Meta Stops Researching the Mental Health Effects of Facebook

Meta ceased its internal research after identifying negative mental health effects on users of Facebook. This information emerged in documents related to a lawsuit filed by school districts in the United States against Meta and other social media platforms.

According to the obtained documents, in 2020, a study codenamed “Project Mercury” was conducted in which Meta scientists, in collaboration with the survey firm Nielsen, examined the effects of “deactivation” of Facebook. Internal documents indicated that individuals who did not use Facebook for a week reported decreased feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison.

Due to the decision not to publish these findings and to halt further research, Meta stopped additional studies, citing the influence of the existing media narrative on these negative findings. In the legal documents, an employee defended the validity of the research's results.

Additionally, the documents claim that Meta informed Congress that it did not have the ability to quantify whether its products were harmful to adolescent girls. A Meta spokesperson stated in a press release on Saturday that the research was stopped due to methodological flaws and expressed that they continue to work on improving product safety.

This is just one of the allegations against Meta regarding concealing the harms of social media. The Motley Rice law firm filed a lawsuit against Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat on behalf of school districts nationwide. TikTok, Google, and Snapchat have not yet commented.