ARB final- facebook files and Social Media Addiction

Facebook- human trafficking

"A 2020 federal human trafficking report showed that 41% of defendants in active sex trafficking cases met their victims on social media and 59% of online victim recruitment occurred on Facebook" Instead, priority is given to retaining users, helping business partners and at times placating authoritarian governments, whose support Facebook sometimes needs to operate within their borders, the documents show. For some languages, Facebook also failed to build automated systems, called classifiers, that could weed out the worst abuses. Artificial-intelligence systems that form the backbone of Facebook's enforcement don't cover most of the languages used on the site.

Whistleblower: francis Haugen

"I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy." Francis Haugen, testifying before the US Congress

Facebook Files

Haugen copied tens of thousands of internal Facebook documents Released them to the Securities and Exchange Commission and The Wall Street Journal SEC enforces the law against market manipulation Wall Street Journal created a podcast/article expose series

But, parents can encourage and enforce social media limiting behaviors as well.

Helpful strategies to minimize screen-time and "addictability" include the following: Limiting phone usage, especially at night and in son/daughter's bedroom Buying child a flip phone (not a smartphone), and setting ground rule that phone is for calls and coordination purposes (i.e. helping mom find child after school) only Enforcing age limits to sign up for social media account creation Spend quality time with child and give him other stimulating alternatives to scrolling through SNS

Facebook's public stance

"The research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental-health benefits," Instagram head Adam Mosseri told reporters that research he had seen suggests the app's effects on teen well-being is likely "quite small." In the Q3 2021 earnings call, Zuckerberg discussed the recent leaks, characterizing them as coordinated efforts to paint a false picture of his company by selectively leaking documents

body image

1/3 of people on instagram feel like they are often or always comparing their appearances to others, and 1/4 feel intense pressure to look perfect

Center for humane technology

A group of Silicon Valley executives created the Center for Humane Technology, which will run an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign at 55,000 public schools in the United States. "There was definitely an awareness of the fact that the product was habit-forming and addictive" company set out to consume as much user time as possible. He claimed it was "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

What is Social Media Addiction?

A user's maladaptive psychological state of dependency on the use of one or more SNS, manifested through an obsessive pattern of seeking and using this SNS such that these acts infringe on normal functioning and produce a range of typical behavioral addiction symptoms.

Infinite scroll

Allows users to endlessly swipe through content with limited clicking Removes stopping cues TikTok; Instagram recently enabled this feature on posts and reels Autoplay on video platforms (Netflix/YouTube) Aza Raskin: Inventor of infinite scroll "If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your impulses, you just keep scrolling"

Impact of SMA on the Brain

Blue- Amygdala smaller in those with SMA Yellow- Unlike in other addictions, the anterior and mid-cingulate cortices NOT smaller in those with SMA

Flagging Violence

Car Crashes and Cockfighting XRayOC Frame Based Model Detect violent cockfights and car crashes Fed many hours of cockfighting and car crashes Similar issue with first person shootings Missed Christchurch shooting Sometimes flagged paintball or video games

Prevalence and trends

Continuous rise in social network users (jump during pandemic) Hard to quantify prevalence of SMA in population given it is not an official disorder In 2014, one study quantified internet addiction at 6.0% worldwide In 2021, meta-analysis found social media addiction was 24% worldwide

Daily Streaks

Daily Streaks Publicly keeps track of the number of days in a row that snapchats have been sent to another user Incentivises users to keep using the app daily to avoid breaking their streak Added social consequences

Diagnosis controversey

Despite strong correlation between mental distress and social media usage in adolescents, not enough research exists for the disorder to be included in the DSM First, need to prove that SMA is a distinct disorder, and not a manifestation of some other condition However, SMA may be included in a new version of the DSM should more convincing research come to light Significant for receiving care, as health insurance does not cover treatment for disorders not included in DSM

SMA Diagnosis

Diagnosis made using scaled responses to yes/no questions. Many scientists are highlighting need for consensus on diagnostic criteria. The following are the two most commonly used scales: Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS): Most widely used SMA tool ; based on Griffith's 6-item general addiction scale 9-Item Social Media Disorder Scale: Includes the above criteria as well as displacement, deception, and escape ; based on "Internet Gaming Disorder" criteria

Pull to refresh

Dragging the screen downwards prompts the screen to refresh Addicting mechanics similar to slot machines Physical action of pulling is similar to pulling a slot machine lever Variable reward schedule: sometimes there will be new and interesting content, sometimes there won't be

Macro-level solutions

Education Classroom resources designed by The Social Dilemma Invest in Research Include in the DSM Assessment/Identification Treatment Insurance Legislation Structured along the lines of the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act Limit addictive features 30 minute limit, require manual refresh after scrolling limit, eliminate YouTube autoplay, eliminate Snapchat streaks Force Big Tech to prioritize mental health over ad revenue

Policy Recommendations

Facebook gets away with their by having little governmental oversight unlike other large corporations. Mandatory pop-up suggesting a user has spent too much time on a social media app. Have a class/unit taught in middle or high school that addresses social media usage and harms. Similar to how sex ed was instituted in schools. Government funded research to determine how social media affects adolescents rather than internal reviews.

How Social Media Companies Make money

Facebook is a $1 trillion company, but users dont pay for services- why? The customer: Advertisers The products being sold: Our attention and our data The longer users stay on social media, the more advertising revenue produced The data that we voluntarily provide can be collected and sold to other companies as another source of revenue The question companies try to answer: "How can we get users to spend more time online?" "In order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time that people spend on your app has to go up," -Infinite scroll creator "The thought process was all about how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible... [Facebook is] exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology"

Facebook's response to whistleblower

Facebook's public response might be "too aggressive" and "defensive". Name change to "Meta" as Facebook tries to rebrand itself. Tactics used by Facebook: Question credibility Deny claims indirectly Straw-man defense Internal Actions Memos sent to all employees reinforcing the points made publicly. Corporate VPs hold meetings for employees to show how the company works. New initiatives announced by the company Internal memos urging employees to not publicly shame Haugen for her comments.

Harm on instagram falls into three categories

Harm from comparisons to others impact from pressure of looks/behaviors impact from others' behaviors

Similarities between facebook and big tobacco's behaviors

Hiding internal research Facebook, just like we saw in large tobacco companies, have long advocated for the safety of their platform. However, they hid or down-played their own research into how many of their apps can harm the mental health of its users. Targeting adolescents Facebook has invested money into targeting adolescents as users of their app , in the same way Big Tobacco has developed specific products appealing to younger generations. Both industries have realized the importance of getting consumers addicted early, so they have a life-long customer. Addictive product Both Facebook and Big Tobacco have built their product to be addictive to the users. Big Tobacco used additives to encourage customers to keep using their products, and Facebook relies not only on likes and updates, but also the spread of misinformation and theories to entice consumers.

Improving news feed

In 2018, Facebook changed their algorithm for what content appears in a users feed - Stated the algorithm change was "to strengthen bonds between users and to improve their well-being." - MSI = Meaningful Social Interactions - Heavier weighting toward reshared material - Majority misinformation, toxicity, or violence - Zuckerberg opposed fixes to the algorithms that would stop rewarding outrage and lies out of belief that it hurt engagement

The story- facebook- human trafficking

In 2019, Apple threatened to pull Facebook from its app store over concerns about the platform being used to trade and sell maids in the Mideast Facebook publicly promised to crack down Disabled over 1,000 accounts on its website the company knew it had a problem with "domestic servitude" Acknowledged that it was "under-enforcing on confirmed abusive activity" acronym to describe it — HEx, or "human exploitation." After a week, Facebook shared what it had done and Apple dropped the threat of removal from the app store Facebook is still struggling to implement and enforce policies to limit human trafficking on the site

Psychological Basis

In terms of the psychological basis of social media addiction, Social Media apps make use of: Dopamine Reward Pathway When we're exposed to a rewarding stimulus, the brain releases dopamine from the ventral tegmental area and flows to the nucleus accumbens which affects motivation and reward In short, when you do something pleasurable, your brain rewards you in order to motivate you to do it again. A Variable Ratio Reward Schedule: The most addictive type of reward schedule In this schedule, the reward could come at any time, but it's dependent on you being active in the system (will come after a random ratio of uses) So for phone use: there is always the possibility of receiving a notification (a like, text, etc.), so you check often in hopes of it coming Positive Intermittent reinforcement

Micro-level solutions

Intervention programs Cognitive behavioral approach Cognitive restructuring Daily reflection Mindfulness Deleting applications or accounts Behavioral improvements Turn off notifications Remove from morning/nighttime routine Create distance from device

Attentional problems from SMA

Longitudinal studies show social media addiction exacerbates symptoms of ADHD such as impulsivity and attention deficits Those with higher Bergen Facebook Addiction Scores give greater time estimates for non-SM tasks, indicating that they experience time-distortion Studies show that media multitasking, which often co occurs with SMA, negatively affects academic performance For those with SMA, the mere presence of a cell phone can lead to "phubbing", or decreased enjoyment and greater distraction during face-to-face interactions

Flagging Hate Speech and AI

Misleading Statistics "98% of removed content was flagged by AI" Profit Driven $2 Million/week 75% was on labor Facebook intended to reduce cost by 15% Friction introduced in reporting process Foreign Languages Trouble with different dialects In Afghanistan, Facebook took action on as little as 0.23% of Hate Speech

Symptoms of Social Media Addiction

Mood modification (i.e. using social media improves your mood) Preoccupation with social media Tolerance (increased usage over time) Physical and/or emotional withdrawal symptoms (when one restricts social media, she feels or behaves differently) Social media-caused interpersonal conflict (adverse experiences with others over social media usage) Relapse (one tries to stop using social media, but reverts to old habits

Other negative effects from SMA

National survey data show an exposure-response relationship between time spent on social media and insufficient sleep Girls and young women who spend more time on social media are more likely to fall victim to cyberbullying, which increases relative risk for suicidal ideation

Spreading Misinformation and Hate Speech

One of the prominent themes exposed in the facebook files is the disconnect between all the good that Facebook believes and preaches it is doing for the public with all the harm that it actually facilitates. The documents cite examples of the platform rewarding outrage, promoting anti-vaccine rhetoric, and fueling hate speech and violence in developing countries

Corporations are not alone in influencing adolescent's social media usage...

Parent and peer influences can be both protective and risk-inducing for adolescents. Meta-analysis of 32 studies from 2000-2018 finds significant, positive association between insecure attachment and more intensive and dysfunctional use of the internet and social media Insecure attachment individuals seem to use social media as replacement and compensation for affection missing from family and peers

Human trafficking - the documents

Priority is given to retaining users, helping business partners, and negotiating with authoritarian governments In some countries where Facebook operates, it has few or no people who speak the dialects needed to identify dangerous or criminal uses of the platform Artificial-intelligence systems, that act as Facebook's enforcements, don't cover most of the languages used on the site Facebook commits fewer resources to stopping harm overseas than in the U.S. In 2020, Facebook employees and contractors spent more than 3.2 million hours searching out and labeling Only 13% of those hours were spent working on content from outside the U.S.

SMART Act

Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act Introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley Aimed to ban addictive social media features, such as infinite scroll, autoplay, and Snapchat streaks Addition of 30-minute app limits and frequent reminders of time spent on the apps Met with a lot of resistance The Internet Association, which lobbies for social media companies, opposed the bill Responded that the science behind social media addiction has yet to be proven Silicon Valley leaders denounced the bill as arbitrary, overly broad, and potentially disruptive for businesses, entrepreneurs, and researchers who work on social media websites

Read Receipts

Social media takes advantage of our fear of missing out (FOMO), and other inherent social impulses and anxieties Apps such as Facebook Messenger automatically enable read receipts (indications that a sent message has been opened) to incentivise continued interaction on the app Example: your friend sends you a message, you open it knowing that your read receipts are enabled

The like button

Takes advantage of our desire for social validation Checking the number of likes received on a post is rewarding to the brain, and can quickly become addicting Instagram's notification algorithms will sometimes withhold "likes" on your photos to deliver them in larger bursts Priming to be more rewarded later on Variable reward schedule

Mental health/suicidality

Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups so facebook knew that instagram actually increases the rates of mental health issues Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram this is obviously too high of a number gaps revealed in the documents between Facebook's understanding of itself and its public position. The documents also show that Facebook has made minimal efforts to address these issues and plays them down in public. Their stance is that Facebook's research indicates Instagram's effects aren't harmful for all users. For most teenagers, the effects of "negative social comparison" are manageable and can be outweighed by the app's utility as a fun way for users to express themselves and connect with friends, the research says. Facebook experimented with hiding the tallies of "likes" that users see on their photos. Teens told Facebook in focus groups that "like" counts caused them anxiety and contributed to their negative feelings. When Facebook tested a tweak to hide the "likes" in a pilot program they called Project Daisy, it found it didn't improve life for teens.

Tech companies' responses

The advertisement-based profit model gives social media companies little incentive to change or remove their addictive features In response to consumer and shareholder criticism, companies have responded with measly solutions (usually just more technology) Apple Screen Time TikTok "You've been scrolling for way too long now!" Instagram hiding likes on posts, but only if you opt in

Prevalence: results of meta-analysis

Variation in prevalence based on: Classification method Region Culture Age (not shown) Adolescent samples: 35% University samples: 23% Adult samples: 19%

Facebook AI

What is AI? Systems running in the back-end to improve user experience Intended to learn and improve their recognition with increased data Why AI? Over 350 Million posts a day. Far too much for humans to oversee Flagging Content Screening for content deemed inappropriate by Facebook Hate Speech and Violence & Incitement Improving Content - "Improve" content offerings for users by showing posts most favored by that user

Facebook's Role in Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric

Zuckerberg's Optimistic View Facebook as a tool to help solve the world's problems Facebook received plenty of warning that a campaign to roll out a new vaccine might provoke backlash In 2019, Facebook promised a crackdown but made no progress months later Facebook implemented a big change to combat anti vaccine content Weak detection of vaccine-hesitancy in comments Vaccine-hesitancy is twice as high in comments than posts (41% vs. 21%)

Effects of SMA- mood

increased time spent on Facebook was associated with greater feelings of envy "Fomo" - fear of missing out - apprehension that others are having more rewarding experiences than oneself An observational study found that increased screen time was associated with lower life satisfaction and self-esteem MTF national survey data found those reporting higher use of "new media" were also more likely to report mental health issues

instagram- makes things worse

not only does it seem like instagram increases rates of anxiety and depression, but it also makes it worse for teens who already struggle with mental health. the fear of missing out of cultural trends or information makes instagram highly addicting, even if teens know the amount of time they're spending is bad. A big reason why instagram is so harmful has to do with conforming to stereotypes, needing validation, and overall social pressure and feeling isolated. this social comparison creates a negative feedback loop

Techniques

red alerts infinite scroll pull-to-refresh mechanism manipulating when people receive "likes" autoplay videos gamification tracking low emotional mood states of adolescents ("worthless," "insecure," "stressed," "defeated," "anxious," and like a "failure") through monitoring posts, photos, interactions, and internet activity

What does social media addiction look like?

salience: use of social media becomes one of the most important things in someone's life mood modification: "being used in order to induce mood alterations, pleasurable feelings or a numbing effect" tolerance: "increased amounts of time and energy are required to be put into engaging with SNS activities in order to achieve the same feelings and state of mind that occurred in the initial phases of usage" withdrawal: "when SNS use is discontinued, addicted individuals will experience negative psychological and sometimes physiological symptoms" consequences: "problems arise as a consequence of the engagement in the problematic behavior"

friends and family and mental health

social media apps have the lowest percentage of positive mental health effects (spend more time with family and friends and less time on instagram!)

Social Comparison:

when people assess their own value in relation to the attractiveness, wealth and success of others.

Facebook Fueling Hate Speech and Violence in India

​​2019 Dummy Account Facebook employees made a dummy account to see the user experience in India, their largest market The US comprises less than 10 percent of Facebook's daily users but 84% of the company's budget to fight misinformation is allocated to the US Facebook had not developed algorithms that could detect hate speech in Hindi or Bengali In India, misinformation and hate speech can translate into real-life violence When riots broke out in Delhi last year, calls to violence against Muslims remained on the site, despite being flagged