Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness.
> A moat is only useful if the project serves its purpose well.
It's not clear to me that the purpose of Facebook is to make people happy. Instead, I think it's purpose is to be an low friction way to keep connected to lots of people. It seems to fulfill that purpose quite well.
That people are uncomfortable with boredom is not an inditement of the balm with which they sooth themselves.
> Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness.
True. Correlation is not causation. However, my argument is that it doesn't seem to solve a problem I can think of well that leads to healthier real-life relationships and heavy use instead seem to correlate with the opposite. Can you think of any? I do think it solves image-sharing and life-updates with remote-family as well as remote-friends well.
> It's not clear to me that the purpose of Facebook is to make people happy.
I agree with you there. What problem Facebook cures is dependent on the person and situation. Things I can think of is; boredom, anxiety, loneliness, social recognition, etc
> That people are uncomfortable with boredom is not an inditement of the balm with which they sooth themselves.
Yes, that is the issue. Real life is hard and when attempting to connect we might receive the same rejections that we are afraid of. At least on facebook someone will like your post and comment on it, although maybe it doesn't strengthen a core group of friends like comments/likes in real life would.
> Perhaps you're young and haven't known life without Facebook? It used to be that people just lost track of each other all the time.
Sure, but now many seem to loose track of people they are sitting in the same room with and maybe even choose to not be in that room due to a social media addiction.
As creators we have a lot of power to design experiences that amplify behavioral patterns. Maybe we've gamed them too much in this case and need to more balance?
> Facebook (and other social networks) allow people to maintain orders of magnitude more weak links than before.
I am old enough to remember that. :) Most people would still at some point settle into a social circle and routine that build healthy relationships where they lived for a while. People move, but few people move so much that this is not possible.
I think weak links are a poor replacement for a person that sits in the same room as you in an engaged conversation.
> A moat is only useful if the project serves its purpose well.
It's not clear to me that the purpose of Facebook is to make people happy. Instead, I think it's purpose is to be an low friction way to keep connected to lots of people. It seems to fulfill that purpose quite well.
That people are uncomfortable with boredom is not an inditement of the balm with which they sooth themselves.