[DSingularity]

Risks people’s mental health? I would say it is pretty obvious that FB and IG are bad for people. Some may have a natural mental fortitude and can survive it without instruction but for the rest of us we need some instructions on how to use these platforms without compromising key aspects of our mental health.

[absurdo]

I’d like to see a proper study on this that can be replicated before I jump on this train. And I’m a supporter of Jonathan “the kids are not alright” Haidt but let’s not kid ourselves his work is questionable throughout.

It’s easy to dogpile. I’d like to see more proof, that’s all. “It’s obvious” doesn’t cut it for me. For one, we have major societal problems that are being exposed through these platforms, and the mere knowledge of the problem has a negative impact on the individual. Do we shut the platform down because it’s showing us things we don’t want to see, or do we fix the societal problem? And many others.

[Llamamoe]

Pop some terms into Google scholar and you'll find study after study after study both correlating social media use with worse mental health and demonstrating improvements from reducing use, in children and adults both.

It varies by demographic, but yeah, social media are pretty universally awful for humans, and that's not just conjecture.

[robocat]

> correlating

That's the issue, and it is what you attempted to answer.

Causation is much harder to tease out from the noise.