First, if the conclusions are counterintuitive or unexpected, then when you look closer, you will find that the methodology is garbage and that it does not support the conclusions given.
Second, if the conclusions reflect things that you believe are true, when you look closer, you will find that the methodology is garbage and that it does not support the conclusions given.
On the other hand I recently deleted Twitter from my phone. I love twitter for getting interesting infromation and staying up to date with news, but the whole culture there has just turned into cheap dunking on one another, and its just guaranteed to leave you feeling angry about something. Extremely disruptive to mental state.
I spend some time on the TikTok-like products as well (youtube shorts / fb reels) and have found them to be just a really easy way to completely waste an hour for no reason whatsoever. Less disruptive to mental state than twitter though.
(I know, one can often find the publication date in the HTML source, but that requires savvy, and should not be necessary.)
But I'm disappointed to see the word "proven". It isn't proven, and there are a number of problems.
One is that the hypothesis is never really tested, this is just more data analysis. I don't want to split hairs over the definition of "science" but if you don't have an experiment where you intervene in the real world and dispassionately record what happens, then it's probably not science.
The scientific method is a causation-finding machine intended to avoid all of the errors that humans are likely to make. Perhaps that leads to too few exciting results, so now we have a bunch of "scientific studies" instead.
This occurred to me because I more and more think of social media use in terms of addiction. For more typical addictive behavior with drugs, we are more likely to think people who are depressed are more likely to develop addictive relationship to alcohol (or other drugs), than we are to think using alcohol (or other drugs) too much will makes you depressed. Although I suppose it can be somewhat circular and complex.
7% increase in number of students who reported having suffering, at least once during the preceding year, depression so severe that it was difficult for them to function
20% increase in number of students who reported anxiety disorders
2% increase in number of students expected to experience moderate to severe depression
3% increase in number of students experienced impairment to their academic performance due to depression or anxiety
I have to do a lot of blocking but the reality is that I can now say I do enjoy Facebook.
My timeline is filled with content I meticulously have curated:Woodworking, Baking, Canoeing, Startups, Beekeeping, Jeeps.
But... it shouldn't take all this work to enjoy it.
A better headline: "Evidence towards causal relations between mental health issues and Facebook use for some College students in 2004". If this doesn't look newsworthy, it's because it isn't. Single academic result is almost never newsworthy.
You pay attention. Concentrate your attention. Occasionally have your attention jerked around by distractions.
Consider what you do when you think, read, watch tv, consume facebook. Consider what you are doing with your attention. That shape.
If you do it a lot then that shape intensifies.
And that shape sticks. It becomes your normal.
And the shape of your attention dictates your reality.
It's important to take that into account.
Unfavorable comparisons with "successful" people/projects who make it to the front page could be behind the same effects.
In a century, they’ll wonder how we could possibly have kept engaging knowing the harm we were doing to ourselves.
Seems clear facebook had negative impact on mental health on campus.
Facebook then was also likely very different from Facebook now. So not exactly sure what recommendations for today can be drawn from it.
It's interesting to note that the data shows facebook was damaging mental health at the same time that many readers of this comment were most enthusiastic about Facebook.
I stopped using social media for many years, recently came back to have access to local cycling/running groups and my experience is largely positive. All I see is cool people doing cool things, fun events, some local cycling related trade etc. I managed to make some connections and keep them going thanks to social media it's just positive experience all around.
I think Instagram can be like that if you filter out politics/celebrities and "I have money/am attractive" influencers. It takes some work for that to stop showing in your feed and to learn to ignore whatever is left though.
My ego tells me that since I'm aware of these problems, I can do my best to keep my page from turning into a doomscrolling experience. Yet, once again, the algorithm doesn't display my posts in their natural order, only the controversial ones, so the doomscrolling happens anyway.
I often keep up at night to think about it and I feel like there is no good answer.
I'd also be curious to know if there's a subgroup of users whose mental health is improved by use of FB - certainly I'd suggest I had that experience personally, at a particularly low point in my life, having met somebody via FB that helped me through it (which was mutual btw, in fact they had more serious mental health issues than I did).
In all seriousness though glad to see this is actually being seriously studied
Are they sure the mental health impact is not just senility?
/s
You can see a lot of information