In truth we have reached a point, with respect to Facebook, in which it is already difficult for me to find the words to, at the same time, not repeat myself for the umpteenth time, and to be able to express what happens and the opinion that it produces. And yes, it is true that we are talking about one of the main and oldest social networks, so it makes sense that its history of incidents and errors is greater than that of other similar services, but in this case there is no proportionality whatsoever. If the road had 50 puddles, Facebook would have been stained 300 times, demonstrating that so humane to stumble two (or more) times on the same stone.
We are still finishing assimilating the content of the revelations of former Facebook employees about the laxity of the social network with which those responsible have on occasion addressed the problem of misinformation and false news, which in turn found us trying to assimilate that those responsible for Instagram knew about the harmful effects on young people and adolescents and did nothing, which in turn found us trying to assimilate the nonsense of wanting to create an Instagram for children … Tiring, right? Do you understand that I am at a loss for words?
Of course, this could not stay that way. So just a little bit a week after Mark Zuckerberg’s internet giant changed its name from Facebook to Meta, according to the company to put its metaverse plans at the center, but many of us don’t miss that also with the intention of detach the future from it with the bad image of the social network, shortly after a week, he said, we again have new data that puts Facebook into question.
And, according to The Wall Street Journal, an internal Facebook survey found that one in eight users report that their use of the app harms their sleep, work, relationships, and parenting. So, if we talk about 12.5% of the service user base, and we apply this percentage to the 2,900 million users of the application, the result indicates that there are more than 360 million people affected for this circumstance.
It is known that one of the main aspirations of social networks, as well as many other online services, is that their users spend as much time as possible using them. On the web, this is achieved mainly with content, but when we talk about apps, we find another even more valuable element: push notifications. And the problem is that, it seems, Facebook could be especially skilled in this regard, that is, holding the user’s attention, and perhaps pushing it beyond the limit, at least for one in eight users.
According to the newspaper, the investigation into the use of social networks that can harm people’s daily lives was launched several years ago by a Facebook team focused on mitigating harmful behavior. The team suggested a number of fixes, and while the company implemented a few, then closed the team in 2019.
Facebook, however, has responded to TWSJ’s allegations, calling their information irresponsible.. Facebook’s head of research, Pratiti Raychoudhury, denied the characterization raised by the newspaper, saying that the company has launched “almost 10 products»To support the healthy use of Facebook applications by people, as well as to indicate that it is a problem that is not unique to your company.
It is undoubted that in this case we are talking about a problem that certain people have to control their consumption of this type of service. However, the closure of the research group by the company is something to think about, and after seeing how the company supposedly turned a blind eye with disinformation campaigns due to the income they generated, it is quite easy to think wrong in this case.
