Facebook: ‘Passive use of platform can have a bad influence on mood’
Facebook admits that using the social medium ‘passively’ can have negative influences on users’ moods. The company said it wanted to “take responsibility” for recent criticisms in this area. At the same time, it comes with some new features.
Facebook bases its post on scientific studies, some of which it has participated in itself. In a nutshell, Facebook admits that passively scrolling through the news feed and consuming posts alone can negatively impact the user’s mood. The more posts and links they click on, the worse the mood. One hypothesis about the cause of this is that this way of using Facebook leads to negative social comparison, comparing one’s own life with that of someone else from whom they only see a controlled stream of posts.
On the other hand, Facebook does state that interacting with other users on the platform can actually lead to a better mood. The more actual interaction between users, the better the mood in terms of feelings of social support, depression and loneliness, according to research. Viewing your own profile would also have a positive effect, according to the company. Looking at your own wall for five minutes would help with the so-called self-affirmation, the feeling of ‘standing strong’.
Facebook is somewhat forced to discuss this subject after former CEO Chamath Palihapitiya stated in an interview that he believes that social media such as Facebook cause a lot of damage to society. They would do this by trapping people in ‘dopamine feedback loops’. The interview received a lot of attention and Facebook subsequently stated that it is working to take responsibility.
To help prevent users from “passively” Facebooking, the company is introducing some new features. Users can now “snooze” someone, meaning they won’t see them for 30 days. One step further is ‘take a break’, a tool that is especially suitable for ex-partners. This allows you to set when someone sees his ex and what his ex can see. Also, the algorithm-curated news feed that replaced the chronological feed and the suicide prevention tools are cited as measures to help users have a positive experience. Incidentally, the latter is only available in the US for the time being.