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0 pointssteventhedev1y ago0 comments

It means that there is a statistically significant improvement, but that improvement is tiny, and will not make you happier than your peers all by itself (assuming a standard peer group of 200 people - you'd likely swap places with 1 or 2 people).

Of course, this study only considered normative people, not marginalized or those who were experiencing active harm from exposure to social media - your personal results may vary and it's important to remember that science is imperfect and social sciences are doubly so.

If going off Facebook improves your life - you do you.

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steveBK1231y ago

As far as I can tell, the algorithm can really harm people during times of mental illness/stress/anxiety. Part of it is that it is like a feedback loop.

When we lost our pet and my wife was very upset for a while, the algo kept showing her more and more content associated with pet loss. It got to the point that some random content pushed to her social media was upsetting her daily.

I can imagine someone experiencing depression, suicidal thoughts, etc can easily be pushed over the edge by the algorithmic feedback loop.

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