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:
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?
I did that over a decade ago… Should I re-sign up and quit again?
As someone else that isn’t part of the shirts here - do you also find it jarring when suddenly all these people you meet suddenly have all the same opinion about something?
Like. Even people you’ve known for a long time. Suddenly they care about this thing, and people you know that have never met each other suddenly feel the same way.