Social media scrolling can make you feel bad: Facebook

It's not quite like tobacco companies warning about the dangers of smoking, but Facebook is acknowledging something many already know: using social media can be bad for your health.

The social media giant whose platform has become a daily addiction for hundreds of millions of people sheds light in a corporate blog post on Friday on what it says are two sides of the issue.

It notes research showing an increase in teen depression with technology use. However, striking back against scientific researchers and tech industry insiders who have criticised the world's biggest social media network and its competitors for transforming how people behave and express emotion, it also points to its own research that shows improvements in well-being from interacting with close friends online.

"We employ social psychologists, social scientists and sociologists, and we collaborate with top scholars to better understand well-being and work to make Facebook a place that contributes in a positive way," the blog says.

Facebook, of course, thrives when people engage with its platform.

Facebook's Director of Research David Ginsberg and research scientist Moira Burke who authored the blog cite a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology that found University of Michigan students randomly assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in a worse mood at the end of the day than students assigned to post or talk to friends on the platform.

It also cites research that Burke conducted with a Carnegie Mellon professor that it says shows sending or receiving direct messages or posts and comments on one's timeline boost psychological well-being.

Social isolation

A study in March by US researchers found that using such services at least two hours daily was correlated with reporting feelings of social isolation.

A non-profit organisation called Time Well Spent, led by a former Google design ethicist, is pressuring tech companies to move away from products that try to hook people's attention.

Facebook, in the blog post, says that social media can be good for people's well-being if they use the technology in a way that is active, such as messaging with friends, rather than passive, such as scrolling through a feed of other people's posts.

It was the second time this week that Facebook had published such a rebuttal, signalling a new willingness to defend a business model that translates users' attention into advertising revenue.

On Tuesday, the company released a statement saying that former executive Chamath Palihapitiya, who at a conference publicly blamed Facebook for "destroying how society works," had been gone for six years and was unfamiliar with the company's recent efforts to improve.

Palihapitiya on Thursday revised his view, writing in a Facebook post that the service "is a force for good in the world."

Follow the money

Fundamental change would require turning away from "where the money is," said Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early Facebook investor who recently has criticized the social network.

"Facebook's business model depends on monopolizing consumer attention, and content that appeals to fear and anger is the most profitable way to do that," McNamee said in an email on Friday.

A Facebook representative declined to comment beyond the blog post.

Facebook is spending $1 million on research into the relationship among technology, youth development and well-being, the blog post said.