[drzaiusapelord]

>Depression is not Facebook's problem any more than it is Budweiser's problem, or Ben & Jerry's problem.

Dunno about that. I can avoid beer and ice cream or buy them at my own pace but due to familial, work, and social obligation I pretty much MUST use FB. My feed is a lot of hot cause celebres like the debunked Clock Kid or outrage political articles with questionable facts. Its overwhemling and I can see it driving people into sour moods if not aggravating depression. Its an endless chorus of extreme negativity. Hell, I think how much poorly sourced and biased political junk you post on fb is a character judgment and its sad to see how many of my acquaintance fail this basic test. I just want to log in to see whats going on professionally or see people's baby or vacation photos.

Worse, FB is gamified to produce these results. People crave likes and just cater to their audience, hence the political crap and other negativity. There's a lot of work in this field and the FB guys know how to exploit people's desire for attention and validation.

>IMO, this is more a case of social media bringing deeper problems to the surface than social media being the actual cause.

As technologists, I think this kind of attitude is especially dangerous. Our products cause harm. Lets stop pretending they don't.

[mkrfox]

I solved this problem by unfollowing everyone and everything on Facebook. Now I mostly just post pictures of foxes. Foxes are a bipartisan issue.