by BELEN FERNANDEZ
Is Facebook a boon or cause for concern for the mental health industry?
According to a New York Times article by Jan Hoffman referencing a study of the Facebook profiles of 200 university students in the United States, approximately 30 percent of the students “posted updates that met the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for a symptom of depression, reporting feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, insomnia or sleeping too much, and difficulty concentrating”. These findings are said to “echo research that suggests depression is increasingly common among college students”.
Hoffman’s point is that Facebook can therefore serve as an “early warning system for timely intervention” by parents and therapists. The article ends with a quote from a mother in Ohio: “Facebook might be a pain in the neck to keep up with… But having that extra form of communication saves lives”.
No mention is made of the obvious exacerbating influence of social networking sites when it comes to phenomena such as insomnia and concentration difficulty. Rather than promote Facebook as a life-saving tool, one could easily argue that such forums and other technological distractions in fact contribute to depressive trends.
Alienation from reality
The “Facebook Newsroom” currently lists developments such as “Today we’re rolling out improvements to timeline that help you express what’s important to you” and “Today we’re announcing a new version of Facebook designed to… focus more on stories from the people you care about”.
The attempted injection of human emotion into what is ultimately a dehumanising experience is symbolic of a general estrangement from reality in which Facebook culture is both a cause and a symptom.
The detrimental effects of the conversion of emotion and empathy into a click on a computer or a mobile phone can be observed in the following anecdote from Hoffman’s article:
“Replying to questions posted on Facebook by The New York Times, Daylina Miller, a recent graduate of the University of South Florida, said that when she poured out her sadness online, some readers responded only with the Facebook ‘like’ symbol: a thumb’s up.
‘You feel the same way?’ said Ms. Miller, puzzled. ‘Or you like that I’m sad? You’re sadistic?’”
Similarly inauspicious examples of the constriction of empathy and warping of inter-human relations include the “liking” of death announcements.
On my own Facebook feed, I’ve witnessed friends post news of a parent’s death only to be bombarded with the thumb’s up and comments to the effect of: “Sorry man!”
In addition to a cheapening of sentiment, Facebook also encourages alienation from reality by displacing the space-time continuum: instead of experiencing events and thoughts as they occur in real-time, users are often distracted by how best to market these events and thoughts to their Facebook audiences.
Al Jazeera for more
via Z Communication
Transparency report from Microsoft follows open letter from rights groups
by JILLIAN C. YORK
Back in December, a young Lebanese activist and developer named Nadim Kobeissi sent an email around several lists. The gist: “Isn’t it time for an open letter regarding Skype?” Kobeissi was referring to an issue that’s been raised by numerous technologists and activists over the years: Whether or not Skype’s architecture allows for the company (and its parent company, Microsoft) to hand over call data to governments.
The letter was drafted quickly by a motley crew of interested parties and posted online, and Kobeissi began calling for signatories in mid-January. An excerpt letter – available in its entirety here – reads:
It is unfortunate that these users, and those who advise them on best security practices, work in the face of persistently unclear and confusing statements about the confidentiality of Skype conversations, and in particular the access that governments and other third parties have to Skype user data and communications.
Within days, a diverse and prestigious list of organisations and individuals – including Reporters Without Borders, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and my own organisation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – had signed the letter, which was immediately picked up by mainstream media, making waves throughout the vast global digital rights community.
But then… radio silence. For nearly three months, the organisers waited, debating whether or not Microsoft would respond to their demands. On March 21, they finally got their response: Microsoft, like Google and Twitter before it, announced the release of a transparency report, showing the law enforcement requests received by the company.
The report was well-received by some digital rights groups: Access tweeted “Transparency report from @Microsoft comes after January open letter from activists and digital rights organisations”, while the EFF stated in a blog post that they were “pleased to see that Microsoft has not only answered that letter on behalf of Skype, it has answered on behalf of the entire company”.
Transparency is key
Though Microsoft’s move was welcomed, the number of law enforcement requests should not be. In 2012, Microsoft and Skype received a total of 75,378 law enforcement requests, affecting as many as 137,424 accounts. By comparison, Google received only 42,327 requests during the same period, surprising given the number of social products offered by the company. Twitter received only 1,848.
Al Jazeera for more