a conduit for surveillance quite speedily. Let's give it a push. We should support our local legislators so that anything we don't like be surveilled and prosecuted via our mobile devices. That is, we should pass laws so that any electronics with a radio emitter is legally obligated to report any wrongful behavior of their user. And same for social media companies (there we are already half of the way, so it's just a matter of keeping the momentum). Law-enforcement would love this. And in twenty years, we will be back to having pulp magazines and paper books, marketed as being "silicon-free".
cyanydeez 5y ago
You are talking to the wrong people. The delusion of ethical corporations instead of ethical regulation is rediculuos. If you don't think the government can manage this problem, a corporation is even further into mismatched interests and agency.

144 points by mcguire 5y ago

Unrelated to the actual content, but in Russian is it normal to decline the last name of someone who is not Russian as they did at the beginning of the letter? "Открытое письмо господину Цукербергу"

YeBanKo 5y ago
The didn’t decline the last name. They omitted the first name. “господину Цукербергу” = “to Mr. Zuckerberg”, which is acceptable in English as well.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  If it's not being declined, why is there a "у" at the end of Цукербергу? It even matches the ending of господину, which -- without the у -- sure looks like the courtesy title "Gospodin". You're sure that's not a case marker?
  - filoleg 5y ago
    Russian "У" sounds the same as english "oo". And here, it is placed at the ends of both words as dative preposition, to indicate that it is "*to* Mr. Zuckerberg". If it was Putin instead of Zuckerberg, it would work just the same, "господину Путину". No difference at all, regardless of whether the last name is Russian or not.
    - stavros 5y ago
      And yet it's not in the dative case (ie declined)?
      - filoleg 5y ago
        It is declined. The point I was making is that it was declined not because it was a foreign last name. Swapping Zuckerberg for Putin in that sentence would decline Putin's last name in the exact same way.
        stavros 5y ago
        I see, thank you. As an aside, you would not decline the transliteration of a foreign name in Greek. They used to "Greekify" the names a century ago and decline them, but now that sounds extremely dated and odd.
        aasasd 5y ago
        In Russian, the amount to which words were assimilated has also changed depending on which foreign language was in vogue at the time, and to what extent. In the past, pronunciations of English borrowed words became closer to Russian standards. But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Afaiu it was the same in the past with French borrowings and then German ones (or perhaps in the reverse order)—kinda similar to English flirtings with French and Latin, but thankfully without such a mess in spelling. However, Цукерберг/Zuckerberg is quite natural for Russian due to being an obviously Jewish name. The first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, because that's how analogous Jewish names are pronounced here.
        stavros 5y ago
        > But now that English is trendy for the past thirty years after the USSR collapse—all the way to using branding in English on signage and advertising—often English pronunciation is almost unchanged, as much as it's possible. Now that you mention it, that's exactly what happened with Greek too. Branding used to be Greek, then sort-of-foreignified Greek (eg Greek words with a foreign suffix) and now just English. > first letter isn't even the voiced ‘z’ in Russian, but a ‘ts’, That's probably because of the German pronunciation, no?
  - anonymfus 5y ago
    Yes, the endings are case markers here. YeBanKo probably misunderstood your question.
  - YeBanKo 5y ago
    I misunderstood the question. I think the question is why both "господину" and "Цукербергу" are declined, given that "Цукербергу" has non-slavic origin. I think typically the rule is that only names of Slavic origin are declined along with generic name, such as "в город Минск", "в город Киев", "в город Москву". But the foreign names it is not, e.g. "в город Сан Франциско", "в город Сан Сиэтл". I think it definitely true for geographical names, and probably for last names as well. However, even for geographical names there many names that considered long assimilated, e.g. "в городе Санкт-Петербурге". I think the same true for a last name such as Цукербергу. There are plenty of people with Germanic last names, especially ending with -berg, -man, -baum, etc, so maybe it is considered assimilated enough that it follows rules for Slavic based names.
anonymfus 5y ago
Here and generally yes, but there are some exceptions, which are too complex to explain in a comment here.
aasasd 5y ago
Pretty sure you're asking whether the name shouldn't be in the nominative case instead. The answer is, basically any word is inflected in Russian, with some exceptions where the dative case can be identical to the nominative—and even such words can be quite naturally bent into the different cases, in casual speech. The ‘nationality’ of the name doesn't matter, though foreign names or words may initially not be assimilated in the language enough for the inflections to be established and accepted. One example of a case when the dative form would be the same as the nominative, is if the recipient was a Mrs. Zuckerberg, since this specific kind of the last name isn't inflected when it's of the feminine grammatical gender. There's also the dubious trend of avoiding inflection of brand names for any and all purposes—but that's just contrary to how Russian works, and is dictated instead by whims of marketing people who lack the sense for the language.
pvg 5y ago
The grammar applies whether the name is Russian or not with some edge-case exceptions that can roughly be described as 'when it sounds weird and/or like something else' i.e. they tend to be almost 'phonetic'. A name ending in -berg or the like, though, is a perfectly regular (for Russian) name that could just as easily be a Russian last name. An example off the top of my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ehrenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ehrenburg

lnxg33k1 5y ago

I think we're wasting time here, as much as I hate Jeff Bezos, during his "meeting" with Boris Johnson he said something that is I think relatable to the current situation, I quote: “that this is a job for governments. And tax isn’t something that he’s going to pay as an ex-gratia act of kindness. It’s up to governments to come up with the right framework.” (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/26/jeff-bezos-boris-johnson-new-york-jennifer-arcuri-amazon-tax https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/26/jeff-b...). We need to stop wasting time appealing to the human-side of billionaires, we need to stop talking to them and create regulations and punishments, to prevent them to exploit the population

version_five 5y ago
Agreed- an "adversarial" system is what makes strong policy. People / corporations will always try and exploit loopholes or flaws in regulation. When this happens, the regulation can get adapted to align with its actual objectives. Having flawed laws on the books an expecting actors to behave differently than the laws are written doesnt make any sense
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  It looks like recently our politicians have forgot that it's their duty to create regulations for the wellbeing of the society, or like they're acting like regulators with common populations and youth ministers with the rich
  - version_five 5y ago
    It's probably always been this way to some extent, bit with the concentration of power in tech companies and few others, it's optimal for people who want to get elected to focus on influencing the powerful and ignoring the masses. I think this effect has just gotten stronger recently.
  - fastball 5y ago
    Well, at least in the US, Congress hasn't been legislating for a while now. They handed over that responsibility to the Executive and Judicial branch a long time ago so that they don't have to deal with unhappy voters because it's always someone else's fault.

savant_penguin 5y ago

"Establish an independent oversight trust for child and adolescent mental health on Meta platforms" When I read that my impression is that what's actually being asked is :"give us power over the platform" The "independent fact checking" on YouTube does not seem to be going well. I see no reason to think that this would

smt88 5y ago
Oversight is never going to be perfect, but "independent" is still a positive step. Meta's profit motive will never, never be more important to them than the safety or happiness of their users. Even if you personally don't use Facebook or don't want to, we still all have to be around people who use it all the time.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
newbie789 5y ago
When I read "give us power over the platform" when that sentiment was in no way expressed in the text, my impression is “It’s important to express that I’m a contrarian because I’m so very smart”

golemiprague 5y ago

Why they go to this one specific company? what about tiktok? what about omegele? what about many other social networks. They should ask governments to regulate the field for everyone, not some specific company. I also got my doubt about this "science", social sciences are not really sciences, a lot of the research in those fields is not replicated or just based on asking people questions rather than actually observing behaviour. I don't understand how they claim as if there is some scientific truth that we have to follow when it comes to those issues, in most cases it is more assumptions, loose correlations mixed with ideologies and politics.

geoalchimista 5y ago

So, these scholars think Meta has more state capacity than NHS to act in this area and can work wonders that NHS cannot?

ChainOfFools 5y ago
Meta most significantly has funding state agencies can only dream of, and no responsibility or mandate to run its human experiments past an institutional review board
- seoaeu 5y ago
  There's only a couple dozen country governments that have more revenue than Facebook
ska 5y ago
How did you draw that conclusion?

temp8964 5y ago

I think for an open letter to be more credible, the signatories should list their title and position. Like the open letter from mathematicians and scientists https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13658 https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13658 Just put a university after your name means nothing. Do I need to search each of your name to know whether you are a scholar in the related field, or just simply a student studying in the university?

sackofmugs 5y ago
Absolutely, the point of listing a university is to show status and expertise. No one is going to listen to a bunch of people whose main accomplishment is getting accepted into Cornell and San Diego State. The prestige of those institutions come from the professors, doctors, scientists, researchers, who are pushing the state of the art, not the students doing homework.
thawSeh6s2p 5y ago
Does it invalidate the content if they're one but not the other? Why does it matter if they're professors, researchers or students? It's not like they're making profound statements or putting forward some bold crazy theory, they're asking for FB's internal stats to be validated published so it can be used for research.

temp8964 5y ago

Is Facebook as a platform really extremely unique? Should there be a call on Steam or XBox or PS to act on mental health science because so many (like millions) young kids play video games on them? And how about YouTube or traditional TV networks? Or is that because millions is not a sufficient number, and billions is the number to become what matters? For the purpose of scientific research, it is not a good argument to ask for the platform to cooperate with you. Researcher should develop their research methods totally independent of the subject.

saddlerustle 5y ago
Facebook is the only major platform that studied its impact on mental health, so it's the only one that can be punished for what they found.
- adolph 5y ago
  A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, "this is where the light is". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  Snap, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, [...] execs scrambling to lock or destroy their mental health research programs. I'm obviously not the only person saying this, and I don't want to brush Facebook and Instagram issues under the rug, but I fear the series of articles that arose from this whistle-blowing has created all sorts of twisted incentives for every player whose digital product can be abused. What's the upside of making such research looking into negative effects if, when leaked, (1) only the negatives is headlined and presented, (2) the positives are ignored and (3) no acknowledgment of the research existing in the first place is made? I'm conflicted myself writing this, especially #3 as it may (I'm not informed enough to have a strong opinion) be akin to historic examples of tobacco and petroleum industries ignoring their R&D, but #1 and #2 seem pretty clear. Why are these researchers not addressing the industry at large, if only as a bullet point/segment? It seems like scapegoating while these issues are widespread and no company/executive will position itself to be the next scapegoat in line to be ousted. Research on FB-Insta could be useful to expand to the rest of the industry, but why would they be inclined to respond to this piece where they are made out to be as the nefarious actor when it comes children's health?

quinnjh 5y ago

Literally nothing will change fir the better unless meta can profit off of positive mental health outcomes. Right now they profit from engagement. Engagement =/= good mental health Metas definition of good mental health =/= my definition If a depressed person who scrolls all day gets off and leads a better life how does that make meta money? Asking genuinely, as im sure some change oriented folks within meta are.

jimkleiber 5y ago
Makes me think about how other businesses have handled user addiction and whether they did so on their own volition—casinos, bars, lottery, etc. Just spit-balling: I think bars will kick people out once they've had too much to drink, sometimes from a legality standpoint, but also from a place of sympathy or even fear (this person will disrupt the environment). How would you say other businesses have handled this without government regulation?
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > Just spit-balling: I think bars will kick people out once they've had too much to drink, sometimes from a legality standpoint, but also from a place of sympathy or even fear (this person will disrupt the environment). There's heavy regulation, policing and liability here. Bars will cut people off and kick them out because if they let a person get tanked and they go hit someone with their car while drunk, that puts the business in jeopardy. Not only are there laws that make it a criminal offense, that's how a business loses its liquor license and gets held liable for potentially significant damages. My state has negligent serving of alcohol laws, and it also holds businesses responsible for any injuries, damages or deaths a drunk driver causes.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Ah, so maybe it's more about legal compliance than I had thought. Do bars still cut off people for any non-legal reasons? Trying to find if these establishments do anything to curb addiction even when not forced by outside regulators.

rkk3 5y ago

Isn't this the traditional corporate strategy for not taking responsibility? Have corps fund research and pretend to do something, while really just kicking up doubt about causality. Like the Tobacco, Energy and Food/Drink companies did... And it's not just Meta, you should really look at IOS & Android's culpability. Smartphones changed the game.

Spivak 5y ago
I mean what else can you really do? Mental health outcomes are a second order effect of FB’s stuff. Their actual relevant products are a microblog and a photo sharing site. And FB already has lots of content moderators trying to filter things like hate speech, bullying, and thinspo. What would you have them change? How do you know for sure your suggestion will work?
- rkk3 5y ago
  > I mean what else can you really do? Mental health outcomes are a second order effect of FB’s stuff. I don't think Mr. Zuckerberg can do much, besides pivoting to a new-flagship product which is what he might be trying to do with "Meta". With FB/IG they are just responding to demand in the market. Maybe there are low hanging ways to make it fundamentally better for mental health, but at a certain point that objective will clash with $ and who know's if it's what consumers want if given the option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_(cigarette) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_(cigarette) The government should probably step-in to research and regulate but its more systemic than just FB. Apple/Google don't get their fair share of the blame, they are selling Skinner Boxes as a service to all these companies. It's ridiculous you can't have more control of notifications. If I want to get a notification for a New Message, Tagged in a post or an update from Delivery driver... I have to also let these apps poke me whenever they want to try to get me addicted to their platforms.

joelbondurant 5y ago

In the holy name of the Science we pray

rce 5y ago

Do we really want for-profit companies more responsible for mental health on a day where one of the biggest stories is how a mental health company was cutting corners? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29480988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29480988

sebow 5y ago

How about no? Do we really need someone as deranged, corrupt, and irresponsible to get involved on this?I mean seriously, just because he has money/influence/power doesn't mean jack shit. If anything, Zuck would be stupid to response to this "open letter": he PROFITS from the fact that some people are mentally ill.What a joke.If you want people to be more stable mentally, you would tell them to f#ck off social media, socialize, eventually keep some traditions or norms within smaller groups which create stronger bonds, those are things that keep you sane.Oxford at this point repeatedly showed that they're a shit institution, and i have to wonder if there's any substance on this besides a PR move.

aasasd 5y ago

Feels kinda weird to mentally put myself in the position of Zuck the billionaire robot, but the letter does read like a counter-example from Dale Carnegie's books. The words ‘profit’ or ‘revenue’ aren't mentioned once—instead it's just ‘why don't you do this thing we want you to do’. Edit: I think it might even help to imagine a ‘comedy in characters’ of this situation: Previously in FB. — Zuck, they say FB is bad for the brain! — Well, how bad, if this is gonna blow in our faces? Several months later. — This bad. Zuck spins for some cycles, counting zeroes on the bank balance. — I can live with that. A bunch of researchers see that FB funds research. — Yo, we also can tell you in detail how bad it is! Give us some funding. Zuck: — ???

slg 5y ago
There is an underlying argument that one shouldn't put a price tag on the mental health of the world's children therefore "profit" and "revenue" shouldn't even be introduced into the conversation. If the Meta counterargument is anything along the lines of "that is too expensive", then they already lost any ethical standing they could have had on the issue.
- aasasd 5y ago
  Well, I think I can tell you exactly what FB's response to the letter will be. It's this:
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Do you want ethical grandstanding or do you want the letter you write to change anything?
  - slg 5y ago
    Why are those mutually exclusive? Ethical grandstanding can be a method to motivate change. To me it seems like a stronger argument than economics as those incentives are all currently pushing in the opposite direction.
    - 5y ago

jimkleiber 5y ago

Two questions come to my mind, slightly unrelated: 1) If there is such a stigma with "mental health", why do people not use a different term for it, e.g., "emotional health"? 2) Why do they only focus on the impacts these platforms have on children (younger humans), do these platforms not have similar harms to us older humans?

dgfitz 5y ago
Meta Health. Game. Set. Match.
pseudalopex 5y ago
The stigma isn't from the words. Some of the contributors research child or adolescent psychology. Maybe all. And including adults would lose public support from people who think adults can look out for themselves. No one thinks children can and adults can't.
aasasd 5y ago
> If there is such a stigma with "mental health", why do people not use a different term for it, e.g., "emotional health"? That's called ‘euphemism treadmill’: newly invented euphemisms will soon be hijacked for pejorative use. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill (and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift) IMO this is a part of a more general process that many words shift meanings or are re-appropriated to describe emotional or political judgement. E.g. ‘autistic’ became trendy as an invective about ten years ago; and ‘awesome’ doesn't cut it anymore for clickbait, so different words are in vogue now—until they too become overused to death. Anyway, science and healthcare can't and shouldn't change its vocabulary every time fourteen-year-olds on Reddit decide they are done with one pejorative term and start stigmatizing another one.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  > That's called ‘euphemism treadmill’: newly invented euphemisms will soon be hijacked for pejorative use. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill (and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphemism#Context_and_drift) Ah, I wrote a paper on euphemisms in first and second languages when I was in college but hadn't heard about this before, I'm excited to check into it more, thank you! > Anyway, science and healthcare can't and shouldn't change its vocabulary every time fourteen-year-olds on Reddit decide they are done with one pejorative term and start stigmatizing another one. I agree that I don't want science to necessarily change its terms because a sub-cultural group decided it offended them; sometimes maybe, but not always, as having consistency of terms can make it easier to replicate research. I think the irony with the case "mental health" is that it used to be called "mental hygiene," so the term did change over time. I also think one of the aspects of science is trying to come up with new linguistic ways to parse the world—recategorizing things as more research is conducted. Maybe it's less getting rid of the term "mental health" but creating a new category that distinguishes from it. I think the challenge with the term "mental health" is less about a new stigma and more about the history of the term[0]: > The mental hygiene movement, in its origins and reflecting Beers’ experience in mental hospitals, was primarily and basically concerned with the improvement of the care of people with mental disorders. In Beers’ own words: “When the National Committee was organized, in 1909, its chief concern was to humanize the care of the insane: to eradicate the abuses, brutalities and neglect from which the mentally sick have traditionally suffered.” 4. > It was at a later stage that the Committee enlarged its program to include the “milder forms of mental disability” and a greater concern with preventive work. The rationale behind this shift was the belief that “mental disorders frequently have their beginnings in childhood and youth and that preventive measures are most effective in early life”, and that environmental conditions and modes of living produce mental ill health. I think the term "mental health" can carry that cultural history, of being used to treat the more extreme versions of mental health, not the more common, less severe occurrences. I also found this quote and wonder how much what the term covers has changed over time: > The First International Congress of Mental Health was organized in London by the British National Association for Mental Hygiene from 16 to 21 August, 1948...Only one concept of mental health was put forward, by J.C. Flugel, Chairman of the Conference’s Programme Committee: “Mental health is regarded as a condition which permits the optimal development, physical, intellectual and emotional, of the individual, so far as this is compatible with that of other individuals.” It almost seems as "mental health" was proposed to encompass physical, intellectual, and emotional development. Which may make sense if "mental" is defined as overarching, however, I imagine many today would see the "mental" as related to the brain. So while I think yes, sometimes we change terms because they've gained new stigma over time, I think this may be a case where it started with stigma. Maybe not. -- [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2408392/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2408392/

xwdv 5y ago

The irony is the more data Meta collects the more they can truly learn what it means to be a mentally fit and healthy human being.

deft 5y ago

He shouldn't be allowed to act on it. That's how we are in this mess. His ability to do any more damage should be immediately removed.

trhway 5y ago

That pleading to mighty Zuck is like traditional Russian pleading of plebs to tzar (these days to Putin). Why do we allow Zuck to affect child and the adolescent mental health in the first place? I mean it's your children, people. Do you ask tobacco companies CEOs or drug cartel leaders to spare your children? And I suppose comfortable oversight board positions should go to the activists researchers who organized the open letter.

shivaraj1996 5y ago

HOT TAKE: I think the parents are responsible for regulating the social media hours of their kids, not Mark Zuckerberg. Even If facebook changes, kids will find something else to hook onto, leading to more mental health problems.

kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
How effective are parents at regulation? I feel like at some point, it becomes hard, and kids will find ways to circumvent limits.
- ldiracdelta 5y ago
  My kids aren't getting a smart phone and no screens except within sight of other members of the household. The house router shuts down internet during the night. Welcome to North Korea. I will win.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    That effectively deals with the problem of your kids accessing screens right now, but you have no idea what the impact of denying access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term. Maybe it'll work out and they'll develop a healthy relationship with tech, or maybe they'll be traumatized by that denial and be far more susceptible to screen addiction in later life because there's no one there to regulate it for them and they haven't had the opportunity to learn how to self-regulate. There's no way to know. This stuff hasn't been around long enough to study it properly.
    - blitzar 5y ago
      > you have no idea what the impact of denying access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term you have no idea what the impact of allowing access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term Its all a massive guessing game.
  - didibus 5y ago

gorgoiler 5y ago

Not their first PR stunt: I remember when Oxford Internet Institute gave Max Schrems some kind of fluff award back when he was starting out as a professional FB agitator. This whole letter reads as a somewhat patronising attempt to force FB into sharing their toys without offering anything in return. Once you go down the path of publicly shaming someone into working with you all hope for cordial collaboration must go out the window. Frankly, if OII want a slice of the company, shares are trading at $300 a pop right now. Not that I condone it, but shareholder activism feels like a more viable (and morally defensible) route. Bullying via PR fluff does not. Keep this up and the mob will be back to rattling pitchforks over Facebook harming kids by “refusing to add a Panic Button”. Perhaps that’s the goal — OII’s funding is proportional to the level of public anti FB sentiment? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/uk/8616980.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/uk/8616980.stm

arpa 5y ago

top comments are like: yeah, we're poisoning kids, but where's the profit if we stop. Guys, you're the baddies. Try invoking Godwins' law on your words.

trentgreene 5y ago
[flagged]

trentgreene 5y ago

Lukewarm take: It's hard to isolate FB as a major determiner in kids well being when its rise (and controversy) coincides with declining economic opportunities and massive political instability. Was Facebook the reason I was depressed as a teenager, or was it that my single mom was visibly living paycheck to paycheck? Hard to say.

202112061130 5y ago
> Was Facebook the reason I was depressed as a teenager, or was it that my single mom was visibly living paycheck to paycheck? Probably, the collapse of nuclear family in western society and ultimately the sexual liberation. Personal circumstances aside, statistically speaking.
trentgreene 5y ago
Related: Does anyone know of any studies that actually isolates social media as harmful to well being? Time spent on social media is a poor indicator given that it could be valuable escapism. Like any comparison of kids who have _no_ exposure to social media, but share otherwise identical socio-economic situations?
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  Do you mean besides Facebook’s own internal research that shows it’s harmful? It seems like their employees would know best, since they have access to the most data. https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girls-company-documents-show-11631620739 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is...
  - trentgreene 5y ago
    TBH, having worked in big companies, I don't really trust the quality of their research without really thinking through it myself -- is there a non-paywall version of that article that has specifics about what the data showed? More direct to your question: Not necessarily anything more than their research, but something that details what specifically their research shows and what those research methods were? FWIW: I did end up finding a nonpaywall version, and the research wasn't super reliable / great. They asked people specifically how instagram made them feel, which is subject to a lot of biases and not a solid objective indicator. I understand it may be the best we do, but that's not a great reason to trust it.

kingcharles 5y ago

Twist: All the kids already abandoned Facebook and Instagram.

blitzar 5y ago
Did Facebook ask them to write this letter so investors still think kids are on facebook? With the kicker that the only reason a kid would go on facebook would be if it was banned, as bad for you as drugs or otherwise made to look sexy and dangerous.

yosito 5y ago

Zuck don't give a fuck.

arthem 5y ago

Parents should be responsible for regulating the access they allow and time that their children spend on social media. There needs to be laws on how addictive social media can be intentionally made by companies. Furthermore I don't see any reason why any children <16 should be on or have access to Facebook, Twitter, etc... TLDR: Companies need to be prevented from making their applications excessivly addictive and parents need to parent their children more when it comes to social media.

dsign 5y ago

I think this malady of social media is (kind of) temporary. It is becoming a conduit for surveillance quite speedily. Let's give it a push. We should support our local legislators so that anything we don't like be surveilled and prosecuted via our mobile devices. That is, we should pass laws so that any electronics with a radio emitter is legally obligated to report any wrongful behavior of their user. And same for social media companies (there we are already half of the way, so it's just a matter of keeping the momentum). Law-enforcement would love this. And in twenty years, we will be back to having pulp magazines and paper books, marketed as being "silicon-free".

cyanydeez 5y ago

You are talking to the wrong people. The delusion of ethical corporations instead of ethical regulation is rediculuos. If you don't think the government can manage this problem, a corporation is even further into mismatched interests and agency.