Shut Facebook Down

Privacy, in Matthew Yglesias’ view, is only half of what you’re losing when you agree to Facebook’s terms as a member. The other thing you lose is a sense of daily happiness. Given recent revelations about the company’s collusion (or at least secrecy about what was happening) with Cambridge Analytica, there are plenty of political reasons to leave the platform. But what about its profound psychological effects, related but not limited to the fact that you’re constantly coughing up your data for someone else’s benefit?

As Yglesias reports in this article, much research suggests that Facebook usage is negatively correlated with well-being. That is, rather than making users feel more connected to each other, as founder Mark Zuckerberg claims it should do, it makes them feel alienated from each other. It wastes time, it leads to depression, and it can exacerbate other mental health issues for those already feeling marginalized.

What’s more, says Yglesias, it’s destroying the business model that journalism rests on, among myriad other pernicious effects on the societal scale. (Don’t get him started on the US election.)

Yglesias says that if Zuckerberg really wants to walk the walk and do good for the world as he claims, the only way forward is to shut Facebook down. After all, “the executives have already made a lot of money and the workers have valuable, in-demand job skills.” It might be the best for everybody.