Participants were measurably happier and less anxious.

But, disappointingly, not by a huge margin:

Perhaps this is due to the fact a significant number of users switched to less harmful online platforms and didn’t stop using their phones.

Or perhaps there is actually something more sinister. My real concern with this study is the involvement of Meta.

We actually have evidence that Meta halted internal research about social media:

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/meta-buried-causal-evidence-social-media-harm-us-court-filings-allege-2025-11-23/

Would you study tobacco and have tobacco companies involved?

Would you study obesity and have Coca-Cola involved?

I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but could Meta actually bully/bribe Stanford in order to change the figures?

  • Mac@mander.xyz
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    5 days ago

    This might be unpopular but i genuinely believe it is our responsibility to be aware of the horrors.

      • Mac@mander.xyz
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        5 days ago

        Oh, i see you’re a Lemmy user and therefore you must be a tankie. Go back to ml/grad
        /s

        If your sources of news relies on platform then i have bad news for you…

        • sudoer777@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          FB/Instagram is a for-profit ad-driven platform that relies on fearmongering to keep you addicted to the platform. Keeping yourself addicted to a platform like that and destroying your mental health with it doesn’t help anyone but the corporation that runs the platform.

    • Perspectivist@feddit.uk
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      5 days ago

      Anyone who thinks you can avoid hearing about “the horrors” by leaving social media hasn’t tried leaving social media. This stuff is unavoidable. The only little control you have over it is the sheer volume of it that you wish to get firehosed by on a daily basis.

    • sudoer777@lemmy.ml
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      5 days ago

      Except then it makes you too depressed to do anything and now people are complaining that you’re burdening them with your being depressed