Facebook Admits Social Media Harmful to Mental Health

Public starting to view social media like cigarettes

Citing internal and academic research, Facebook admitted its users will feel worse about themselves after spending only 10 minutes absorbing content on the site.

In a company blog post on Friday, Facebook cited studies from the University of Michigan and UC San Diego that revealed how social media negatively impacts the mental health of users.

According to Facebook:

In general, when people spend a lot of time passively consuming information — reading but not interacting with people — they report feeling worse afterward.

In one experiment, University of Michigan students randomly assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in a worse mood at the end of the day than students assigned to post or talk to friends on Facebook.

A study from UC San Diego and Yale found that people who clicked on about four times as many links as the average person, or who liked twice as many posts, reported worse mental health than average in asurvey.

That said, the admission was part of a half-assed attempt at damage control by Facebook, which claimed “it really comes down to how you use the technology.”

Facebook is facing renewed criticism after a recent spat of ex-employees admitted social media was causing severe psychological damage to society, leading to a massive rift in real-life relationships.

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created [including the hearts, likes, and thumbs up of various social media channels] are destroying how society works,” said former Facebook vice president Chamath Palihapitiya. “…There’s no civil discourse, no cooperation; [only] misinformation, mistruth.”

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