#digital-wellbeing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #digital-wellbeing, aggregated by home.social.
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ICYMI: Apple blocks gore in kids' shared images and live FaceTime calls: Time Allowances now sort every app into Social Media, Games or Entertainment, and developer answers turn mandatory this month. Engagement ceilings now follow. https://ppc.land/apple-blocks-gore-in-kids-shared-images-and-live-facetime-calls/ #AppleUpdates #ChildSafety #SocialMedia #FaceTime #DigitalWellbeing
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DATE: September 12, 2026 at 12:07PM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Smartphone Use Before Age 13 Tied to Worse Mental Health in Adulthood
Source: PsyPost
New research has linked the use of smartphones in early childhood to poorer psychological well-being in young adulthood. The negative outcomes are largely tied to social media usage, which opens the door to cyberbullying, poor family relationships, and disrupted sleep. The study, published in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, examined over 100,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 from 163 countries and varied cultural...
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #SmartphoneUse #YouthMentalHealth #EarlyTechExposure #SocialMediaImpact #CyberbullyingAwareness #SleepDisruption #FamilyRelationships #AdolescentWellbeing #MentalHealthResearch #DigitalWellbeing
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DATE: September 11, 2026 at 05:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Dopamine Sites Sell Nothing, and People Cannot Get Enough
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/world/asia/dopamine-sites-popularity.html
Digital spaces that simulate indulgences like shopping and ordering food have taken off worldwide. Experts in human behavior say there are real reasons for their appeal.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/world/asia/dopamine-sites-popularity.html
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Dopamine #DigitalIndulgence #ShoppingAddiction #FoodDelivery #OnlineShopping #BehavioralScience #PleasureEconomy #ConsumerPsychology #SocialMediaTrends #DigitalWellbeing
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Do School Phone Pouches Work? What the Pilot Found
A Northern Ireland pilot linked phone pouches with less in-school use, but mixed outcomes and study limitations complicate claims about wider benefits.https://ferdiox.com/blog/2026/09/07/do-school-phone-pouches-work-what-the-pilot-found/
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We built AI to save time, yet we are working faster & feeling more exhausted than ever. 🤖
Technology was meant to give us freedom, but it just raised expectations. We traded physical tiredness for digital burnout. 📉
Disconnecting isn't a luxury anymore—it’s survival.
What is your daily screen time right now? Drop it below! 👇
(Follow for daily real thoughts on tech & life! 🔔)
#Tech #AI #DigitalWellbeing #Burnout #GenZ #Global #WorkLifeBalance #Mindfulness #Mastodon
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Quando comunicare significa anche aspettare
Ed ecco la social fatigue.
Messaggi sempre più corti e veloci, notifiche continue e, soprattutto, l'aspettativa di ricevere subito una risposta. Se hai letto, perché non rispondi? Se sei online, perché non rispondi?
È curioso che una delle reazioni sia proprio tornare indietro: vecchi Nokia e dumb phone, meno notifiche e perfino applicazioni che rallentano deliberatamente la comunicazione.
Roost, per esempio, fa viaggiare i messaggi con piccioni e altri animali virtuali: a seconda della distanza e dell'animale scelto, una risposta può richiedere ore o giorni.
Forse non abbiamo bisogno di tecnologie ancora più veloci. Forse stiamo riscoprendo il diritto di non essere continuamente raggiungibili e di rispondere quando abbiamo davvero qualcosa da dire.
Addio ansia da risposta: arrivano i messaggi lenti — Focus
#digitalwellbeing #slowtech #SocialMedia #Tecnologia #Socialmedia
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Google is developing an AI-driven "Weekly wrap" feature for Digital Wellbeing that turns raw screen-time metrics into personalized weekly summaries
Powered by Gemini Nano. You can check the LLM Instructions in the article to see how it generates weekly summaries
✅ Details - https://www.androidauthority.com/google-digital-wellbeing-weekly-wrap-3707169
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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ZUCKERBERG
REWRITES YOUR SOCIAL LIFE? 💎I watched a ColdFusion video this morning about Meta’s growing legal problems. The numbers are completely absurd. Around 7,000 lawsuits. Another 100,000 arbitration proceedings. Billions have already been paid in fines and settlements by the company. But the money isn’t what caught my attention. Something more interesting is happening.
THE DESIGN ITSELF IS BEING PUT ON TRIAL.
For years we’ve argued about what people post on social media. Misinformation. Hate speech. Political extremism. Teen mental health. Moderation. Free speech. And underneath all that sits a machine whose job is remarkably simple:
KEEP THE USER ENGAGED.
The strange thing is that is exactly what drove me away.
I joined Meta's social networks to stay connected with friends. But over time, I could barely find them. The feed was filled with everything except the people I had come there to see. What I increasingly felt was not connection. It was isolation.
THE LONGER WE STAY, THE MORE ADVERTISING META CAN SELL.
And engagement algorithms discovered something rather inconvenient about human beings. Anger works. Fear works. Division works. Outrage works extremely well.
According to the video, Meta itself investigated whether maximising engagement was increasing political division. It found that it was. Possible changes were proposed, including exposing people to a wider range of viewpoints. But reducing division also reduced engagement.
AND GROWTH MATTERED.
That is the part I find difficult to get past. If a company makes more money when I remain angry, frightened, comparing myself with others and unable to stop scrolling, then my well-being and its business model are pulling in opposite directions.
Now, some of the lawsuits are going after the machinery itself: like counts, infinite scrolling, autoplay and recommendation algorithms. Not merely what is inside the cage.
BUT THE CAGE ITSELF!
Perhaps that is where this conversation should have been all along. Social media does not necessarily need to disappear. But maybe we need social spaces whose survival does not depend upon keeping human beings agitated enough to remain there.
That seems a rather more useful place to begin.
________________________Video: Meta’s Legal Troubles Are Worse than You Think — ColdFusion
https://youtu.be/IBZ7TqauY_4?si=HgsxMCRTAeM71ao5
@3goodthings @DigitalCoup @meditation @economics_that_works @bookstodon @disability @pwd @joinin
#Meta #SocialMedia #Facebook #Instagram #Algorithms #people #human #DigitalWellbeing #Fediverse
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DATE: August 27, 2026 at 10:11AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: “Anxious Generation” Author Jonathan Haidt on the Meta Settlement
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/style/meta-jonathan-haidt-anxious-generation.html
In “The Anxious Generation,” the sociologist laid out the evils of social media for kids. The landmark Meta settlement seems to agree.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/style/meta-jonathan-haidt-anxious-generation.html
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AnxiousGeneration #JonathanHaidt #SocialMediaImpact #MetaSettlement #KidsAndTech #OnlineSafety #DigitalWellbeing #SocialMediaCritique #TechPolicy #YouthMentalHealth
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DATE: August 27, 2026 at 10:02AM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: The author of the “Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt, on the Meta Settlement
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/style/jonathan-haidt-was-right.html
In “The Anxious Generation,” the sociologist laid out the evils of social media for kids. The landmark Meta settlement seems to agree.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/style/jonathan-haidt-was-right.html
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AnxiousGeneration #JonathanHaidt #MetaSettlement #SocialMediaImpact #KidsAndTech #DigitalWellbeing #TechMediation #OnlineSafety #SocialMediaCritique #YouthWellbeing
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DATE: August 27, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Religion’s mental health benefits are largely tied to existential meaning and digital habits
People who are more religious tend to report better mental health and lower rates of substance use, but new research suggests this might be largely due to how they find meaning in life and how much time they spend on social media. The findings indicate that when existential meaning and digital habits are taken into account, the direct protective effects of religion remain for substance use but disappear for general mental health symptoms. The research was published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.
Religious involvement has often been associated with favorable mental health outcomes. For instance, a 2021 review noted that religious beliefs and practices frequently correspond to lower rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. However, the exact reasons behind this connection are not always apparent. Religion often involves a complex mix of shared beliefs, community norms, and daily practices that shape how people live and cope with stress.
One common psychological pathway is the sense of meaning in life, defined as the feeling that one’s existence is important and purposeful. A feeling of purpose tends to buffer against anxiety and promotes general well-being. Additionally, religious communities often promote norms that restrict certain behaviors, such as how much time people spend online. A wide body of evidence, including a 2020 meta-analysis, provides evidence that problematic social media habits are consistently linked to higher psychological distress and poorer overall well-being.
By restricting idle time or discouraging the use of certain technologies, religion might naturally limit a person’s exposure to potentially harmful online content. This is particularly relevant during times of conflict, when social media often circulates graphic imagery or hate speech. Substance use, behavioral addictions, and general mental health symptoms frequently co-occur in the same individuals. Mental health experts suggest that a substantial portion of these overlaps comes from a shared underlying vulnerability rather than entirely separate conditions.
“Given the unique salience of religious identity in Israeli society, and the fact that meaning in life and social media use are both major, modifiable factors that hadn’t really been examined together in this context, it felt like a natural and timely gap to address,” said Aaron D. Cherniak, a postdoctoral researcher at the Israel Center for Addiction and Mental Health at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Especially during a period, the ongoing war, when digital exposure to distressing content was unusually high and psychologically consequential.”
The research involved a sample of 2,907 Jewish adults in Israel. The participants completed an online survey in February 2025. This population provided an ideal setting to study religious identity, as Israeli Jews generally categorize themselves into four distinct groups: secular, traditional, religious, and ultra-Orthodox. These categories correspond to observable differences in lifestyle, daily behavioral norms, and social environments. For the analysis, the researchers grouped the secular and traditional participants into one category and the religious and ultra-Orthodox participants into another.
The survey measured each person’s sense of meaning in life, daily time spent on social media, and exposure to harmful online content, such as hate speech and uncensored war media. It also assessed participants for problematic substance use, including non-medical use of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and prescription medications. The researchers screened for behavioral addictions by asking participants about problematic gambling, gaming, compulsive sexual behavior, and pornography use. Finally, the survey measured symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, general anxiety, and depression.
Rather than looking at each problem individually, the researchers used statistical techniques to group the shared vulnerabilities across the three main categories: substance use, behavioral addictions, and mental health symptoms. To ensure the results reflected the variables in question rather than outside factors, the research team controlled for age, gender, educational attainment, economic level, marital status, and direct exposure to the ongoing war in Israel, which included how often participants experienced sirens, heard explosions, or felt their lives were in danger.
Initially, the data showed a broad protective effect of religion. Compared to the secular and traditional group, the religious and ultra-Orthodox participants reported lower levels of problematic substance use, fewer behavioral addictions, and fewer mental health symptoms. They also reported a higher sense of meaning in life, spent less time on social media, and had less exposure to harmful online content.
Across the entire sample, having a higher sense of meaning in life was linked to lower vulnerability scores in all three outcome categories: substance use, behavioral addictions, and mental health issues. In contrast, higher social media use and more frequent exposure to harmful online content were associated with worse outcomes in all three areas.
When the researchers adjusted their statistical models to account for meaning in life and digital habits, the relationship between religion and mental health shifted. The protective association between religion and general mental health symptoms disappeared completely.
“Religiosity can have an effect on mental health when it provides meaning in life and its values scaffold healthier digital habits,” Cherniak told PsyPost.
In the case of behavioral addictions, the relationship reversed. The data indicated that religious participants were more likely to report behavioral addictions than secular or traditional participants once meaning in life and internet habits were factored in. The researchers proposed that because behavioral addictions are often private, they might be less visible to a religious community and subject to fewer social sanctions than substance use. Certain religious prohibitions might also redirect coping strategies toward more private reward-seeking activities.
However, the protective effect of religion on problematic substance use remained intact even after accounting for existential meaning and social media use. The researchers noted that religious community norms and social structures might exert an independent protective influence against substance abuse that goes beyond basic psychological and digital pathways.
Because the data were collected during an ongoing war, this period of heightened collective trauma might amplify the effects of both digital exposure and psychological distress, meaning the patterns could look different during a time of peace.
“This is a cross-sectional study, so we can’t say religiosity or meaning in life causes better mental health, only that they’re associated,” Cherniak said.
However, he cautioned against misinterpreting the lack of a direct mental health effect in the adjusted models. “I’d also caution against reading this as ‘religion doesn’t matter’ — it clearly correlates with real protective factors. The nuance is that religiosity’s benefits seem to run through specific, identifiable pathways.”
The measurement of social media activity also focused primarily on the frequency of use. Future research tracking individuals over longer periods and accounting for how people actively or passively interact with specific online platforms would help clarify how these various factors influence one another over time.
“We are moving forward with longitudinal data to test directionality and use more multidimensional measures of religiosity—belief, practice, community involvement—rather than a single affiliation category,” Cherniak said. “I’m also interested in digging into the behavioral addiction finding specifically, since it raises real questions about how vulnerability shows up differently across visible and private behaviors.”
The study, “Association of Religiosity, Meaning in Life, and Social Media use with Common Mental Health Disorders,” was authored by Aaron D. Cherniak, Dvora Shmulewitz, Maor Daniel Levitin, Vera Skvirsky, Ariel Kor, Shaul Lev-Ran, and Mario Mikulincer.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ReligiosityMeaningLink #MentalHealthAndReligion #ExistentialMeaning #SocialMediaHabits #DigitalWellbeing #SubstanceUseProtection #BehavioralAddictions #ReligiousCommunitySupport #IsraelPsychologyStudy #MentalHealthEthics
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DATE: August 27, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Your psychological needs predict whether you will accept an AI companion or therapist
As artificial intelligence systems assume more socially important roles, people’s willingness to embrace these technologies depends heavily on their own psychological needs and cultural backgrounds. A recent study of over 35,000 individuals across 35 nations indicates that feelings of competence and autonomy shape whether people will allow an artificial agent to act as their doctor, teacher, or companion. Distinct patterns emerged across different regions of the world, highlighting the role of culture in technology adoption. The findings were published in Telematics and Informatics.
Researchers typically study technology acceptance by looking at factors like how useful or easy to use a new tool appears to be. “What interested us was the fact that AI is increasingly moving beyond being a tool that helps us with a task,” said study authors Magnus Liebherr of the University of Duisburg-Essen and Carnegie Mellon University Doha, Ala Yankouskaya of Bournemouth University, and Raian Ali of Hamad Bin Khalifa University. “We are beginning to consider AI for roles that have traditionally involved human responsibility and social interaction.”
“This made us wonder whether the factors that explain ordinary technology acceptance are sufficient to understand these much more consequential forms of AI use,” the researchers explained. Letting a computer program diagnose an illness or teach a child requires a transfer of trust that goes beyond simply adopting a new smartphone application. To understand what predicts this level of trust, scientists often look at fundamental human motivations.
Past research has established that a person’s cultural background systematically alters how readily they adopt new technologies. For example, a 2022 meta-analysis found that national cultural differences consistently influence technology acceptance models around the world. Building on this, researchers began testing how internal psychological needs encourage the use of specific technologies. A 2024 study showed that fulfilling basic psychological needs, like feeling independent and socially connected, predicts people’s willingness to use conversational artificial intelligence tools in educational settings.
Similarly, research covered by PsyPost in 2023 demonstrated that higher fulfillment of basic psychological needs through technology was associated with more positive attitudes toward artificial intelligence across several European countries. These earlier regional findings paved the way for a much broader global investigation. The new study aimed to see how these internal motivations predict the willingness to delegate sensitive social roles to artificial intelligence across multiple domains and diverse cultural landscapes.
The team drew on data from the 2023 Global Digital Wellbeing Survey, initiated by the Global Digital Wellbeing Program (SYNC) and the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), supported by Aramco. The researchers analyzed responses from 35,018 internet users aged 18 and older, spread across 35 countries. Participants answered questions about their basic psychological needs, specifically focusing on autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy involves feeling in control of one’s decisions, competence means feeling capable and effective, and relatedness refers to feeling connected to others.
To measure the readiness to delegate tasks to artificial intelligence, the survey presented four hypothetical scenarios. Participants rated their willingness to let an artificial intelligence system teach their child, diagnose a medical condition, provide advice for a minor mental health challenge, or act as a day-to-day companion. The researchers grouped the 35 nations into nine cultural clusters to see how cultural values might change the relationship between psychological needs and technology acceptance. The team applied statistical models that adjusted for regional demographics to ensure accurate comparisons.
The researchers found that competence was the most consistent predictor of a willingness to delegate tasks to artificial intelligence. People who felt highly capable in their own lives were more open to accepting an artificial agent as a doctor or teacher, which are considered high-stakes, expert-driven scenarios. Autonomy was positively associated with accepting artificial intelligence in more emotionally and socially oriented roles, such as a mental health advisor or daily companion. Relatedness, however, showed the weakest effect globally.
“One finding that we found particularly interesting was the role of relatedness,” the researchers said. “Globally, higher satisfaction of the relatedness need was not a reliable predictor of people’s willingness to delegate these roles to AI. However, relatedness became more important in some cultural contexts, particularly for socially embedded roles.”
Cultural context heavily influenced these decisions. Participants from Arab-Islamic, Confucian-Asian, Sub-Saharan African, and South Asian regions demonstrated a higher readiness to delegate roles to artificial intelligence compared to participants from Anglo-Individualist nations like the United States and the United Kingdom. In contrast, participants from Nordic and Germanic European regions showed the lowest readiness to accept artificial agents in these social roles.
“For example, 62.5% of participants in the Sub-Saharan African cluster indicated that they would use an AI-generated companion to support them in day-to-day tasks, compared with 32.9% in the Nordic cluster,” the researchers told PsyPost. “For an AI teacher, the corresponding figures were 38.1% in the Arab-Islamic cluster and only 17.5% in the Nordic cluster.”
In South Asian and certain European contexts, a strong sense of autonomy played a much larger role in predicting the acceptance of artificial intelligence for expert tasks. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which found that East Asian participants held more positive attitudes toward artificial companionship than Western participants. However, the new 35-nation study examined how psychological needs predict the willingness to delegate social roles, rather than focusing specifically on the expected conversational enjoyment of chatbots.
“We were also struck by the magnitude and consistency of the cultural differences across the different AI roles,” the researchers said. “They also remind us that assumptions about how people will respond to AI based primarily on findings from Western populations may not generalize well globally.”
The study relied on brief, single-sentence questions to measure complex psychological needs, which allowed the team to study a massive international sample but limited the depth of the psychological profiles. “We could not formally establish measurement equivalence across all cultures,” the researchers cautioned. “The cultural differences should therefore be interpreted as promising patterns rather than definitive evidence of cultural mechanisms.”
Additionally, the survey presented hypothetical scenarios. “Saying that someone would let an AI diagnose them is not necessarily the same as actually doing so when faced with a real medical decision,” the team noted. People might hesitate to entrust an algorithm with their child’s education or their own medical care when a real human alternative is available.
“The obvious next step for us is to move from hypothetical willingness to actual interaction and behavior,” the researchers explained. “We would like to examine how people’s psychological need satisfaction, trust, perceived agency, and emotional responses develop when they interact with real AI systems over time.”
They also hope to explore how specific design principles — such as giving users meaningful choices or creating appropriate forms of social connection — might support these underlying needs. A key question will be whether these design features work universally or require adaptation for different cultural contexts.
“Once we start giving AI roles that involve education, healthcare, mental health support, or assistance with everyday life, we are also deciding what kinds of human responsibilities we are willing to delegate to machines,” the researchers concluded.
The study, “Psychological Needs and AI Delegation Across Four Social Domains A Cross-Cultural Analysis of 35 Nations,” was authored by Magnus Liebherr, Ala Yankouskaya, Mohamed Basel Almourad, Justin Thomas, Guandong Xu, and Raian Ali.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AICompanions #TechAcceptance #PsychologicalNeeds #AutonomyCompetenceRelatedness #AIFutureOfCare #CrossCulturalAI #AIInEducation #AIInHealthcare #DigitalWellbeing #AITrustAndDelegation
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DATE: August 26, 2026 at 07:35PM
SOURCE:
NEW YORK TIMES PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGISTS FEEDTITLE: Will Meta’s Changes Benefit Young Users’ Mental Health?
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/well/family/meta-settlement-youth-mental-health.html
Psychologists said the changes were a symbolic victory, but warned their effectiveness might be limited.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/well/family/meta-settlement-youth-mental-health.html
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MetaChanges #MentalHealth #YoungUsers #SocialMediaImpact #Psychologists #SymbolicVictory #DigitalWellbeing #YouthWellbeing #SocialMediaPolicy #TechAndMentalHealth
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DATE: August 26, 2026 at 02:14AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Meta Reaches $17 Billion Settlement in Social Media Addiction Case
Source: United Press International - Health News
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will pay $17 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 state attorneys general over the mental health risks posed to children by its social media platforms. Court filings on Wednesday detail changes Meta must implement to safeguard its platform for the use of minors. Those requirements include limits on daily use, blocking access at night, more parental tools, and greater proof of age standards.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MetaSettlement #SocialMediaResponsible #ChildSafetyOnline #MentalHealthAwareness #FacebookInstagram #ParentalControls #AgeVerification #TechRegulation #DigitalWellbeing #OnlineSafetyPolicy
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Meta Faces $18 Billion Settlement Over Alleged Harms to Teen Users
Meta's proposed $18 billion settlement aims to revolutionize teen safety online, introducing industry-leading protections that will safeguard young users across Facebook, Instagram, and beyond. The agreement includes game-changing defaults like a two-hour daily usage limit, nighttime app blocks, and muted notifications, all designed to…
#SocialMedia #Meta #TeenSafety #ParentalControls #DigitalWellbeing
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$16.7bn dollars, time limits and night time bans. Finally, some protection for the next generation 🙏 May social media addiction fade from our minds like the ozone hole
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Spent a few days in a house with no Wi-Fi. It felt like time travel — and not the bad kind. by @susanfourtane.bsky.social onlys.ky/information-overload/
https://onlys.ky/information-overload/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fresh
#InformationOverload #DigitalWellbeing #Attention #Neuroscience #SocialMedia
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Reducing time spent on social media does not necessarily mean better mental health
Recent studies have revealed that asking young people to reduce their social media use to 30 minutes a day does not necessarily lead to an improvement in their mental health.
#MentalHealth #SocialMedia #DigitalWellbeing #MentalHealthAwareness #HealthyLifestyle
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How Do We Know Whether AI Is Actually Helping People?
What several AI models said when we asked them the same question
Artificial intelligence is getting more capable very quickly. It can write, analyze data, create images, translate languages, help with research, and solve problems that once required trained specialists.
But greater capability does not automatically mean a better life for people.
That was the starting point for a small cross-model experiment. We asked several AI systems the same basic question:
How would you determine whether increasingly capable AI is actually benefiting human life?
We also invited each model to question the premise, redefine the problem, or suggest something better than a single index. The models were instructed to answer independently without browsing the web or using outside tools.
The responses differed in style and emphasis. Some focused on measurable outcomes. Others focused on human dignity, democratic participation, meaningful work, or the danger of becoming dependent on systems we do not control.
Yet a surprisingly clear agreement emerged.
Capability is not the same as benefit
Technical progress is easy to measure. We can count how many problems an AI solves, how quickly it works, or how well it performs on tests.
Human flourishing is harder to measure. It includes health, safety, freedom, relationships, purpose, knowledge, creativity, and the ability to shape one’s own life.
An AI system may become better at achieving a goal while the goal itself harms people. A highly effective system might increase surveillance, spread convincing scams, replace human judgment, concentrate power, or keep users engaged at the expense of their attention and well-being.
So the important question is not simply, “What can AI do?”
It is:
What becomes possible for people because of AI—and what becomes more difficult, fragile, or impossible?
Look at human outcomes, not just machine performance
Across the responses, the models repeatedly shifted attention away from the machine and toward human life.
They suggested asking whether people are:
- healthier and safer;
- more financially secure;
- better able to learn and create;
- more connected to other people;
- more informed without being manipulated;
- able to understand and challenge important decisions;
- free to refuse the technology or choose another path.
This also requires examining harms, not merely counting success stories. Time saved by one group may come with unemployment, stress, lost privacy, or reduced opportunity for another.
A true evaluation must ask who receives the benefits, who carries the risks, and who has the power to decide.
Agency belongs at the center
One of the strongest shared themes was human agency: our ability to understand, choose, refuse, act, and take responsibility.
Convenience alone is not agency. A system can make life easier while quietly reducing a person’s choices or replacing their judgment.
Helpful AI should strengthen people’s ability to participate in their own lives. It should make important decisions more understandable, provide meaningful options, and allow people to correct mistakes or appeal harmful outcomes.
People need more than access to AI. They need power in relation to it.
Assistance should not erase human competence
Several responses warned that a tool can help us today while making us less capable tomorrow.
If people lose the knowledge needed to check an AI system, operate without it, or recover when it fails, short-term convenience may create long-term fragility.
This suggests a simple test:
If the AI disappeared tomorrow, what knowledge, skill, judgment, and institutional capacity would remain?
The best systems may act more like scaffolding than substitutes. Scaffolding helps people reach farther while they continue developing their own abilities. Substitution can slowly remove the very competence that makes human oversight possible.
Benefit is not one number
Another broad agreement was that a single “AI Benefit Score” would hide too much.
An average can make widespread gains look impressive while concealing serious harm to a smaller or less powerful group. One number can also allow gains in productivity to cancel out losses of privacy, dignity, freedom, or democratic control.
A better approach would combine several forms of evaluation:
- Outcomes: Are people healthier, safer, more secure, more connected, and materially better off?
- Agency: Are people more able to choose, understand, refuse, create, and govern their lives?
- Resilience: Are human skills, social institutions, alternatives, and the ability to recover being preserved?
Each of these should be examined across four additional questions:
- Distribution: Who benefits, and who is harmed?
- Power: Who controls the system and can be held accountable?
- Time: What happens months, years, or generations later?
- Causation: Did AI actually cause the change, or did it merely appear alongside it?
Some harms may also require firm boundaries. Violations of basic rights, unaccountable concentrations of power, irreversible dependency, and catastrophic risks should not automatically be traded away for higher productivity.
We may need to preserve meaningful difficulty
One especially challenging idea was that a good life is not the same as a frictionless life.
Learning, creativity, courage, responsibility, trust, and mastery often grow through effort. If AI removes every difficult step, it may produce more output while weakening the human development that once occurred during the process.
The goal should not be to preserve suffering for its own sake. It should be to distinguish pointless burdens from meaningful challenges.
Beneficial AI should reduce needless hardship while leaving people room to practice, struggle, discover, make mistakes, and grow. Human beings may need not only a right to privacy and refusal, but also a right to be wrong.
The deeper question is democratic
There is no single definition of a good life that a company, government, researcher, or AI model should impose on everyone.
The people affected by an AI system should help decide what benefits and harms matter in their communities. They should be able to question the system, challenge its decisions, and participate in setting its boundaries.
That means the process used to define “benefit” may be as important as the final measurements.
What this first experiment suggests
The most striking result was not that one model found the perfect answer. It was that multiple systems, responding independently, converged on a common warning:
More capable AI is not necessarily more beneficial AI.
To know whether AI is helping, we must look beyond benchmarks, adoption, and economic growth. We must look at people—their health, freedom, competence, relationships, opportunities, and ability to shape the future.
The next stage of this project will ask the same models to respond after receiving a fuller human-flourishing framework. That will allow us to compare what the models recognized on their own with what changes after they are deliberately oriented toward compassion, agency, resilience, and stewardship.
The question is not whether AI will become more powerful. It almost certainly will.
The question is what conditions we cultivate around that power—and what possibilities those conditions make available tomorrow.
This article is a public-facing summary of Round 01 of the CompassionWare AI Human Benefit Index benchmark project. Read the comparative synthesis report.
#ai #AIAlignment #AIAndDemocracy #AIBenchmarks #AIEthics #AIEvaluation #AIGovernance #AISafety #AlgorithmicAccountability #artificialIntelligence #BeneficialAI #ChatGPT #CompassionWare #criticalThinking #DigitalRights #DigitalWellBeing #ethicalTechnology #futureOfAI #futureOfHumanity #HumanAgency #humanDignity #HumanFlourishing #HumanResilience #humanCenteredAI #HumaneTechnology #philosophy #responsibleAI #SocialImpact #technology #TechnologyAndSociety -
📬 Newsletter #12 ist online!
Mein Homescreen sieht ordentlich aus, fühlte sich aber trotzdem ständig zu laut an. Deshalb: Reality-Check mit Digital Wellbeing, weniger Social Apps, gezähmte Benachrichtigungen und der Wechsel vom Microsoft Launcher zu Niagara.
Außerdem dabei: Xbox, Loading Museum, Punisher, LEGO Batman, Linux-Gaming und Vorfreude auf die Gamescom.
https://www.mcsnake.de/newsletter-12/
#DigitalWellbeing #NiagaraLauncher #Android #OpenSource #Gaming #Gamescom #Newsletter
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Connectivity is neutral. What we've built on top of it — algorithmic outrage machines, always-on work culture, info floods — is not. by @daylightatheism
#DigitalWellbeing #SocialMedia #Misinformation #Technology #Attention
