It’s an open secret: Social networks are not safe for the mental health of their users. Between fake news, hidden ads from influencers, and a representation of reality that isn’t actually real, consulting your news feed can sometimes be a bumpy road. The risk is so high that it is very difficult for developers to ignore it. A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an internal Facebook report whose findings were striking: The group is fully aware of the toxicity of Instagram among teenage girls.
In fact, it is the latter who are most exposed to the traps contained in the application. But despite the results of its own investigation, Facebook’s official public stance is very different. In a response published in a blog post, The company denies all allegations against it. In his opinion, his report had been misunderstood and the opposite conclusion should have been reached: On the contrary, Instagram benefits young users.
Facebook insists and signs, Instagram is not dangerous
“The claim that this study shows that Instagram is ‘toxic’ to teenage girls is simply untrue.”writes Pratiti Raychoudhury, vice president and head of research at Facebook. “Research has actually shown that many teens think using Instagram has helped them deal with the difficult times and issues that teens always face.” This may seem very irresponsible when we know that 40% of primary school students have accounts on social networks.
Despite everything, Facebook accepts this Not everything is white on their platform. But be careful not to suggest that there is a real problem with the way he runs things. “Our internal research is part of our efforts to minimize the downsides and maximize the positives of our platforms. We invest in this research to proactively identify areas for improvement, so the worst possible results are highlighted on internal slides. That’s why this research is relevant What matters most is what we do with it.”
Source : Facebook
