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

(www.nber.org)
506 points imakwana | 5 comments | 21 Apr 25 04:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.725s | 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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smelendez ◴[21 Apr 25 06:39 UTC] No.43748997[source]▶
This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back.

Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances.

Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into a hipper LinkedIn, where artists, musicians, and local businesses share career and business updates and advertise their wares.

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1. alistairSH ◴[21 Apr 25 11:48 UTC] No.43750840[source]▶
The problem with Insta as a “hip LinkedIn” is I can’t even browse it properly without an account. Say I find an interesting business elsewhere and Ggogle them; their primary web presence is Insta; I find their page, but cannot browse their photos/posts.

So, it’s a pretty shit tool for a business to share what it’s about.

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2. ethbr1 ◴[21 Apr 25 12:19 UTC] No.43751113[source]▶
I'd say that's a feature from Insta's perspective: leveraging user-created content into new user acquisition.

And all they have to do is be shitty about monetizing their existing userbase via social pressure.

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3. alistairSH ◴[21 Apr 25 12:56 UTC] No.43751476[source]▶
Oh yeah, Insta wants me to join. But I quit Meta last year because the algorithms suck donkey bollocks and drive me crazy. I'm much happier for it, but it is annoying to find a restaurant or craftsman who only uses Insta (or FB or whatever else).
4. TheOtherHobbes ◴[21 Apr 25 12:57 UTC] No.43751497[source]▶
For some reason Meta destroyed Insta as a monetisation tool. The algo used to be good for self-promo for artists and writers, and they tweaked it to kill that. Now it's useless.

There was a mass exodus to Threads, which is now a weird toxic liminal space apparently tuned for woke-adjacent rage bait blended with LinkedIn-for-creatives. "I have an opinion, now buy my fan art."

My take on all of these is that huge corporations are all polluters. We think of pollution as chemical and environmental, but Meta and X are the world's biggest sources of mental and emotional pollution - outside of the MSM.

5. dylan604 ◴[21 Apr 25 14:04 UTC] No.43752153[source]▶
If there's a link to an Insta page that I'm actually interested in, I turn on the devtools and hide their modal pop up about logging in. That allows me to continue to scroll the page. Then instead of clicking on the item of interest directly, I use the browser's copy link which I then paste into a new tab. This avoids their attempt at getting you to login again. They'll let you land on any post without throttling the number of direct loads. It's a total pain in the ass, so I only do it for the rare account that actually looks interesting. After a couple of posts, I quickly realize that the account isn't actually worth all of that, and just close and move on.