Facebook says it might be bad for your mental health

Posted by: admin , December 19, 2017

In a new report on social media, Facebook admits the way it’s used could be bad for our mental health, but that the key is to spend MORE time interacting on the social network.
Director of Research and a Research Scientist at Facebook, David Ginsberg and Moira Burke, published their thoughts in a post titled “Hard Questions: Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us?”
Broadly, they said people reported feeling worse when they used Facebook to passively consume information (i.e. scrolling, but no interaction).
However, those who interacted by sharing posts, messages and reminiscing about past interactions with close friends experienced improvements in well-being.
The pair say this supports Facebook’s mission to enhance offline relationships.
The post follows recent comments by founding president Sean Parker, who said he is a “conscientious objector” to social media and that Facebook had success “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”.
Facebook says it is trying to address well-being by demoting “clickbait headlines and false news” and promoting posts from friends, as well as offering a “snooze” button to mute a person or page.