Factoids
Making Sense of the World
Why It Matters
A broken information ecology undermines our ability to understand and act on complex global challenges from climate change to COVID-19.
Evidence
4x more views were generated by the 10 most popular Facebook COVID misinformation sites compared to content from the 10 leading international health institutions (e.g., WHO & CDC). Analysis indicates that major Facebook networks spread misinformation across at least 5 countries and generated an estimated 3.8 billion views in just the first 8 months of 2020. In a sample of nearly 200 health misinformation articles and posts, 84% carried no warning label despite being fact-checked by the platform. It's estimated that Facebook could cut the reach of such misinformation by 80% simply by changing its algorithm to ensure that misinformation is downgraded in users' news feeds.
Private Study · Facebook’s Algorithm: A Major Threat to Public Health, 2020. Avaaz ↗
Fake news spreads six times faster than true news. According to researchers, this is because fake news grabs our attention more than authentic information: fake news items usually have a higher emotional content and contain unexpected information which inevitably means that they will be shared and reposted more often.
Source: Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S., 2018. Science ↗
Via: Ledger of Harms (https://ledger.humanetech.com/#study_122)
Physical and Mental Health
Why It Matters
As technology increasingly pervades our waking lives, research is showing a wide range of effects on our happiness, our self image, and our mental health.
Evidence
A long-term study of several hundred Dutch teenagers shows that problematic social media use is significantly linked to the emergence of serious cognitive effects a year later, including reduced attention, increased impulsivity, and increased hyperactivity. Losing control over social media habits (such as lying to parents to gain access to social media) was significantly more likely to lead to new attentional problems a year later.
Peer-Reviewed · Boer, M., Stevens, G., Finkenauer, C., & Van Den Eijinden, R., 2020. Child Development ↗
1 month away from Facebook leads to a significant improvement in emotional well-being. In an experimental study of over 1,600 American adults (who normally used Facebook for up to an hour each day), deactivating Facebook accounts led to a significant increase in emotional well-being (including a reduction in loneliness and an increase in happiness), as well as a significant reduction in political polarization.
Peer-Reviewed · Allcott, H., Braghier, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M., 2020. American Economic Review ↗
Politics and Elections
Why It Matters
Social media platforms are incentivized to amplify the most engaging content, tilting public attention towards polarizing and often misleading content. By selling micro targeting to the highest bidder, they enable manipulative practices that undermine democracies around the world.
Evidence
Social media continues to profit by amplifying messages of extreme content, which then attract more views and hike up advertising revenue. For example, one week after the Capitol attacks, military gear ads continued to be attached to content on the US elections and the attacks, despite Facebook staff and external watchdogs flagging these instances.
Journalism · Mac, R., & Silverman, C., 2021. Buzzfeed ↗
Analyzing over 2 million recommendations and 72 million comments on YouTube in 2019, researchers demonstrated that viewers consistently moved from watching moderate to extremist videos; simulation experiments run on YouTube revealed that its recommendation system steers viewers towards politically extreme content. The study notes "a comprehensive picture of user radicalization on YouTube".
Conference Proceedings · Ribeiro, M. H., Ottoni, R., West, R., Almeida, V. A. F., & Meira, W., 2020. Association for Computing Machinery ↗