zlacker

>>giulio+(OP)
As with all studies in the social sciences, one of two principles apply.

First, if the conclusions are counterintuitive or unexpected, then when you look closer, you will find that the methodology is garbage and that it does not support the conclusions given.

Second, if the conclusions reflect things that you believe are true, when you look closer, you will find that the methodology is garbage and that it does not support the conclusions given.

>>andrew+HQ
That's a low-effort, shallow dismissal that doesn't even address anything specific to the article.

If you have specific criticism regarding the methodology of this study - which doesn't, prima facie, appear unsound - please let the rest of us participate.

>>Tainno+OZ
I will take a stab. Mind you, I have not even clicked on the article, much less read it or know what the methodology is. Here goes ----

"The have used a correlational model, not a causal model. There are several confounding variables the paper doesn't consider, hence it is not proven from the evidence that Facebook has a negative impact "

>>random+a11
In most fields of study you can't really perform double-blind experiments. We know that smoking is linked to cancer through decades of correlational studies and careful analysis of confounding factors, for example.

The article discusses how the study looked at different universities during the same time period, some of which had access to facebook and some of which didn't, and discovered that in the first case there was an increase in mental health issues over that period. There could still be confounders, sure, (or the sample size could be too small etc.), but at a first glance, that's not an unreasonable approach, as it tries to isolate the variable "facebook yes/no".

That said, if you haven't read the article, I'm not sure why you even felt the need to comment? This is exactly the same kind of shallow dismissal I was calling out.

>>Tainno+d41
The smoking comparison is very apt I think. People and institutions persistently pointing out that correlation isn't causation is a big part of why it took decades for the link between smoking and cancer to become commonly accepted after it was well established.

Some were surely acting in their own personal financial interests but I'm also certain that a lot of it was more nuanced and personal. People need to think of themselves as, for the most part, good people who do mostly good things. Knowingly contributing to something that makes life much worse for many people doesn't align with that and they will need to deny it. I know if you polled phillip morris employees about cancer in the late 60s after the link was confirmed you'd hear a lot about correlation and uncertainty.

HN isn't a random slice of the population. A lot of us here work in this domain or on similar products. There are certainly people in this comment section who directly worked on the core facebook product being discussed. They need to think of themselves as good still, too.

>>giraff+d71
Smoking to lung cancer has a very direct delivery mechanism, inhaling tar into the lungs. The effect size and sample sizes are big. The hypothesized mechanisms here - unfavorable social comparison is far more tenuous, and the sample size here is number of universities- not number of students.

These 2 are vastly different situations.

To give an example. Establishing causal effect between nicotine and lung cancer is an open question, even as the causal effect of smoking on cancer is very clear.