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

(www.nber.org)
506 points imakwana | 1 comments | 21 Apr 25 04:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.192s | source
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8s2ngy ◴[21 Apr 25 05:47 UTC] No.43748792[source]▶
I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can stay connected with my school friends, college friends, and distant family without having to see irrelevant posts, like some stupid remark from a politician halfway around the world or influencers doing something outrageous just for attention.
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1. d1sxeyes ◴[21 Apr 25 06:50 UTC] No.43749043[source]▶
The “like” button killed genuine engagement, and made Facebook an exercise in lever-pressing. The problem is that in a lot of cases (not all), those stupid remarks and outrageous influencers are being “liked” and “reposted” by your network in order to gather reflected glory and dopamine hits.

A social network is no better than the sum of its parts, and to create something really worthwhile, you have to limit what people are allowed to post (original content only, for example).

Doing that at scale I think is very hard.