Facebook Admits that Some Social Media Use Can Be Harmful (axios.com)

In a new installment of its "Hard Questions" series, Facebook acknowledged on Friday that social media can have negative effects on people, depending on how they use it. From a report: This might be the first public acknowledgment from the company that its product -- and category in general -- can have detrimental effects on people. Facebook is also addressing the topic shortly after two former executives publicly criticized the company for what they described as exploiting human psychology. Passive use of social media -- reading information without interacting with others -- makes people feel worse. Clicking on more links or "liking" more posts than the average user also leads to worse mental health, according to one study.

Comments

Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there

[TimothyHollins]

Do you remember that time when tobacco companies finally admitted that "incorrect" use of their products "might be" harmful "to some"? I'm starting to see many parallels between "social" media and smoking. For starters, both are predominant factors in a large cluster of diseases.

Re:Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there

[thePsychologist]

Social media is actually more like sugar than smoking. Humans evolved to like the taste of sugar because it represents a source of easily digestible calories and fiber in the form of fruit and of properly chewed carbohydrates.

Modern food processing has made sugar into something eaten in far larger quantities and in a far purer form than is good for people, and is now a prime factor in heart disease.

It's the same with social networking. Facebook and the internet have made socialisation into an entirely new form that counts on our gratification of traditional social interactions and refines it into something that is not really that healthy but widely used.