In recent months, the journalistic investigation conducted by the Wall Street Journal on the proven negative effect of social networks, in particular the platforms owned by Facebook, on the mental health of adolescents had caused a great stir.
The basic narrative of the investigation by the Wall Street Journal reaffirmed, providing concrete examples, concepts now taken for granted in the common mentality: the use of social networks by adolescents, with the continuous exposure to artificial and idealized images, tends to influence negatively their mental health.
To substantiate its thesis, the Wall Street Journal often referred to the results of an internal survey conducted by Instagram employees in March 2020, which revealed the negative impact that the constant comparison typical of social networks has on self-esteem. and physical appearance, particularly in adolescent girls. On the eve of a hearing that sees Zuckerberg’s company in the dock on this very issue, the Facebook team released this internal documentation, refuting some of the claims of the Wall Street Journal investigation.
The complete slides of the internal investigation, accompanied by explanatory notes, were made public by Pratiti Raychoudhury, vice president of Facebook, on the company blog. This documentation, which for Facebook does not, however, consist in any way complete, is obviously in English and reports in detail statistics relating to sensitive issues, from mental disorders to the idea of suicide, which is why we recommend that you proceed with full knowledge of the facts. reading the complete report.
However, there are three main charges challenged by Facebook to the Wall Street Journal:
- Excluding physical appearance issues, teenage girls in the 40-person survey sample said Instagram had improved, rather than worsened, their mental state. In that specific case, a significant part of the sample still declared itself neutral with respect to Instagram’s responsibility for their psychophysical well-being.
- It is not true that Instagram has not taken concrete measures: in recent years the platform has been committed to monitoring the most dangerous search terms, directly blocking some hashtags and referring to support channels for mental and eating disorders. Additionally, the Restrict feature was recently introduced, which allows users to protect themselves from bullying by limiting interactions with specific accounts.
- In several areas examined by the internal survey, the component of adolescents who had found a negative impact following the use of Instagram was balanced by the same number of users who had instead been positively influenced by it. For this reason, the statement underlying the investigation, “Instagram is dangerous for teenagers” would be biased and incomplete.
On the other hand, however, the Instagram documentation reveals some internal contradictions and is generally permeated by a defensive attitude on the part of the company, which seeks to minimize the most negative statistics with periphrases such as:
“teens who have a low quality of life are more likely to say that Instagram worsens their mental health or how they perceive themselves than teens who are satisfied with their life“
So will the threat of legal repercussions be enough to make Zuckerberg’s company assume greater responsibility towards its most sensitive audiences?
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