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Study: Social Networks Have Negative Effect On Individual Welfare
An anonymous reader writes: A study of 50,000 people in Italy has found the impact of social networking on individual welfare to be "significantly negative." The researchers found that improvements in self-reported well-being occurred when online networking led to face-to-face interactions, but this effect was overwhelmed by the perceived losses in well-being (PDF) generated by interaction strictly through social networks. The researchers "highlight the role of discrimination and hate speech on social media which they say play a significant role in trust and well-being. Better moderation could significantly improve the well-being of the people who use social networks, they conclude."
Bail! Bail!
I always thought social media like Facebook and Twitter made people narcissists or made their narcissism worse. People always looks online and compare their lives to others and become depressed.
People think I'm anti-social becoz I have no Facebook, Twitter, I don't text, etc. I don't use supermarket loyalty cards which are sold to companies like insurance companies, which then jack up your rates.
Nobody ever talks to anyone anymore. People don't learn to respect and value each other in the real world without face time in the real world. Trust me, as someone who never engages in conversation with people, I'm thoroughly convinced that all people are complete shit!
Moderation censors opinions contrary to the majority of the participants in a particular forum. This frustrates those who need to communicate critical points, which will produce an entirely new set of negative feelings and may even break the behavioral hooks that make social networking appealing.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Let me fix this for you ..."other people pretend to be happy"...
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
Seeing other people happy could potentially adversely effect someone that is clinically depressed .
This is the exact opposite of what the researchers concluded: That people are adversely affected by seeing other people that are angry and hateful.
Call me cynical, but I just don't see Facebook adopting a sane moderation system, like for example anything that approximates slashcode.
Their equivalent of "moderation" would better resemble censorship. They would simply hide the thoughts and comments they don't think you would like. Of course, it would be for your own good...
No, they mean moderation.
Censorship is the suppression of speech. For example: "You can't talk about Oranges, they are evil!"
Moderation is the regulation of speech: "You can talk about Oranges, just not here. Go over there to talk about Oranges."
Freedom of speech means you have the right to say what you want, But I have and equal right to throw you out of my house if I don't like what you have to say. You seem to want the right to force me to listen to you, and that's just as bad as any form of censorship.
Coward -- I get the feeling you're going somewhere interesting here, but the metaphor isn't quite working. Would you mind spoon feeding what you're getting at here, without putting on any kind of satire/parody of what I said? Are you saying moderation is equivalent to jail time? Freedom of speech equivalent to freedom to move about public space? Freedom of speech "invented" by someone? Too many things going on at once to make your point clearly, at least to me.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
... and I don't even use it.
This is fascinating. It's not the classic "people don't have social lives in the real world because they are on line too much" argument. The authors argue that following people who are "different" from you is bad for you. They write:
"Compared to face-to-face interactions, online networks allow users to silently observe the opinions and behaviors of an immensely wider share of their fellow citizens. The psychological literature has shown that most people tend to overestimate the extent to which their beliefs or opinions are typical of those of others. There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are âoenormalâ and that others also think the same way that they do. This cognitive bias leads to the perception of a consensus that does not exist, or a 'false consensus' (Gamba, 2013)."
"The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt afterwards; the more they used Facebook over two weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. The effects found by the authors were not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self-esteem, or depression, thus suggesting the existence of a direct link between SNSs' use and subjective well-being."
This is a new result, and needs confirmation. Are homogeneous societies happier ones? Should that be replicated on line? Should efforts be made in Facebook to keep people from having "different" friends?
If you haven't got a thick skin, get off the internet. People will disagree with you, contradict you, post things that make you uncomfortable or that you find downright revolting.
The world is not "your oyster." People who disagree with you and that you find disagreeable have every bit as much right to be there as you. And when you consider the fact that some people find your Bible quotes and homilies offensive (as do I), it soon becomes clear that it's impossible to please everyone.
If you only want to hang out with like-minded people, form a nice little coffee-clique of people and socialize instead of trying to find "happiness" on the 'net.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Self-moderation is one of those things that we've always had more of 20 or 30 years ago.