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How Facebook makes us dumber

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Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#41

Post by randycupertino »

geocar wrote: post #32
sly_foxx wrote: post #29

What I don't get is dumb companies who post a link to their FB(or some other social media) page on their site: 1. You're advertising another company for free. Is Facebook paying you to put their logo on your site? No. 2. When people like/follow your page, they are trapped by FB(or some other social media) and you can only reach them there. If you're banned or they pull bait-and-switch on you, like Facebook did, you'v…

People are much less likely to enter in their email address and join a mailing list about dishsoap, than they are to click a "like" button next to an advertisement for dishsoap. That you can pay Facebook to reach those people again has value, that's why people do it.

Huh. I do the opposite. I might sign up for direct emails about dishsoap, but I'd be too embarrassed to let facebook spam all my friends that I like melonball cotton candy dishsoap, so I'll NEVER publicly "like" it. I'm really meticulous about only liking things that I don't mind if people know I support the company/product. So, basically I like my coffeehouse and my dive bar and that's about it.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#42

Post by inthewoods »

yoz-y wrote: post #34
sly_foxx wrote: post #29

What I don't get is dumb companies who post a link to their FB(or some other social media) page on their site: 1. You're advertising another company for free. Is Facebook paying you to put their logo on your site? No. 2. When people like/follow your page, they are trapped by FB(or some other social media) and you can only reach them there. If you're banned or they pull bait-and-switch on you, like Facebook did, you'v…

At one point people estimated that a Facebook like was worth quite a lot of money. I am quite sure that now the value has greatly diminished, nevertheless I do think that it is better than having an e-mail. There are several reasons for that: - First (at least for me), an unsolicited e-mail goes directly into trash and I seek the unsubscribe button. Under no circumstances I am interested in additional stuff somebody…

"At one point people estimated that a Facebook like was worth quite a lot of money. I am quite sure that now the value has greatly diminished"

Have you looked at a stock chart of Facebook recently? All time high basically and worth $220b.

Or did you mean the value the company brings to the user?

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#43

Post by andrey-g »

jstanley wrote: post #19
tim333 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried their test of googling for "guns" as usual, in incognito mode and using another browser. Identical results. Dunno if I'm doing it wrong?

If you're not into guns, it probably won't make any difference.

Same results and I'm way too much into guns.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#44

Post by stn »

I guess it's also amplified by the fact that people tend to accept things as true by default, until it's proven otherwise. In other words, insertion of data is the way cheaper then its invalidation and probably happen much more frequently thanks to social media.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#45

Post by TeMPOraL »

randycupertino wrote: post #41
geocar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are much less likely to enter in their email address and join a mailing list about dishsoap, than they are to click a "like" button next to an advertisement for dishsoap. That you can pay Facebook to reach those people again has value, that's why people do it.

Huh. I do the opposite. I might sign up for direct emails about dishsoap, but I'd be too embarrassed to let facebook spam all my friends that I like melonball cotton candy dishsoap, so I'll NEVER publicly "like" it. I'm really meticulous about only liking things that I don't mind if people know I support the company/product. So, basically I like my coffeehouse and my dive bar and that's about it.

Note: Facebook is quite inconspicuous about displaying fanpage likes; i.e. your friends will probably miss the information that you've liked some fanpage. Each of your friends most likely has hundreds of books, movies and commercial venues liked (you can check that in their profile), and you probably haven't seen a single one of them popping up on your timeline.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#46

Post by y04nn »

Few years ago Facebook was supposed to work with media to improve the activity feed. But from my perspective it is just became as bad as it can be, it gives me no relevant information and 80% of it is garbage. When close friends post something interesting, it does not get promoted and rapidity falls in the bottom. Filtering out noise in annoying so I end up not using Facebook as I used to.

What describe the article is not a Facebook problem, it's an Internet problem, Google and Youtube make you as dumb as Facebook does.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#47

Post by danieltillett »

zappo2938 wrote: post #27
danieltillett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity why do you think children should never be spanked? Do you have children?

I'm not going to say that spanking isn't an effective way to discipline a child. I can also understand if a 3 year old walks into a street to feel like spanking the child. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that other forms of discipline for small children are more effective at correcting behavior and children who are spanked are often more violent towards other children with other developmental and learning p…

OK it sounds like you are actually of the belief that spanking should be rare, rather than never. In this I agree, but I do think from personal experience that spanking is a useful "thermonuclear" option to stop dangerous behaviour in young children. To give you an example, I once caught one of my children at the age of two inserting objects into electrical power points. I gave him a good spank on the bottom and he never did it again. It is possible that another solution would have worked, but when you are dealing with a two year old playing with electricity do you really want to take the chance with another options? If spanking is rare children quickly learn that to get a spank means they have crossed a no-go threshold.

My limited personal experience of the results of disincline (of all kinds) is that inconsistent or random discipline from a parent is worse than almost all others. Children who live in fear of being disciplined for what appears to them to be for no reason, or where their actual behaviour plays very little role in affecting the discipline they experience, fair far worse. It is really hard as a parent, but being consistent is critically important. No means no.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#49

Post by nkozyra »

Probably not a small nitpick, really, but the article explains not that we're dumber by using Facebook, but that we are less informed. I think that's an important distinction not only because people tend to conflate knowledge and intelligence/aptitude, but because we should worry as much about spending long amounts of time doing things that provide not even nominal information to keep our brains pliable and receptive to new knowledge and new ways of thinking.

Re: How Facebook makes us dumber

#50

Post by hellofunk »

There have already been studies showing that frequent visits to FB make a person more unhappy in their overall life. Now this. So, a major worldwide internet power -- that is, a single company -- that is trying to disrupt so much of global life (India, anyone?), with the interesting side effect that it makes people unhappy and less intelligent. If you had heard this "reality" 20 years ago, you wouldn't believe the future could be so dark.
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