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The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

(www.nber.org)
506 points imakwana | 3 comments | 21 Apr 25 04:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.414s | source
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perching_aix ◴[21 Apr 25 05:11 UTC] No.43748660[source]▶
> People who deactivated Facebook for the six weeks before the election reported a 0.060 standard deviation improvement in an index of happiness, depression, and anxiety, relative to controls who deactivated for just the first of those six weeks. People who deactivated Instagram for those six weeks reported a 0.041 standard deviation improvement relative to controls.

Can anyone translate? Random web search find suggests multiplying by 37 to get a percentage, which sounds very questionable, but even then these improvements seem negligible.

This doesn't really line up with my lived experience. Getting myself out of shitty platforms and community spaces improved my mental state significantly (although the damage that's been done remains).

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1. steventhedev ◴[21 Apr 25 05:46 UTC] No.43748786[source]▶
It means that there is a statistically significant improvement, but that improvement is tiny, and will not make you happier than your peers all by itself (assuming a standard peer group of 200 people - you'd likely swap places with 1 or 2 people).

Of course, this study only considered normative people, not marginalized or those who were experiencing active harm from exposure to social media - your personal results may vary and it's important to remember that science is imperfect and social sciences are doubly so.

If going off Facebook improves your life - you do you.

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2. steveBK123 ◴[21 Apr 25 06:38 UTC] No.43748996[source]▶
As far as I can tell, the algorithm can really harm people during times of mental illness/stress/anxiety. Part of it is that it is like a feedback loop.

When we lost our pet and my wife was very upset for a while, the algo kept showing her more and more content associated with pet loss. It got to the point that some random content pushed to her social media was upsetting her daily.

I can imagine someone experiencing depression, suicidal thoughts, etc can easily be pushed over the edge by the algorithmic feedback loop.

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3. perching_aix ◴[21 Apr 25 07:16 UTC] No.43749185[source]▶
In a way this perfectly captures my experiences too, despite my struggles revolving around a different topic, and sometimes it wouldn't even be algorithmically inflicted, but self-inflicted.

I'd keep coming across, and sometimes seeking out, threads with political content. But beyond that, I'd keep stumbling upon or even seeking out people who are being (in my view) inciteful or misleading. This would then piss me off, and I'd start to spiral. Naturally, these are not the kind of people who'd be posting in good faith, adding even more fuel to the fire when I engaged with them and their replies would eventually come about, which of course I'd "helpfully" get a notification for.