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Did you get confused and think "There is so much hate, arguments, misinformation, angy, and harmful messaging on FB platforms." was data?


If you keep up with current affairs the past few weeks have shown that FB’s alleged problems are supported by data which is disregarded by it’s leadership


For example:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.0271...

https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1310...

https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-t...

Facebook's own research: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701445/facebook-instagr...

It's nice - and of course timely - that there are some heartwarming feel good stories in this thread.

But the plural of anecdote is not science. And the science is pretty damning.


Papers 1 and 3 are about correlating _duration_ of FB usage with happiness. Look at the papers referenced here [1] for the same effect as applied to TV. These papers, sans the new controversy over the mental health of young women on Instagram, _don't_ actually point to any stronger of a conclusion than "consuming large amounts of media is correlated with bad mental health".

I'm not saying that FB and this huge corporate capture of the internet is _good_, but making arguments like this doesn't actually make coherent sense.

[1]: https://buddingpsychologists.org/binge-watching-mental-healt... (I didn't read the article, but I did skim the referenced papers)


If it agrees with my priors it's objective fact. If else, it's an anecdote




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