Facebook says social media is only bad if you do it wrong

Facebook has admitted that social media can be bad, but only when you’re not doing it right.

As part of the company’s “Hard Questions” blog series, director of research David Ginsberg and research scientist Moira Burke attempted to answer whether or not spending time on social media is bad for us.

The duo examined a couple of academic studies that pointed towards social media’s detriment: psychologist Jean Twenge’s analysis of the correlation between depression and smartphone usage; psychologist Sherry Turkle’s assertion that mobile phones make us “alone together”.

Facebook knows social media can be bad, but it’s placed the blame on users

But, Facebook says, it all comes down to the way in which you use technology.

The company references a study from the University of California San Diego and Yale that found that those who passively consumed information were more likely to report worse mental health, whereas a separate study from Carnegie Mellon University found that interacting one-on-one on the platform resulted in improvements in depression and loneliness.

The company then addresses how it will be working to keep Facebook a more positive platform for users. This includes addressing “News Feed quality” (removing clickbait and optimising the ranking of close friends’ posts), suicide prevention tools, and a “Snooze” feature that lets users unfollow people or pages for 30 days.

But will these drive positive engagement? It seems unlikely.

Facebook doesn’t really care about positive engagement

A cynical approach to the blog post would see how it is primed to remind us that social media is bad, but what’s coming next to Facebook is good, and all you need to do anyway is actively use it more.

And does Facebook really care? Not only does it often introduce updates to the News Feed that prioritise ad revenue over user experience, but it also thrives on becoming passively habitual for users.

Because, really, if Facebook wanted more one-on-one interaction for users, would it not spend more time focussing on Messenger or WhatsApp and less time on a platform that hasn’t been geared around personal relationships in years?