
Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us? - taylorbuley
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/hard-questions-is-spending-time-on-social-media-bad-for-us/
======
tboyd47
There's a picture emerging that syncs up a lot with something I've learned in
my real life interactions over the last few years.

When two people are interacting on a friendship basis, they should both be
talking a roughly equal amount.

For whatever reason, I noticed that I had made a lot of acquaintances where
our conversations are always the person essentially just giving me a long
monologue. These "friendships" really weren't friendships at all. I was
spending a lot of time with these people but they weren't really contributing
much to my life, nor vice versa.

I kind of figured out that I had somehow learned to be a really good listener
and not a talker in social situations, and that attracts a certain type of
person: people who like to talk. Those people aren't necessarily always great
friends for me. They might be, but in many cases, they might just be people
looking for someone to talk to.

So now I always make sure that when I'm hanging out with someone and having a
conversation, I talk about as much as they talk. Even if it's about something
pointless or irrelevant, I just do it. That's how I filter the people who find
me interesting or have things in common with me from people who just need
someone to talk to.

I suspect a lot of people have been having this same experience that I had,
only online, and the solution is probably the same.

~~~
watwut
It is not that simple. I had periods when I did not really wanted to talk and
strongly prefered when the other person talked more. I liked listening them
during those periods.

Conversely, when I was socially isolated long term, people listening to my
flood of monologue were God send.

It all depends on what whose needs are at the moment.

~~~
rhizome
It's not transactional like that. You know when you are with someone for whom
"listening" is just another word that means "waiting to talk again," or when
you're just a receiver for whatever they want to talk about.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Ah...transactions...that get's me thinking...someone needs to create a cryto-
coin for this ("listencoin"?) which you receive by listening and then can
spend to get other people to listen to you...

------
killjoywashere
I feel like I just read an article by a scientist working for Philip Morris.

> They found that stressed students were twice as likely to choose Facebook to
> make themselves feel better as compared with students who hadn’t been put
> under stress.

I need a dopamine hit. Where can I get a dopamine hit? Facebooooooook!

> we recently pledged $1 million toward research to better understand the
> relationship between media technologies, youth development and well-being.

$1M? Seriously? They'll spend that much on the bandwidth to Milwaukee. Today.
Just salary + benefits for these two people is probably close to $1M.

> We recently released suicide prevention support on Facebook Live and
> introduced artificial intelligence to detect suicidal posts

Dead users don't click.

> Facebook has always been about bringing people together

Um, no. The foundations of Facebook are "Wow, we can get rich shaming and and
objectifying people? For the cost of bandwidth? I'm in!"

> We employ social psychologists, social scientists and sociologists, and we
> collaborate with top scholars to better understand well-being and work to
> make Facebook a place that contributes in a positive way.

And tobacco employs microbiologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, I'll
bet they even employ some physicians (pulmonologists?). Oil employs organic
chemists, geologists, physicists, and scads of engineers. Who you employ tells
us what _kind_ of work you do, not why you do it.

Also, that video of a white guy with a beard? That's not David Ginsberg. I
can't imagine why they would pick a splash image of an old white guy with a
beard in front of a wall of books though... Oh, no, I can: they're
psychologists. They know how to borrow symbols to manipulate your impression
of the situation.

~~~
mr_spothawk
> Dead users don't click.

I wish this could be my mission statement.

~~~
sethrin
In the same vein as, "Charlie don't surf" ?

------
danra
Harder questions:

\- Is it bad for us that Facebook is aggressively monopolizing the social
media/interaction space by: * Abusing its data collection (including through
its purchase of Onavo) to eliminate/buy out competition * Storing our social
data in a closed garden with no easy way to migrate it out into a different
platform or even provide an API so that other social platforms can interact
with Facebook

thus limiting our options for exploring different options for online social
interaction?

\- Is profit taken into account in Facebook's feed algorithm, or is it just
our well-being (encouraging active social interaction, as the article
describes) that's being considered?

~~~
camillomiller
> Is profit taken into account in Facebook's feed algorithm, or is it just our
> well-being (encouraging active social interaction, as the article describes)
> that's being considered?

THIS. That's exactly why this "feel good" pseudoscientific bullshit Facebook
spits out from time to time sounds so disingenuous: they never take their
profit - which is their main motive - into account. Pathetic.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
^Exactly what I thought when I read this bit:

>We want Facebook to be a place for meaningful interactions with your friends
and family — enhancing your relationships offline, not detracting from them.
After all, that’s what Facebook has always been about.

~~~
rock_hard
It’s true though. I think the reason Facebook got so big is because it
connects you with your meat space friends as opposed to internet strangers!

Everything I do on FB is related to my real life friendships, activities,
events, etc.

~~~
mr_spothawk
I recently spent a day deleting every "friend" (600 or so) on facebook.

FB sometimes reminds me of that scene where John Coffee gets all teary eyed
about how the child-rapist-murderer used the little girl's love for eachother
against eachother.

the longer I stayed friends with those people, the longer I was doing them
harm by providing them engaging tidbits about my life, or liking their posts.
it's not just good for me not to use FB, it's bad for my friends to use it to
see me.

~~~
throwaway413
> _it’s not just good for me not to use FB, it’s bad for my friends to use it
> to see me._

Very well said. You just convinced me to deactivate.

------
navls
> "On the other hand, actively interacting with people — especially sharing
> messages, posts and comments with close friends and reminiscing about past
> interactions — is linked to improvements in well-being"

Seems sort of self serving that the solution is to generate more content for
facebook. The next article is going to conclude disabling ad blockers and
making microtransactions will finally make you happy.

~~~
bmcooley
Just because the presented solution serves facebook positively doesn't mean
it's bad in some way. It's good to be wary of the bias, but don't dismiss the
claim because of it.

~~~
denzil_correa
Here's more from the article

> Simply broadcasting status updates wasn’t enough; people had to interact
> one-on-one with others in their network.

------
ideonexus
I have to say, I'm surprised by this post and appreciate it. I think the
research presented explains a lot of the issues I've had with Facebook over
the last few months--when I hit a point where I didn't have anything to say,
but kept visiting the site's endless scroll and grew more dissatisfied with it
in the process. I even resorted to using StayFocusd to restrict the time I
could sink there each day.

I miss the days of the blogosphere. When I would write long, thoughtful well-
researched articles instead of throwaway one-liners and photos. I find the
experiment mentioned in the article enlightening, where people reviewed their
own profile pages versus those of others and the difference in "self-
affirmation" this caused. I recently went back and looked over my 10 years of
blogging and I got a huge self-worth boost that inspired me to start writing
again. Social media gets characterized as narcissistic, but it sounds like
maybe we should be paying more attention to ourselves and our accomplishments
for our own sense of self-worth.

~~~
drdeadringer
> throwaway one-liners and photos

Oddly enough, this is part of why I quit Facebook and moved to Twitter based
on how I personally communicate and consume others' communication.

~~~
rconti
That seems odd. It feels to me that Twitter is vastly more oriented towards
one-liners. Though different people use different mediums to different ends,
and I understand that.

------
ct0
Reminds me of the tobacco companies hiring doctors to disclose the benefits of
smoking.

~~~
jasonhong
I can understand people's criticisms that this analysis came from Facebook
itself.

I'd like to point out that one of the authors (Moira Burke) was a PhD student
in our department at Carnegie Mellon University (the Human Computer
Interaction Institute) and she did research of the highest caliber with a high
level of rigor and integrity.

She and her doctoral adviser (Robert Kraut) also published a very good peer-
reviewed paper in the Communications of the ACM entitled Internet Use and
Psychological Well-Being: Effects of Activity and Audience
([https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/12/194633-internet-
use-a...](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/12/194633-internet-use-and-
psychological-well-being/fulltext)) which summarizes about 20 years of
research in the area, and the post from Facebook echoes a lot of the same
themes. The Facebook post also mentions a lot of other very well-executed and
highly regarded scientific research in understanding how social media affects
us.

So I'd really like to ask folks to please differentiate between the science
side of the post (which I'd say is very good) from any of the associated
policy or business issues (which is fair game).

~~~
randomsearch
Being a good scientist at one moment does not make you immune to corruption at
another.

~~~
rhizome
Especially when you include being a PhD not bound to the salary of an academic
career.

------
ACow_Adonis
As the saying goes, it is hard to get a man to understand something when his
paycheck depends on him not understanding it.

Currently there are pros and cons to social media use, but I doubt we're going
to find them from this source.

It is not nice to call out people as shills for a particular industry, but
there's also a point of truthfulness in the conversation that is lost or
avoided when you do not do so.

This is a marketing peice by facebook who's only purpose is to market for
their product.

Apologies for my short response, but I feel that's the closest summary of the
article, when push comes to shove.

------
spicymaki
The answer to me is Yes!

The current Social Media business model is to push us to extremes to lure us
into staying on their site. This is great for profits, bad for society.

The irony was that Social Media was supposed to bring us together, now we
could not be further apart from each other.

~~~
CMay
I think that meaningful communication brings people together, but many people
default away from meaningful communication for a number of reasons.

If you are broadcasting your communication to a group rather than having a
one-on-one conversation, that communication is likely to become more
impersonal. Being able to efficiently communicate with the family as a group
is one of the things that makes something like Facebook seem worthwhile, but
if you engage less with family members one-on-one as a result then you may
water down the relationships.

If the method of communication is frustrating to you in some way, you may be
less likely to fully invest yourself into the communication. You're on a
phonecall and you could multitask, but you're having to hold the phone.
Someone posts a message of substance that you have a lot of thoughts about,
but you've always been bad at typing. You're good at typing, but you've never
been great at expressing yourself in writing, etc.

With Facebook not everyone has the choice or convenience of communicating in
the way that is most comfortable to them or best captures their personality,
yet they may use it anyway. They might use Facebook for the efficiency of the
many rather than best expressing themselves.

Sometimes there are workarounds, like recording your voice, a video or taking
a photo of an event that may truly capture you. There are times where these
work really well and are great communication, but many people aren't
professionals at this and you get these staged or dry communications that
don't come across as natural. A photo of someone standing there and smiling? A
video of people that all know they're being recorded?

Just like when a performance feels off in a movie, something can feel off
about all communication on Facebook.

To make matters worse, Facebook is not a private place. It is not a safe
place. It is not the warmth of a home or the mistrusted ethereal privacy of a
phonecall. Google, Facebook and others have repeatedly been in the news and
featured in private conversations between people about how safe their
information is online. Many people filter themselves online when it's attached
to their identity and we are talking about identified relationships rather
than anonymous users here.

Cell phones are terrible communication devices that are so convenient that
it's respectful of people's time to have worse communication with them by
using it. Voice quality we should be ashamed of in 2017 and text messaging
where characters take so long to input that messages with real substance are
rare is a sad reality.

These services and devices are better in addition to personal contact rather
than as a replacement, but many people are slowly tricked into feeling that
going through the effort of meeting in person is now very inefficient. There's
that nagging idea in the back of the mind that, well if you're going to go
through that trouble you could just Skype or Facetime, but of course you don't
for some reason you find hard to define.

An exception is parties or gatherings. That feels efficient, because enough
people will be present that you would feel left out or it would be
disrespectful not to go due to some special occasion. Unfortunately, it can be
harder to have quality one-on-one time at parties. Maybe you want to say
things to someone, but you don't want it to be overheard. Maybe the party is
too loud, so it's not a good environment for a good conversation.

When you watch a movie with someone, you might have seen them pull out their
tablet or their phone and suddenly the movie feels less meaningful. Part of
the idea of watching that movie with them, was that it was an experience you
were sharing. Every second was something you had in common, but now it is
fractured. Part of you is glad, that if they aren't enjoying the movie then
they have a quiet alternative. Another part of you is annoyed that surely they
know it's rude or distracting, but they did it anyway.

Facebook seems like that, to me. A fractured experience that you accept for
convenience or politeness, but also a party where one-on-one interactions just
seem hindered.

Every time I see a company anywhere integrate Facebook into their product or
service, I feel like it is rude. Whether it is Blizzard's Battle.net client
curiously adding Facebook streaming or a simple like button on a website,
these integrations aren't trying to enrich my life. It's about business and
it's about efficiency. This infection is not Facebook's fault. It's not the
fault of cell phones. It's a natural evolution of technology that has
unfortunate consequences.

Just as corporations try to optimize for their bottom line and often lose part
of their magic along the way, we will naturally optimize our own time for the
most impact if provided the easy choice. Cell phones and social networks have
given us tools to do just that which has had tremendous benefits, but many
people forget that some magic was lost along the way too.

I'm not saying Facebook is all bad and it might be the only option for some
people, so there's something to be said for that. It also helps a lot of
people meet or coordinate with eachother that might not otherwise. I just
don't like that it has become this social catch-all that can be also very
effective at unintentionally suppressing other more valuable forms of
communication.

------
camillomiller
> The good: On the other hand, actively interacting with people — especially
> sharing messages, posts and comments with close friends and reminiscing
> about past interactions — is linked to improvements in well-being. This
> ability to connect with relatives, classmates, and colleagues is what drew
> many of us to Facebook in the first place, and it’s no surprise that staying
> in touch with these friends and loved ones brings us joy and strengthens our
> sense of community.

SERIOUSLY? Such a surprise that engagement, which incidentally is what's most
valuable for Facebook's data collection and monetization efforts, is good for
you! How are these people hoping to be taken seriously on a scientific level?

This is a level of corporate bullshit and denial I've hardly seen before. Wow.

~~~
davidcbc
Dismissing it simply because it is Facebook isn't really helpful. The article
linked to several independent studies to back up their claims.

It also doesn't just say engagement is the answer, people clicking on
clickbait are engaged but the article calls that out as bad engagement despite
the fact that clickbait is incredibly profitable for Facebook.

The interesting part of the article is that it actually calls out some of the
biggest problems with how people interact with Facebook. It shouldn't all be
taken at face value but it is an interesting well documented article.

~~~
camillomiller
Spending precious time reading corporate propaganda disguised as objective
scientific evaluation is also not helping.

The truth is that Facebook has exploited something in our human psychology
that was never available before. It fucks up with our heads in a way we can't
even recognize because we don't really have "bad mental state" receptors wired
in.

I want to be lenient on Zuckerberg and his fellows: they created a Leviathan
that started making more money they could ever imagine. Now they're captive in
a system that for no reason whatsoever would let them scale back such
monstrosity. It's not on them anymore.

------
simonebrunozzi
This is dumb.

Facebook should grant $10M to a neutral third party - a research facility -
and let them conduct an unbiased study on the effect of social media. Then
report the results no matter what.

It will never happen, for two reasons.

1) Facebook should well know that social media is bad for us (how much bad,
I'm not sure), and therefore would never fund anything like this.

2) Even if an anonymous Bitcoin millionaire funds the research, it's hard to
find a research institute / entity / team that would gladly take some money,
only to know that any chance of receiving future grants from
FB/Google/Microsoft/Amazon just went to zero.

I think these two FB researchers are well intentioned. But I would never trust
anything like this.

~~~
ProAm
Good and evil is always relative to ones position.

This is a PR response to former FB employees posting/blogging in recent weeks
that FB is bad and they wished they had not done what they did.[1] This is
strictly a counter PR move FB had to make.

[1] [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chamath-palihapitiya-former-
fac...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chamath-palihapitiya-former-facebook-
executive-social-media-ripping-apart-society/)

~~~
tgragnato
A minimization of the issue through relativism, lack of objectivity
(perpetrated through the omission of the most relevant details) is certainly
what Facebook hopes.

> This is a PR response [...]

There comes a time when there is a need for change, words only serve as a mean
to manufacture consent.

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)

A fallacious consensus is not what the community needs, nor is in Facebook
long term interest.

------
nautilus12
Oh passively reading facebook is not good for you but posting and adding more
data to your ecosystem and furthering your algorithms is? You dont say? Oh and
buying things from targeted ads is good for you too? Wow i didnt even
know...thank you facebook, you clearly have my back.

Seriously how gullible do they think we are?

------
andars
My understanding of the article:

When people use Facebook in ways that reproduce interactions through
technology that existed before Facebook, the results are positive (e.g. texts
between close friends, IMs, emails, etc). When people use the core features
that social media introduced, the results are negative (e.g. status updates to
your 1000+ "friends", "likes", etc).

Is this an accurate summary of the findings discussed in the article?

------
capkutay
This isn't a trick question. Staring at a screen consuming mindless
content...whether its from entertainment companies or your friends...is bad.
Bad compared to exercising, studying, taking a walk, being out with friends.

Is it worse than being stuck on the couch watching TV? I'm sure you can argue
both ways, but I would say its about the same.

~~~
whiddershins
I feel that I take tv less personally.

------
pesenti
Oh the irony of this thread.... Here is a social media site (Hackers News)
that prides itself in being different because its comments are much more
informed and knowledgeable, criticizing the leading social media site
(Facebook) for putting out an informed and knowledgeable self reflection on
its own value with a bunch of opinionated comments without any supportive
evidence.

So the better question for this crowd should be: is Hacker News any better
than Facebook?

~~~
ravenstine
They're not even comparable beyond having a comment system. As stated by
others, Hacker News doesn't have a team of psychologists working to addict you
to its content so they can then gradually replace that content with ads.

Hacker News doesn't have corporate tentacles in mass marketing, VR, photo
blogging, viral videos, breaking news, dining(facebook.com/orderfood), self-
driving cars, etc.

Hacker News doesn't punish you for using a pseudonym.

Hacker News doesn't sort content into a "personalized" feed based on how
popular it predicts the content will be.

Hacker News doesn't cheapen human interaction by reminding you to say "Happy
Birthday" to people you hardly know.

Hacker News doesn't host everyone's entire life stories, and thereby doesn't
take away reasons to just talk to others. In other words, it doesn't tell you
more than you need to know about other people.

Not to be a sycophant, but yes, we are better than what most people think of
as social media(Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) That isn't because we
pride ourselves in being smarter, which I'm not claiming.

~~~
dTal
> As stated by others, Hacker News doesn't have a team of psychologists
> working to addict you to its content so they can then gradually replace that
> content with ads.

I dunno, this feels like more of a difference in degree than in kind. HN does
have secret content-ranking algorithms (that are clearly optimised for
engagement in some capacity - don't tell me it's not addictive!) and opaque
moderation. Periodically, hiring "ads" for Ycombinator-funded companies appear
mixed in - indeed, in a sense the entire site is an advertisement for
Ycombinator.

And it _does_ punish you for using a pseudonym, after a fashion - new accounts
are flagged green, and comments are ranked not just by vote but by the _user
's accumulated karma_. So there is an incentive to have just one "main
account", which naturally compromises anonymity in the long run, effectively
by "hosting their life stories" (you can extract a lot, I imagine, from years
of HN postings). Nor can you delete content, unlike Facebook I might add, and
also unlike Facebook it's publically hosted forever. In real terms, HN is more
hostile to user privacy - it's just more transparent about it.

~~~
grzm
Anonymity and pseudonymity, while similar, are not the same. The mods have
been clear that one goal of HN is community, which is really only possible
when people have some identity, even a pseudonymous one, to maintain
continuity. So, while you’re right that having a single, pseudonymous account
compromises anonymity, that anonymity isn’t a goal.

Also, without knowing the voting on comments, how can you confirm that comment
ranking is based on a member’s accumulated karma? From my observations,
comments are primarily ranked by their votes and when they were made. One
might see that higher karma members have more comments that are higher ranked
(though I’d like to have numbers to back that up), but a reasonable
explanation (also unprovable without some crunching) is that (a) higher karma
members contribute better comments on average, (b) are more visible and more
popular, and/or (c) comment more on average. All three of these would
contribute to seeing higher karma members’ comments higher ranked: there are
more of them so you’re more likely to see them, and they’ll on average get
more votes due to quality and/or popularity, so they’ll be higher ranked.

I’d like you to expand on what you mean by “[content-ranking algorithms]
clearly optimized for engagement in some capacity.” Again, what do you see
that isn’t explained by member votes, flags, and/or moderator action (as
described in the FAQ)? “Algorithm” implies there’s some automated process
going on. I don’t see behavior that necessitates such an algorithm.

That said, there _is_ an algorithm that affects ranking: the overheated
discussion detector. That pushes _down_ ranking. One could argue that this is
an example where they’re penalizing engagement, rather than optimizing for it.

------
rad_gruchalski
Signed out from facebook a few days ago. Did not even have a single temptation
to sign back in. Amazing what simply signing out can achieve. So far, it feels
like facebook was a massive waste of time.

The question isn't "if spending time is good or bad". The question is "is it
needed for one or not". You know, like that choc bar one just grabs at the
till right before paying for shopping or paying for the gasoline. I never had
any satisfaction from it to begin with, mindless content consumption,
sometimes leading to spending hours on youtube sucked in by someone posting
something "interesting".

[http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5898a9203149a12d008...](http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5898a9203149a12d008b5671-1200/cb04noeweaem7d.jpg)
Thanks, but no.

Another aspect is, the views presented by the people on my timeline most often
simply aggravated me. Once I unfollowed those people, all that was left was
just brands and channels serving content I can live without.

------
briankelly
Timing of this makes me wonder if someone there read that other thread with
the "Facebook Free February" idea people were kicking around. No doubt there
are plenty of FBers here and if that idea gained enough traction it could do
some nontrivial damage to their bottom line. Granted - probably had to be in
the works ahead of time.

~~~
harryf
Interesting indeed that they published this. Someone spent quite a bit of time
making this; animated videos, interviews and it looks like multiple
departments involved (research, marketing). Does seem like the current level
anti-Facebook discussion in the press is worrying them enough to make this.

------
yoran
> That’s why we recently pledged $1 million toward research to better
> understand the relationship between media technologies, youth development
> and well-being.

Funny that they do their research _after_ they launched Messenger Kids. I
would expect someone with good intentions to have swapped the order on that
one.

------
gatsby
“Social media: not that bad!” -Facebook

------
neves
Now I'll get dietary recommendations from Kraft and Coca Cola.

------
hsrada
I appreciate that they're making an effort at looking into it. However, my
newsfeed will still remain blocked/removed until I have more control over what
I can see. The snooze functionality is a step in the right direction.

~~~
ct0
How are you blocking the news feed?

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
There are browser add-ons.

------
sverige
This article reminds me of the scientific articles on the health benefits of
smoking. Big tobacco had to pay to place the articles where they were
guaranteed to get lots of eyeballs, though.

------
johnwheeler
This is damage control masquerading as concern over the comments Chamath
Palihapitiya made about how facebook is ruining society.

Anyone who has a significant other or kids addicted to facebook knows it
monopolizes attention and affects relationships negatively.

------
bogomipz
>"We’re working to make Facebook more about social interaction and less about
spending time."

Except its not actually a "social interaction", its a "social media
interaction." FB seems to willfully conflate the two.

This was an interesting study that showed that people do in fact differentiate
between a "social interaction" and a "social media interaction"

[https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/21340/Ha...](https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/21340/Hall_2016_NewMedia.pdf)

~~~
tgragnato
The paper you're quoting seems very insightful, even if I do not consider it
an authoritative source, it seemed balanced and sensible.

For "TL;DR" folks, you can scroll at page 24

> Without a more careful theoretical foundation explaining why social media
> affects users, research risks comparing behaviors that are simply not
> equivalent. Passively browsing information on Facebook is simply not
> comparable to having a conversation, theoretically or from the perspective
> of users themselves.

People in
[[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14213868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14213868)]
(Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone) dismissed Durov's action as a marketing
move (it is, but NOT ONLY).

After reading the piece I immediately thought about his words

> Everyone a person needs has long been on messengers. It's pointless and
> time-consuming to maintain increasingly obsolete friend lists on public
> networks. Reading other people's news is brain clutter. To clear out room
> for the new, one shouldn't fear getting rid of old baggage.

The "new FB" is as unsuitable to some kind of people as the "old one".

------
gthtjtkt
Facebook is going to tell us if Facebook is bad for us?

Neat, next we should ask Comcast if Net Neutrality is good for us. Oh wait...

------
brickmort
"Is Facebook Bad?" By Facebook

------
pat_space
The concept of a news feed is the worst. I stopped using instagram when they
switched their algorithim from most recent to AI-curated (or whatever it is).
I unfollowed everything on Facebook so my news feed is empty. I still use FB
groups, Hacker News, and Subreddits as they seem to have replaced forums for
many of my interests. I still use Snapchat to communicate with close friends.

------
bonsai80
Obviously someone saying "This thing I profit from you doing is not bad!" is
not credible, but the fact that they even had to say this is progress. I think
the takeaway here is to hold people/companies accountable and they have to
start paying attention to what they're doing. Good stuff.

------
JoshMnem
The cognitive dissonance over at Facebook must be immense. The idea that the
solution is to post more things on Facebook is absurd, considering that it's
how they snare users.

I know many people who interact with other users non-stop -- they are
addicted, and it's totally a waste of their time.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
The fundamental question regarding the article is: Can these scientists afford
to be honest? Can you do research that shows spending time on FB is bad for
people and be allowed to publish this information?

On a superficial level, they seem to be honest. They start with the bad news,
admitting that using FB the way many (most?) do makes them feel bad. But they
counteract it immediately saying if you interact with others, you'll feel more
happy.

You can overlook one critical difference. What FB makes you feel and whether
FB is good for you are two different issues that may or may not be related.
You may feel negative emotions when going to a doctor but it's still good for
you. You can engage in endless chat online, but is it good for you? It's much
harder to answer.

------
agumonkey
Something this decade told me. Everything has limits, even casual "tech" like
social networking and internet. To each his own but remember to be curious
about subtle changes.

------
CodeWriter23
Leave it to some industry-paid “scientists” to present an industry-favoring
article. So glad to know the FB-induced dopamine addiction I weaned myself off
of was all my fault.

------
fpisfun
Unequivocally the answer is yes

------
659087
I'm sure this Facebook propaganda will give us an unbiased and honest point of
view on this!

> "In this post, we want to give you some insights into how the research team
> at Facebook works with our product teams to incorporate well-being
> principles"

This must be why they perform unconsented-to psychological studies to see if
they can make hundreds of thousands of users more depressed.

------
benatkin
I wonder if as long as most of a team has distractions like facebook and
Hacker News turned up full blast, having Slack distract them is probably
actually a good thing, if their jobs are more useful than social media and
news. Sucks for the few in the team who have their social media and news
habits under control, though.

------
amelius
Why isn't there AI/ML yet that can determine what kind of posts make me sad? I
would have expected a "dislike" button by now that doesn't necessarily publish
one's dislike, but instead trains the social media software what (not) to
show.

~~~
systoll
Facebook has 'Hide Post: show fewer posts like this' in the menu associated
with each post.

------
audiolion
Facebook is a technology built to facilitate social interaction. When problems
arise, Facebook naturally finds technological solutions to solve these
problems. Perhaps the underlying cause is the technology. We did manage for
many many many years without it.

------
moneytide1
Natural social interaction means transmitting specific information that is
relevant to all parties. You have limited time to interact, therefore you
condense.

Social media has no such regulation, there is no longer a filter.

We won't need facial muscles or body language anymore.

How awesome.

------
natural219
What a huge joke.

------
stanislavb
"Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us?" \- YES. Dot.

------
RHSman2
Is spending time on social media reading about social media being bad for you,
bad for you?

------
squarefoot
They're bad even for those who refuse to use them, like when the neighbor
rings you at 7:30 in the morning because his "facebook stopped working" and
you got to bed at 3:00 after fighting with a customer windows PC.

------
realworldview
It’s unfortunate that I’m clearly biased when I read the title and source, and
William Morris immediately comes to mind. I sincerely wish them well with this
and I’ll hold-off making rash, ill-considered and abrupt judgements.

------
leggomylibro
Huh, the rare case where Betteridge's Law of Headlines doesn't apply.

The focus on tiny incremental changes is not surprising from Facebook. Great,
you made a tool for people to avoid their ex's, but that doesn't fix the core
conceit of your service.

~~~
jfoutz
Pr statement vs reporting. News needs the clickbait headline. An official
corporate statement can be fully aligned.

------
chmln
Unrelated: the font chosen for the article body is way too thin to read
comfortably. I've noticed this trend over the past few years and it makes for
appalling UX.

------
kruhft
No.

------
DoodleBuggy
Yes.

------
katastic
As long as you realize: " _Social media isn 't socializing._"

\--Sebastian Junger (Anthropologist, journalist, documentary filmmaker)

Joe Rogan's podcast with him:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ZieLlKXYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ZieLlKXYs)

~~~
yesenadam
A _deepity_ is “a proposition that seems both important and true—and
profound—but that achieves this effect by being ambiguous.”

[http://www.openculture.com/2013/05/philosopher_daniel_dennet...](http://www.openculture.com/2013/05/philosopher_daniel_dennett_presents_seven_tools_for_critical_thinking.html)

------
junkscience2017
Is Smoking Bad for Us? (marlboro.com)

------
basic-gongfu
I find it encouraging that they are getting desperate enough to produce crap
like this.

Farewell Zucker, make sure you don't stumble over Myspace on your way out.

~~~
dang
Please don't post like this to HN. You may not owe better to "Zucker" but it
damages the container here, which we all need to be stronger not weaker.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

~~~
basic-gongfu
Isn't that his name?

Who are you anyways? The saint of corporate assholes? Any time anyone says
anything less than positive about anyone with a pile of money, you're always
first in line to defend them and shoot down the discussion.

Good luck dealing with that karma moving forward...

