Facebook and Instagram may not be having as much influence on people’s politics as some critics fear.
A study published Monday by researchers at Stanford University, Mehta and other institutions found that some 35,000 people who took a break from Facebook and Instagram in the six weeks before the 2020 presidential election were more likely to do so as the election approached. It turns out that it did not significantly change politics.
Researchers found that not using two social media apps, both part of parent company Meta, affected how people viewed candidates, whether they voted, and how they perceived legitimacy. , found that it has little effect, at least in the short term. of the election.
But the researchers also found that leaving Facebook in particular is a double-edged sword when it comes to understanding the world. People who disabled the app appear to be less likely to believe misinformation about the election, but also likely to be less knowledgeable about news in general. .
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is part of a broader study seeking to understand how social media affects democracy. Meta, which has long been criticized for upending the way campaigns are run and voters consume information, has partnered with academics to grant companies access to data held by them. University professors can control what they report. In the latest study, the authors said Mehta paid for the research, but not the researchers or institutions.
“These findings are consistent with previous publications of this study in that there was little effect on major political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors,” Mehta said in a statement Monday. An initial set of findings released in July concluded that there is “significant ideological segregation” on Facebook and that conservative sources dominate the news ecosystem.
Academic researchers and social media users alike have been keen to understand, for example, whether so-called filter bubbles exist and, if so, what the real impact is. Although social media has been repeatedly accused of “ruining political debate,” spreading falsehoods, and exacerbating polarization, research on such issues is relatively young.
Stanford University economist Matthew Gentzkow, a co-author of the new study, said one of the findings is that Facebook and Instagram appear to have little effect on polarization and division. .
“If you’re worried about these things, trying to control what people see on social media and whether they use social media is not the most important thing you can do,” he said in an interview. Maybe,” he said.
People who deactivated Facebook and Instagram remained polarized on issues such as immigration, mask mandates, and police enforcement.
But Gentzkow also said the study is not close to the final word on the subject, as it was limited to the effects of Facebook and Instagram within a relatively narrow six-week period.
“This study does not allow us to determine whether social media is causing polarization, one over the other in a 10-year sense,” he said.
Researchers find a small but untested effect of Facebook usage favoring Donald Trump, with people who deactivated Facebook more likely to vote for Joe Biden than others slightly more likely to. This equates to 1.3% of those who voted for Trump leaning toward Biden. That could be because the Trump campaign was using Facebook more effectively, the researchers wrote, or it could be due to other factors. In any case, the differences “apply to the specific population participating in the experiment” and “cannot be extrapolated to the broader population without strong assumptions,” the researchers wrote.
The study claims to be “the largest body of evidence available to date on the effects of access to Facebook and Instagram on political knowledge, attitudes, and behavior during the presidential election season.” His 32 co-authors from 14 institutions are listed.
Researchers have examined the role of Facebook and Instagram since Election Day, when some Trump supporters used them to promote allegations of election fraud and the company fought to have those allegations dropped. I didn’t pay attention to it.
Meta worked with researchers to find participants and posted invitations on people’s feeds in August and September 2020. Participation also came with a financial incentive. For those who agreed to deactivate for one week, he paid $25 per person, and for those who agreed to deactivate for six weeks, he paid $150.
This isn’t the first study to wonder what life is like for people who don’t use social media. A study published in 2018, amid an online boycott called #DeleteFacebook, stated that “the average Facebook user would need to spend more than $1,000 to deactivate his girlfriend’s account for a year.” Masu.
And in a 2019 study, Gentzkow and other researchers found that deactivating Facebook four weeks before the 2018 midterm elections led to increased self-reported happiness, decreased factual news knowledge, and political They found a variety of real-world effects, including a reduction in polarization. Gentzkow said more research is needed to find out why the current study showed a decrease in polarization while the latest study did not.
