Do different social networking sites offer other benefits and drawbacks?
I believe different social networking sites definitely each have their own sets of benefits and drawbacks. For example, image based social networking such as instagram may have benefits in that users can share visuals with their friends. However, problems with body shaming and insecurities may arise on the sites as well. This could be contrasted with a social media site such as Reddit, which is more text and link based.
What factors might influence whether Facebook has negative influences, like links with depression, versus positive results, such as boosts in self-esteem?
This may depend on the type of accounts a user is friends with. If you follow only your friends you are less likely to be exposed to the same type of heavily edited images that celebrities post. With that being said however, following your friends could also lead to negative emotions such as jealousy since you are easily able to compare your life with theirs. Understanding this, we can see that it may be more important to try to resolve insecurities in your personal life before immediately jumping to blame social media (even though it can exacerbate insecurities). There is evidence, which you can read about in this article, to support potentially negative health impacts of social media on young people.
Do social networking sites have any responsibility in promoting mental health in their users? If so, how might they go about doing so?
I believe social media networks have some, but not complete responsibility. These companies cannot control how users react to online content, so they shouldn't be liable for emotional responses of users. What they do control is what content is pushed or advertised to users. For this reason, I believe it is important for social networking sites to control and create appropriate content algorithms that are not negative or triggering for users.
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