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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: 0.82s | 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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xyzal ◴[21 Apr 25 06:35 UTC] No.43748985[source]▶
I think the EU should flex their regulatory muscle and forbid algorithmic feeds on by default unless the networks break european society as the US is broken.
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madaxe_again ◴[21 Apr 25 07:18 UTC] No.43749196[source]▶
I don’t know how much of a difference it would make, as then we just become the algorithm.

I quit Facebook over a decade ago, because others used it to go “look at my shiny car/wife/house”, and I would use it to lose friends and alienate people.

These online environments do not foster any kind of human connection.

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ay ◴[21 Apr 25 07:38 UTC] No.43749286[source]▶
Blue sky allows you to have many different kinds of feeds and I can say the difference in adrenaline level and mood is palpable depending on the feed I use.

News items - frustration at the state the world is in.

Urban bicycle feed: annoyance at the atrocities of the inept drivers.

Feed with cycle side trip pictures: fun.

Rust projects, Electronics: the curiosity of learning.

Also: Bluesky has an absolutely amazing feature which is you can subscribe to someone else’s block lists. That changes the experience quite a lot, to the better.

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exceptione ◴[21 Apr 25 14:24 UTC] No.43752368[source]▶
* Bluesky is from the same people that launched Twitter and, optics aside, just the same ideology. There is no real deep divide on values. It is about locking up people in echo chambers, information filtering and ultimately ripping out people's ability to organize around a common good.

There is only one danger for the 0.1%. The 99,9%.

* The people that got disturbed by Twitter's boosting of extremists and nazis, now took refuge to bsky. Only to get ripe for the next iteration. But see how many people are still on X, increasingly less aware of the abnormality they are drowning in.

This playbook of cultural engineering should be super clear by now. Ad tech => Private Intelligence.

* How to sell it? Invest in narratives that bend the notion of free trade in order to instill rigid beliefs about Free Markets. Now look at the free markets. :) It only takes you a few million bucks and a dinner to set your company free.

Like parent hinted at, "social media" means the opposite for society.

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1. ay ◴[21 Apr 25 21:56 UTC] No.43756946[source]▶
I can not argue about the values of people I do not know personally. I only said that the tool they made seems to be okay in my experience, which I shared.

“Free markets” is an uneducated nonsense. An entirely unregulated market evolves into monopoly. Even without corruption.

Social media for me is just a tool (HN is also social media btw). I find it useful and it meaningfully interacts with the other aspects of my life. When it stops being the case (eg facebook and twitter) - I leave it behind.

As for the hierarchy: it had always existed and for better or worse the humans and other animals are wired for it. Likewise, they are wired for maintaining the total perceived fairness of the system - so the system eventually autocorrects the extreme imbalance. Often brutally, though.

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2. exceptione ◴[22 Apr 25 16:03 UTC] No.43763690[source]▶
> I only said that the tool they made seems to be okay in my experience,

I could understand that! I wanted to make a general comment, to warn people that although things feel fine now, they should imho pay caution to what these things devolve into. There doesn't even need to be any particular evil scheming from people involved. We usually focus on tech solutions. While blindness to cultural forces is generally what leads us into problems. It is a self-feedback loop in which societal fracturing and extremism is fostered.

> When it stops being the case (eg facebook and twitter) - I leave it behind.

I feel the same. But most people, not only the young, are hooked to social media. For the young, they are essential for social validation, and thus they are easily pried on by people with less morality than you likely do.

> HN is also social media btw

Sure, but it is in a different class. HN at least does it best to be the least dopamine awarding. It is hard to read, and it is difficult to see if someone replied to a question or remark you made.

Traditional fora, mailing lists, HN--they are far more benign than what we are talking about.

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3. ay ◴[23 Apr 25 18:14 UTC] No.43775001[source]▶
Absolutely true about focusing too much on tech solutions, it’s often a very tricky problem that is best solved at non-technical layer.

To your other points: I find that people who are addicted never heed the warnings, they just get annoying. Just occurred to me: wonder if the addiction is to some extent internalization of the habit; so that fighting the habit becomes fighting oneself….

About HN being less addictive than the others: that is arguable :-) though it is much less driven by pure emotions than the other forms of exchange, indeed !