Study: Psychologists conclude that social media algorithms have a negative influence on users mental health

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1365278/psychologists-say-that-social-media-algorithms-have-a-negative-influence-on-users-mental

Y’all, this is one of those articles worth reading right quick. The title is… well, bad. They were looking more at the “quality” rather than quantity of social media usage. The findings were more about the reinforcement of the user’s state rather than social media itself being bad. Sure, the algorithm will push things, but your algorithm is primarily gonna push what it needs to keep you engaged with itself, and what you engage with will be influenced by your state of mind/mood. If you’re already depressed, you’re probably gonna reinforce that via the algorithm. Same deal with positive outlooks. Neuroplasticity and all that.

The researchers also bring up a good point about calling into question the recommendation to limit the amount of time on social media with the idea of mitigating the negative effects. Much like [alcohol] prohibition in the US, a ban on social media usage does nothing to teach us a more wise and healthy approach, nor is it something realistic for the general population.

In fact, if we practice abstention in such a way, those that would use it for malignant purposes would make it worse. I think a good example of that is cryptocurrency. Crypto isn’t inherently bad, but boy did it get super maligned by any left-leaning space. There are plenty of useful things we could do with crypto, especially now with the hostile behavior of many currency-issuing states, but since crypto was mostly abandoned by leftist spaces, scams, commodification, speculation, and other hyper-capitalist bullshit abounds in the crypto space.

Do we really want to cede the further development of social media to malignant dickheads via unwitting abstention? Or will we take the time to actually learn how to wisely approach the tools we have right in front of us?