The WSJ reported that Facebook researchers discovered the app had negative effects on some users.
Research has shown that the app can harm sleep, work relationships and parenting for around 12.5% of its users.
Facebook called the Journal's reporting "irresponsible" while stating that it was actively investigating "problematic usage" of its apps.
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According to The Wall Street Journal documents, one in eight Facebook users reported that the app had a negative effect on their work, sleep, or parenting.
These issues are estimated to affect 12.5% of more than 2.9B users, or more than 360,000,000 people.
Researchers stated that their findings were due to users' compulsive use of the app. This mirrors what is known as "internet addiction," The Journal reported.
According to the documents, Facebook's usage patterns are worse than any other social media platform. But, researchers couldn't prove causality.
Facebook labels this "problematic usage" of its platform.
The findings come as part of Facebook Files series, primarily based on internal documents leaked by ex-Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Insider's Ben Gilbert reported that researchers have previously shown that Instagram's photo- and video-sharing app has a negative impact on teens' mental health.
According to The Journal, a Facebook team was responsible for researching social media use that could harm people's daily lives several years ago. While the team suggested several solutions, the company eventually shut down the team in 2019. In March 2020, the team presented its findings to an internal audience.
The researchers found that some Facebook users had problems controlling their time on Facebook, and consequently have problems with their lives.
According to The Journal, these problems include "loss in productivity when people stop working on their daily tasks to check Facebook often, a loss in sleep when they scroll through the app late, and the degradation in person relationships when people substitute time together online."
"Every day, I'm on Facebook. One user shared that he is on Facebook every moment, but not while he's in the shower.
Friday's report by The Journal was criticized by the company. It called it "irresponsible" and stated that the study was intended to be as comprehensive as possible in order to better understand the problem.
Pratiti Raychoudhury, Facebook's chief research officer, stated that "problematic use does not necessarily equal addiction." "Problematic usage has been used to describe people’s relationships with many technologies, such as smartphones and TVs."
Raychoudhury refuted the Journal's assertion that Facebook has stopped studying the effects of other technologies and its own on user wellbeing. She said that Facebook had launched nearly 10 products to help people use its apps safely and that problems with apps were a problem for many companies.
She said that while there is no direct link between addiction and social media, overall research suggests that it does not have a significant negative impact on well-being. However, she stated that they still want to give people tools to help them manage their social media use however they choose.
