Me and 4 Billion happy users don't care.

HN must understand that they are not a representative sample of anything.

Most of the planet refused to wash their hands or use basic sanitation until about 150 years ago even though they had clear reproducible evidence doing so saved countless lives 50 years earlier. Most just considered doing the bare minimum to save lives as too much work. Also we used to advertise cigarettes and alcohol for consumption by babies in the 50s.

It is reasonable to assume the majority of humans are intellectually lazy to the point of killing themselves and their families if told to with the right marketing.

We should all make our own individual well researched choices and not ever buy into the worthless argument of "everyone does it".

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ai-x 5 hours ago | parent [-]

False analogies won't make your case.

There are plenty of happy, successful people who didn't die because they used a Meta product.

In fact I'd even argue that all things equal, a Meta user is happier than a paranoid-meta-hater who worries every minute that someone is going to serve them an Ad that fits them

"oh, the horror!!!. How am I ever going to recover from the trauma and financial ruin of seeing a targeted ad."

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lrvick 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> There are plenty of happy, successful people who didn't die because they used a Meta product.

And plenty of teens that never became happy and successful people because they used a Meta product.

These companies are predatory, and have nothing to offer us we cannot easily setup at home these days with privacy and sovereignty.

	▲	ai-x 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[citation needed] Note: Unless you spin an alternative universe there is no way you can prove causality of social media usage => happiness/depression.

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mrtesthah 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>successful people who didn't die

Did you just move the goalposts to “it didn’t kill me”?

We’re talking about society-wide effects here, including harm to children for which Facebook is paying 17 billion dollars.

https://oag.dc.gov/release/attorney-general-schwalb-announce...

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ai-x 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For a supposedly science-based cohort we aren't using any science aren't we?

There is ZERO proven causality between social media usage (specifically Meta products) and long-term happiness of a person. All the social science are spurious correlations that can be attributed to anything (including higher education where hysteria about the modern world reins)

As far as $17B settlement, it has nothing to do with causality. It's just some $$$ set aside for Meta to remove operational headaches.

I could even say Meta-haters make more irrational life decisions compared to normal people who just browse Instagram and use WhatsApp without paranoia

	▲	Apocryphon 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Did you just accuse others of not being science-based, while casually handwaving studies away?

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warkdarrior 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And those children are $17B richer today.

	▲	lrvick 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The ones that did not commit suicide get a tiny tiny fraction of that, yes. Your comment implies no harm matters so long as people can sue for it later?

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4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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jagermo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not at all, if you are happy, go for it. I might look into something like hermes, that seems to fit my bill more.