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

Posted by msmash on from the too-little-too-late dept.

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.

9 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there by TimothyHollins · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there by lucasnate1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A big part of facebook usage is following people's lives and friendship graphs. On slashdot people barely post about their lives and I have rarely seen people using friend/foe. While I do agree that commenting on slashdot is a social online activity, I think it is different from the activities I mentioned before.

      Note: I also have a facebook account which I use too much.

      --
      Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
    2. Re:Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Funny

      On slashdot people barely post about their lives

      . . . could be because Slashdot folks don't have any lives to post about.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there by thePsychologist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
    4. Re:Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there by smallfries · · Score: 2

      Social media is based around a tailored user experience. An algorithm picking things that the user will find most interesting. They function as Skinner boxes - open the tab and maybe there is a jolt of dopamine wrapped up in something the user has a personal connection with.

      We have slashdot editors keeping us safe from that experience.

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
    5. Re:Social smoking? Smoking media? Something there by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Of course it is. You saw many of the same phenomena played out on USENET that you're seeing today on twitter or facebook.

      I don't remember usenet tailoring what information I could or couldn't see, or people posting every 1.83 seconds that they're now finishing a piece of cake. I remember specific help groups that had detailed information, but compared to social media it's nowhere near the same. On top of that, usenet has never really had someone standing over your shoulder telling you "if your opinions aren't right, we're gonna ban you."

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  2. FB says that? There's a hint for you... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 2

    If the Pope himself admitted some church attendance can be harmful, you'd definitely know the whole Catholic faith would be bad to the core.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. Slashdot by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

    Clicking on more links or "liking" more posts than the average user also leads to worse mental health, according to one study.

    Slashdot Moderation Considered Harmful!

    I wrote the clickbait headline. Pay me!

  4. Let's just admit it: it's just plain bad by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Arguments that so-called 'social media' keeps people in touch with each other who are geographically too far apart to interact in person fall flat so far as I'm concerned; there's written letters, there's email, there's phone calls, there's skype, there's all sorts of ways for people who are motivated to keep in touch with each other. Otherwise 'social media' just seems to bring out the worst in people, because you're not saying anything to someones face, you're just typing on a keyboard. I've been around since the dialup BBS days and it wasn't fundamentally different with that than it is with 'social media' over the internet, but the overall effect it has on people is literally orders of magnitude worse because of the number of people involved simultaneously. Too many people on various incarnations of 'social media' over the last 20 years who are there for attention-whoring (Look at me, look at me! Pay attention to me!) or just plain running their mouths, with little or no consequences because they aren't having to face the people they're talking to or about. Worse, 'social media' on a massive scale (like Facebook and Twitter) seem to be creating an entire generation of people who will grow to adulthood with poor (or non-existent) social skills, becoming socially avoidant, because so-called 'social media' gives them an excuse to stay away from actual people instead of interacting with them in person in a healthy way. Bottom line: I think 'social media' is a cancer on our collective societies and I wish it would just go away. I can't see any way you could change it to make it healthy.