Facebook's research on teens and mental health is not as conclusive as it appears, relying on teens' self-reported views and a small sample size
With each Facebook crisis, we become savvier … Jean Twenge / The Conversation : Facebook's own internal documents offer a blueprint for making social media safer for teens Maxwell Strachan / VICE : Facebook Is Trying to Delegitimize and Discredit Frances Haugen Tweets: David Gillis / @davegillis : I've supported product design teams working on integrity and safety since joining FB in 2015. Some raw thoughts on the leaked docs and current press/political cycle. Probably a long one, 1/* David Sacks / @davidsacks : Control the feed and you control the flow of information that the American public gets to see. The engagement algorithm, while not perfect, at least lets users decide what they see based on their own preferences. Krishna Gade / @krishnagade : I was an engineer on Facebook's News Feed and this is NOT how recommender systems work. While users can set some explicit preferences, implicit user activity on the app is the bulk of the signal that gets fed into the AI systems which control & rank the feed. /thread https://twitter.com/... Anya Kamenetz / @anya1anya : What does Facebook's own internal data actually say about teens + suicidal thoughts? 1/ https://www.npr.org/... David Sacks / @davidsacks : For anyone who actually uses social networks, the idea that Facebook is “addictive” is laughable. My own usage has fallen off to near zero. A much stronger case could be made against Twitter or TikTok but those targets aren't as politically attractive. Rat King / @mikeisaac : (that said i do not love the disclosures at the bottom of this article) Rat King / @mikeisaac : i think its fair to look hard at the methodology and findings of the research being publicized, as this article says, and treat it with the appropriate amount of skepticism rather than immediately divine it is widely applicable https://www.npr.org/... Rat King / @mikeisaac : @pkafka at least where i work, im not allowed to write about places where my partner or immediately family member works, which i think is a fair standard Rat King / @mikeisaac : it is extremely hard to judge the findings of the past few weeks without the source material and methodology being laid out if all of this leads to even more transparency — full published papers and research in daylight on platform effects — that benefits both “sides” Jenna Golden / @jigolden : @MikeIsaac I was just about to say... can we talk about this? Because if this doesn't prove the overextended reach of Facebook, I don't know what does. https://twitter.com/... Kate Bevan / @katebevan : This is a good counterpoint to the overheated narrative around the Facebook whistleblower's revelations. There's actually almost no evidence of harm to teens' mental health from social media, all the hot air notwithstanding. https://twitter.com/... Ben Smith / @benyt : @MikeIsaac The Times is in business with Facebook too... Rat King / @mikeisaac : @jigolden NPR (in the bay area at least) is interesting to listen to because practically every major tech company is a donor and they have to disclose it on air Michael Hobbes / @rottenindenmark : It's frustrating because the links between Facebook and right-wing radicalization, vaccine misinfo and mob violence are much stronger, but they're coded as “political” so it's harder for them to get widespread traction. Jenna Golden / @jigolden : @MikeIsaac Yes, it seems to be the same here in DC. I can't really name a podcast or radio program Facebook didn't sponsor last year. Ian Sherr / @iansherr : This is the part that really baffles me: “Facebook comms became ‘corporate PR that no longer bothered to try and answer journalists’ questions in good faith'” I have (minimally) more respect for people who've yelled at me than this kind of crap behavior https://www.inputmag.com/... Nick Pacilio / @nickpacilio : ... almost every news outlet is https://twitter.com/... Peter Kafka / @pkafka : @MikeIsaac Assuming you mean the fact that the writer's husband has a Facebook job, not that NPR gets sponsorship $ from Facebook. If so: Should she not write the story at all? Or do you want the disclosure up higher? Kenneth Roth / @kenroth : A whistleblower says that “Facebook was ‘literally fanning ethnic violence’ in places such as Ethiopia because it was not policing its service adequately outside the” United States. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @bridgeinit : In 2018 a Guardian analysis revealed that hate speech exploded on #Facebook at the start of the #Rohingya crisis the year before, when attacks by armed groups and ordinary communities on people from the Muslim minority erupted. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... Gebrekirstos Gebreselassie / @gebrekirstosg : I've reported many Amharic articles calling for Tigrayan extermination. @Facebook has almost always replied with the same answer, with something like we have found it does not violate our community rules. I know they don't check it, just a default answer. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... Andy Stone / @andymstone : A sober, clearheaded look at how Facebook's research about Instagram, teens and well-being has been misrepresented and what it actually shows. https://twitter.com/... @w96emily : Age restrictions and time limits are the best way to combat the negative affects of social media on young girls according to this. Parents need to step up, because companies are not going to deliberately put policies in place that reduce engagement & hurt their bottom lines https://twitter.com/... @genspect : “One study in the U.K. found that one-quarter of 15-year-old girls spent more than five hours a day using social media - and 38% of those girls were clinically depressed. Comparatively, among girls who used social media less than one hour a day, only 15% were depressed.” https://twitter.com/... Graham Cluley / @gcluley : “It's a breathtakingly bizarre lack of self-knowledge and glaring lack of professional judgment that is making fools of Facebook's spokespeople” https://www.inputmag.com/... Illuminating article by @stokel Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : What the Facebook whistleblower missed is that when you regulate a monopoly, you legitimize that monopoly. Do we really want to put a three billion person plus set of social networks under the control of captured regulators? https://mattstoller.substack.com/ ... @fboversight : “@carolecadwalla, a Guardian journalist, member of the independent Real Facebook Oversight Board, and an outspoken critic of Facebook, calls Stone's attack dog tendencies indicative of the “Trumpification of Facebook.” https://www.inputmag.com/... Richard Lawler / @rjcc : The thing I like about this Facebook PR-approved interpretation (per @andymstone calling it clear-headed and sober) is that it misses the entire point. The research is notable because it's Facebook's own data that they didn't willingly share. Not because it's “conclusive” https://twitter.com/... @npr : Researchers have worked for decades to tease out the relationship between teen media use and mental health. Although there is debate, they tend to agree that the evidence we've seen so far is complex, contradictory, and ultimately inconclusive. https://www.npr.org/... Andrew Przybylski / @shuhbillskee : ""At the population level," the paper concluded, “there was little evidence that digital technology access and use is negatively associated with young adolescents' well-being.” @candice_odgers https://www.npr.org/... Andy Stone / @andymstone : From @anya1anya: “The Facebook research was not peer-reviewed or designed to be nationally representative, and some of the statistics that have received the most attention were based on very small numbers...[the findings are actually] a subset of a subset of a subset.” Anya Kamenetz / @anya1anya : The impact of Facebook and Instagram on teens isn't so clear https://www.npr.org/...