Grazie don Luca per la segnalazione On Thu, 16 Sep 2021 08:05:39 +0200 don Luca Peyron wrote:

Una ricerca interna della società di Menlo Park, rivelata dal Wsj, mostra che la società di Zuckerberg è consapevole che il social delle foto può portare a disturbi alimentari e depressione.

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/instagram-e-pericoloso-la-salute-mentale-rag...

L'articolo originale del WSJ [1] è molto più lungo ed esauriente. Vi si leggono da un lato le dichiarazioni di Zuckerberg: ``` “The research that we’ve seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a congressional hearing in March 2021 when asked about children and mental health. ``` Dall'altro il contenuto effettivo dei report INTERNI a Facebook (con tanto di slide) ``` “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.” For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its photo-sharing app affects its millions of young users. Repeatedly, the company’s researchers found that Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of them, most notably teenage girls. “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues. “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” said another slide. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.” Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed. [...] The features that Instagram identifies as most harmful to teens appear to be at the platform’s core. The tendency to share only the best moments, a pressure to look perfect and an addictive product can send teens spiraling toward eating disorders, an unhealthy sense of their own bodies and depression, March 2020 internal research states. It warns that the Explore page, which serves users photos and videos curated by an algorithm, can send users deep into content that can be harmful. “Aspects of Instagram exacerbate each other to create a perfect storm,” the research states. The research has been reviewed by top Facebook executives, and was cited in a 2020 presentation given to Mr. Zuckerberg, according to the documents. [...] Teens regularly reported wanting to spend less time on Instagram, the presentations note, but lacked the self control to do so. “Teens told us that they don’t like the amount of time they spend on the app but feel like they have to be present,” an Instagram research manager explained to colleagues, according to the documents. “They often feel ‘addicted’ and know that what they’re seeing is bad for their mental health but feel unable to stop themselves.” During the isolation of the pandemic, “if you wanted to show your friends what you were doing, you had to go on Instagram,” said Destinee Ramos, 17, of Neenah, Wis. “We’re leaning towards calling it an obsession.” [...] In focus groups, Instagram employees heard directly from teens who were struggling. “I felt like I had to fight to be considered pretty or even visible,” one teen said of her experience on Instagram. After looking through photos on Instagram, “I feel like I am too big and not pretty enough,” another teen told Facebook’s researchers. “It makes me feel insecure about my body even though I know I am skinny.” “For some people it might be tempting to dismiss this as teen girls being sad,” said Dr. Twenge. But “we’re looking at clinical-level depression that requires treatment. We’re talking about self harm that lands people in the ER.” [...] Some Instagram researchers said it was challenging to get other colleagues to hear the gravity of their findings. Plus, “We’re standing directly between people and their bonuses,” one former researcher said. Instead of referencing their own data showing the negative effects of Instagram, Facebook executives in public have often pointed to studies from the Oxford Internet Institute that have shown little correlation between social-media use and depression. [...] Facebook has in the past been a donor to a researcher at the Oxford institute, which is part of the research and teaching department of Britain’s Oxford University. [...] When Facebook tested a tweak to hide the “likes” in a pilot program they called Project Daisy, it found it didn’t improve life for teens. “We didn’t observe movements in overall well-being measures,” Facebook employees wrote in a slide they presented to Mr. Zuckerberg about the experiment in 2020. Nonetheless, Facebook rolled out the change as an option for Facebook and Instagram users in May 2021 after senior executives argued to Mr. Zuckerberg that it could make them look good by appearing to address the issue, according to the documents. “A Daisy launch would be received by press and parents as a strong positive indication that Instagram cares about its users, especially when taken alongside other press-positive launches,” Facebook executives wrote in a discussion about how to present their findings to Mr. Zuckerberg. [...] In March, the researchers said Instagram should reduce exposure to celebrity content about fashion, beauty and relationships, while increasing exposure to content from close friends [...] A current employee, in comments on the message board, questioned that idea, saying celebrities with perfect lives were key to the app. “Isn’t that what IG is mostly about?” he wrote. Getting a peek at “the (very photogenic) life of the top 0.1%? Isn’t that the reason why teens are on the platform?” A now-former executive questioned the idea of overhauling Instagram to avoid social comparison. “People use Instagram because it’s a competition,” the former executive said. “That’s the fun part.” [...] Facebook’s researchers identified the over-sexualization of girls as something that weighs on the mental health of the app’s users. [...] “What girls often see on social media are girls with slimmer waists, bigger butts and hips, and it can lead them to have body image issues,” Ms. Jones said. “It’s a very critical time and they are trying to figure out themselves and everything around them.” ``` Nonostante tutto questo, la giornalista italiana del s24o conclude: ``` E ora sembra giusto chiedersi quanto sia doloso questo comportamento. ``` Ora? Chiedersi? Questa gente NON è in buona fede. Il beneficio del dubbio è un vantaggio che non possiamo permetterci di concedergli. Da tempo. Ma non c'è peggior cieco di chi non vuol vedere. Giacomo [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-instagram-is-toxic-for-teen-girl... archiviato su https://web.archive.org/web/20210916091539/https://www.wsj.com/articles/face...