“We are going to introduce something which I think will make a considerable difference, which is where our systems see that a teenager is looking at the same content over and over again, and it is content which may not be conducive to their well being, we will nudge them to look at other content,” Facebook’s vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg said in an interview with CNN. Clegg added that the social media platform was going to roll out a ‘take a break’ feature prompting teens to stay off Instagram for some time and give parents optional controls to supervise teens. A Facebook spokesperson told The Verge that they have not tested these features yet. The social media giant has been under major scrutiny recently as leaked internal documents, dubbed 'The Facebook Files', contained damning revelations about the platform. Instagram’s impact on mental health of teenagers. These new features were announced in response to internal research conducted by Facebook which showed that a large number of teenagers, particularly teenage girls, trace a significant amount of anxiety and mental health problems to Instagram. The findings boil down to these observations, apart from the one mentioned above: One in five teenagers said Instagram makes them feel bad about themselves. Teenagers blame Instagram for increased anxiety and depression, “unprompted”. 6–13% of teens who had suicidal thoughts attributed Instagram as a cause. An experiment to hide “likes” from posts didn’t significantly improve mental health outcomes. Facebook published a point-by-point rebuttal, saying that WSJ mischaracterised internal research.…
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Teenagers on Instagram may soon be nudged to look the other way on harmful content
Steering teens away from harmful content is Facebook’s response to the recent controversy about Instagram and its effects.
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