Is Social Media Destroying Society? Former Facebook Exec Says 'Yes'

[hand2handking]

Turn Off Messenger Kids, Health Experts Plead to Facebook

Facebook introduced Messenger Kids, for children as young as 6, last month.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/technology/messenger-kids-facebook-letter.html

WASHINGTON — At the age of 6, a child is full of imagination and may not distinguish reality from fantasy. She is beginning to read and can’t grasp nuances in written communication. She also doesn’t understand privacy.

Citing those reasons and more, dozens of pediatric and mental health experts are calling on Facebook to kill a messaging service the companyintroduced last month for children as young as 6.

In a letter to the company, they said the service, Messenger Kids, which pushes the company’s user base well below its previous minimum age of 13, preys on a vulnerable group developmentally unprepared to be on the social network.

The letter was organized by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, an advocacy group that has successfully pushed companies to abandon marketing like a Pokemon Go app that sent children to fast food and other stores, and McDonald’s advertising on the envelopes of report cards in Florida.

Facebook’s new app for young children opens greater concerns, the group said.

“Younger children are simply not ready to have social media accounts,” the experts said in the letter. “A growing body of research demonstrates that excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to children and teens, making it very likely this new app will undermine children’s healthy development.”

The opposition to Facebook’s app adds to growing societal concerns over digital media and devices. Some big Apple investors called on the company this month to work harder to make the iPhone less addictive, and some former Facebook employees have warned about how effectively the service hooks users.

Many elements of Facebook are available in Messenger Kids, but there is no advertising.

And academic research, including a study released last week, shows that the rise in smartphone and social media use tracked with greater unhappiness among teenagers.

Messenger Kids is a texting-type service that a parent sets up for a child. The parent uses his or her own Facebook account for the child, but the app is otherwise not a part of the main Facebook service. The app doesn’t have News Feed or a “like” button, which some mental health experts have linked to anxiety among teenagers on social media.

But many elements of the social network are there, including emojis, selfies, video chat and group texting.

Facebook says Messenger Kids provides a safer environment for children than many online experiences. The app has no advertising, for example.

The company said it had consulted with the National PTA and several academics and families before introducing the app.

“Messenger Kids is a messaging app that helps parents and children to chat in a safer way, with parents always in control of their child’s contacts and interactions,” Facebook said in a statement.

But many health advocates say the app is still engineered to hook users, and that it is giving Facebook early access to its next generation of users.

“Facebook is making children into a market, and the youngest children will be more likely to get hooked even earlier,” said Michael Brody, a former chairman of the media committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

 

[a blinkin]

6 years old.

 

[CJ616]

Was in the gym yesterday, and was honestly disgusted at how many people can barley get through an exercise set without checking their phone for 5+ minutes. Didn't effect my workout in anyway but it was just annoying to see how consumed people are with their cell phones. Social media has definitely had a negative effect on society. I don't think it's even a question anymore.

 

[lil black jean jacket]

I have the samsung galaxy S8 and can you believe samsung made it impossible to uninstall the facebook app which I don't use

I have that phone too and am able to turn it off

 

[ninjahood]

if u gotta plead someone not to operate their app, might wanna check yourself...

 

[slighted]

if u gotta plead someone not to operate their app, might wanna check yourself...

Not after the quarterly earnings Facebook just released today
They need even more revenue now

 

[hand2handking]

Facebook User Numbers Drop For the First Time in History


http://www.alphr.com/facebook/1008396/facebook-user-numbers-drop

The number of Facebook users who actively check the social media site each day in North America has dropped for the first time in company history.

For the past few years, Facebook usage in North America has been steady. As interest in obsessive checking tails off with age, new users would crop up to fill the gap. That phenomenon is no longer happening, as Facebook now has to look to international users to pick up the slack.

It may not quite sound like the death knell many think it is, but if Facebook is beginning to lose traction in its first and most prominent market, who knows where the trend could stop.

Understanding why Facebook numbers have dropped for the first time in its history isn’t a straightforward process. Other than the rise of Snapchat and an increase of people moving over to the Facebook-owned Instagram, CNBC states that an uptick of bad press around Facebook is probably to blame.

It’s clear that Facebook is aware of the problem, though, and is going to a lot of effort to turn around people’s opinions. We’ve already seen Facebook buy an ID verification startup, alter its privacy controls, move away from brand-based posts and back to friends and family, push reliable news and bring AI in to help combat terrorism on the platform and bring a ban to untrustworthy financial adverts.

If these measures fail to bring people back into the Facebook fold, it’ll need to think about how it can monetise a smaller userbase more effectively, while diversifying to bring in a new subset of users it hasn’t already attracted.

In its Q3 2017 earnings, Facebook held 185 million US and Canadian users. This number fell to 184 million as part of the Q4 2017 earnings. Interestingly though, despite one million fewer users, they still accounted for around $1.3 billion more in revenue than the previous quarter – something many are putting down to seasonal ad spend increase instead of any great monetisation changes within Facebook.

If numbers in North America drop in the next quarter, and revenue also follows, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on how the rest of Facebook’s global business is performing too. Who knows, maybe even the mighty Facebook may go the way of Myspace eventually. After all, the online world is littered with the bodies of giant corporations once deemed too big to fail.

 

[illphillip]

Was in the gym yesterday, and was honestly disgusted at how many people can barley get through an exercise set without checking their phone for 5+ minutes. Didn't effect my workout in anyway but it was just annoying to see how consumed people are with their cell phones. Social media has definitely had a negative effect on society. I don't think it's even a question anymore.

I see this as well but I do 1.5 hours without looking at a phone and take comfort in that fact that I'll wash most of those people

 

[sharpshooter718]

I deactivated my account and bought fb stock...

 

[Thierry Henry]

 

[hand2handking]

Facebook Suffers Celebrity Exodus as Zuckerberg Acknowledges #DeleteFacebook Trend



http://www.news.com.au/technology/o...d/news-story/df0f338ccbeaf0efcd13f247f0153543

Celebrities and public figures continued to abandon Facebook during its biggest privacy scandal to date, even though founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg insisted there had been no “dramatic fall-off” in users.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak joined a growing list of high-profile figures to abandon the social network this week and to criticise its use of personal information for profit.

His announcement followed similar moves by singer Cher, actors Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey, former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell, and entrepreneur Elon Musk, as well as companies including Playboy and Mozilla.


Mr Wozniak, who founded Apple with Steve Jobs in 1976, said he planned to delete his Facebook account following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal as a way to protest the social network’s exploitation of users’ personal information.

“Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and ... Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this,” he said. “The profits are all based on the user’s info but the users get none of the profits back.

“As they say, with Facebook, you are the product.”


Mr Wozniak said the practice was hypocritical of Mr Zuckerberg, who had purchased “all the houses around his … for his own privacy,” but would not look after the privacy of Facebook’s users.


Cher left Facebook after the scandal broke last month, saying it was a “very hard” decision but “there are some things more important than money,” and Will Ferrell deleted his account, commenting that he was “very disturbed to hear about Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of millions of Facebook users’ information” and “appalled” at Facebook’s response.

The social network initially failed to publicly address revelations that data had been harvested from 87 million Facebook users and sold to the shadowy political data firm, though it has since rolled out changes to the way it shares information with third parties.

Despite the celebrity exodus, Mr Zuckerberg told US Congress there had been no “dramatic fall-off” in user numbers, though he confessed to seeing some evidence of a #DeleteFacebook trend.

“There was a movement where some people were encouraging their friends to delete their accounts,” Mr Zuckerberg said. “I think that got shared a bunch.”

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said the company had also seen “seen a few advertisers pause with us” over the scandal.
Celebrities keep leaving Facebook in protest over data scandal

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[smedroc]

It definitely can be anti-social media.

It's super addictive and most people don't have the awareness to catch and correct themselves.

But at the same time it's changed a lot of peoples lives for the better and gives people the chance at having an extended community/network.

It all comes down to how you manage it.

 

[blastercombo]

If at this point you still have a Suckerburg based app something is wrong with you. They were caught stealing and selling your information with no denial. Wise up

 

[getback]

Hastags, memes, selfies, political rants, people posting statuses like "when your hubby decides to cook dinner" (with a pic of the food)....it's all old and tired as hell to me.

 

[sharpshooter718]

Deactivated my page in december, never looked back... Haven't had the app on any device in a number of years..

I realized that I don't really speak to any one on there. It was a waste of time reading other people's lives 24/7...

I still talk to the same people i been talking to. Which is 3 or 4 people and I barely talk to them... lol

Everyone who I've seen since then always telling me about this and that on fb. And I just tell them I don't need fb following ne everywhere I go and I don't really care about them folKS from hs, the block, etc...

Fb should be dead by now...

 

[sooperhooper]

My theory is that the phone provides a virtual life for people that can't afford the life they want. Everyone wants to travel, drive nice cars, smash dimes etc, but most of us don't have the funds to do so, so the phone is an escape.

Other things come into play as well such as avoiding social awkwardness. I feel weird saying this but something is wrong when you enter a room, like before a meeting for instance, and literally everyone is buried in their phone. This is the beginning of a severe problem. I can't tell exactly what, but it's something.

 

[getback]

Was at the Yankees-Red Sox game on Tuesday and now I remember why I hate crowded places. Everyone glued to their phone or holding them up the entire time like they were paparazzi.

 

[Chiron]

Deleted Facebook in 2012 around election time. I miss my extended network but my privacy was important to me even then. It has been great for my career not to have one. Easy promotions no scandals..

 

[PRIME]

I don’t think the problem lies with social media itself.

Social media is a tool, a system, a platform.

The problem is how it’s been marketed to be used. It’s been abused for commercialism, marketing, advertising, among a ton of other things.

The problem is people. The problem has always been people. Since the beginning of mankind.

There shouldn’t even be a social network for 6 year olds. This is an issue of morality, not social media. There are marketing teams, developers, board room members, etc that sign off on his kind of stuff. Social media didn’t create this issue, people created this issue and social media is simply the platform being used to execute it.

Zuck was in a position of power and sold his morality to further his position. Now he deals with the consequences.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Tom ain’t got no smoke

 

[hand2handking]

How Heavy Use of Social Media is Linked to Mental Illness
Youngsters report problems with anxiety, depression, sleep and “FoMO”

https://www.economist.com/graphic-d...e-of-social-media-is-linked-to-mental-illness

May 20th will mark the end of “mental-health awareness week”, a campaign run by the Mental Health Foundation, a British charity. Roughly a quarter of British adults have been diagnosed at some point with a psychiatric disorder, costing the economy an estimated 4.5% of GDP per year. Such illnesses have many causes, but a growing body of research demonstrates that in young people they are linked with heavy consumption of social media.

According to a survey in 2017 by the Royal Society for Public Health, Britons aged 14-24 believe that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have detrimental effects on their wellbeing. On average, they reported that these social networks gave them extra scope for self-expression and community-building. But they also said that the platforms exacerbated anxiety and depression, deprived them of sleep, exposed them to bullying and created worries about their body image and “FOMO” (“fear of missing out”). Academic studies have found that these problems tend to be particularly severe among frequent users.

Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, has admitted that the product works by “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”. Indeed, an experiment by five neuroscientists in 2014 concluded that Facebook triggers the same impulsive part of the brain as gambling and substance abuse. Yet it is difficult to prove that obsessing over likes and comments causes mental illness, rather than the other way around. The most convincing effort was a survey that tracked a group of 5,208 Americans between 2013 and 2015. It found that an increase in Facebook activity was associated with a future decrease in reported mental health.

An obvious solution to the problem is to cut down on screen time. Even the most obsessive users should be able to do so. The neuroscientific study on Facebook found that the subjects’ cognitive ability to inhibit their impulsive behaviour was less impaired than for drug or gambling addicts. And data from Moment, an activity-tracking app, show that it is possible for light social-media consumers to be content. Each week it asks its 1m users whether they are happy or sad with the amount of time they have spent on various platforms. Nearly 63% of Instagram users report being miserable, a higher share than for any other social network. They spend an average of nearly an hour per day on the app. The 37% who are happy spend on average just over half as long.

The happiness rate is much higher for FaceTime (91%), a video-calling app, and phone calls (84%). When it comes to social networking, actual conversations are hard to beat.

 

[sooperhooper]

I don’t think the problem lies with social media itself.

Social media is a tool, a system, a platform.

The problem is how it’s been marketed to be used. It’s been abused for commercialism, marketing, advertising, among a ton of other things.

The problem is people. The problem has always been people. Since the beginning of mankind.

There shouldn’t even be a social network for 6 year olds. This is an issue of morality, not social media. There are marketing teams, developers, board room members, etc that sign off on his kind of stuff. Social media didn’t create this issue, people created this issue and social media is simply the platform being used to execute it.

Zuck was in a position of power and sold his morality to further his position. Now he deals with the consequences.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Tom ain’t got no smoke

I see what you're saying, and agree to an extent... But social media is designed to be as addictive as possible, which makes it a problem. People are just vulnerable to it and the people behind the scenes just keep making it better and better. We're watching phones transform from cigarettes to Crack cocaine.

 

[hand2handking]

I Wish My Mom's Phone Wasn't Invented, 2nd Grader Writes in School Project

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech...cher-wish-mom-phone-wasnt-invented/640059002/

Second graders at a Louisiana school wish their parents would get off their phones.

Elementary school teacher Jen Beason said four of her students told her they wished phones were never invented after giving the class a writing prompt.

"I don't like the phone because my [parents] are on their phone every day ... I hate my mom's phone and I wish she never had one," one student wrote in a photo posted to Beason's Facebook page that has since been turned to private.

The post was shared more than 261,000 times — parents expressed guilt, and fellow teachers echoed similar conversations they've had in their classrooms.

"We had a class discussion about Facebook and every single one of the students said their parents spend more time on FB then they do talking to their child. It was very eye opening for me," Abbey Fauntleroy commented.

Phone addiction isn't a new topic, but most conversation is pointed at teen or young adult use as opposed to how parents are modeling the behavior in front of their children. A study published last May in Child Development suggested “technology-based interruptions in parent–child interactions” is linked to restlessness and anger outbursts in young children.

Not sure how to limit use? Experts suggest designating "no phone zones" in your home where you turn your phone on Do Not Disturb. Note: There is way to select Allow Calls From certain contacts, if you are worried about being reached by a family member or boss in an emergency.

 

[PRIME]

Gotdamn. People really can’t control themselves.

Grown *** adults need “no phone zones” at home just to spend time with their own gotdamn children.

As a father, that pissed me off to read

 

[sooperhooper]

The engineers made electronic crack cocaine. That's the only way to put it. I hope that brought tears to the parents eyes.

 

[getback]

NT becoming a lot more social media-esque.

Recycled tweets, IG posts, memes, etc. all over the place.