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Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

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Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#61

Post by cirgue »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #57

Why are people treating engagement as a new thing? AdTech companies use the same strategies that newspapers used to use. Yellow journalism has become fake news. Tabloids are now blogs fueled by rumor mills. Newspapers trying to promote celebrities are the same as having a twitter / snapchat / instagram account. A rose by any other name is still a rose.

This rose has a much tighter action-reward loop, both for consumers and producers. Yellow journalism, tabloids, etc were taking advantage of the same human tendencies, but the speed and volume of the message is orders of magnitude greater than in the past.

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#62

Post by opportune »

bluntfang wrote: post #43
zzalpha wrote: post #35

Didn't add much to the discussion, unfortunately. The post is just material copied from Hooked (which is a creepy book worth reading!), plus observations that have already been made (social media causes us to compare ourselves to everyone else's highlight reel), followed by a bunch of generic, currently popular fads/lifestyle advice (keto diet, exercise, meditate, stoicism). A far simpler solution is available to all…

>A far simpler solution is available to all of us: stop using Instagram. Easier said than done, no? That's basically saying "opt out of modern society," which I personally agree with, but it's not a reasonable solution. These companies that spend b/millions on psychological research to condition consumers is not going away anytime soon.

Almost all males I know are not on instagram, and I'm in my early twenties. It's not like Facebook in that you might "miss out" on things like invitations to events or participation in groups. It's just a photo sharing website. Calling it "modern society" is just ridiculous hyperbole

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#63

Post by mnm1 »

Tldr: diet, exercise, sleep, meditation, relationships, and self reflection will improve your life because that's how humans have always thrived. It's a little wordy but on point. Since I stared focusing on these things, I have felt better, been less depressed, much more energetic, etc.

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#64

Post by overcast »

Chathamization wrote: post #46
overcast wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think comparing a discussion on HN to liking photos, and notifications on Instagram. Is a bit far fetched. You can easily argue about the addictiveness of an online forum, and social interaction. We are social creatures after all. But social media sites like IG, Facebook, Twitter, specifically target those weaknesses in our brain.

There are good and really useful comments on here. But there's also a lot of fluff. Beyond that, the way things are set up encourages compulsive behavior. If you take several hours to comment on something, there's a good chance your comment will get buried. Wait a few days, and there's a good chance no one will read it. After making a comment, there's a certain urgency to check to see who's replied to you, because if…

HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums.

The only real addictive bit is the points system on HN. I'd be fine with that just going away. It wouldn't be the first time I've refreshed posts I've made repeatedly to see the tally go up.

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#65

Post by cirgue »

bluntfang wrote: post #51
wambotron wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is instagram "modern society?" You can stop using it, you won't even notice.

>You can stop using it, you won't even notice. You're deliberately ignoring the idea of addiction, consumerism, and conditioning to feel superior because you think you can "quit" being influenced by our culture and society.

You can't quit being influenced entirely, but it is still mostly up to you.

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#67

Post by randomdrake »

More information about how you can avoid making apps that do this, or how you can control your own app usage, can be found here:

http://www.timewellspent.io

There's an interesting page where they show the results of 200,000 users of an app called Moment[1] where you can see which apps make people the least happy. Additionally, you can see the time limits at which users start to feel happy about their usage.

http://www.timewellspent.io/app-ratings/

I came upon the movement after incorporating suggestions from Tristan Harris' "How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist[2]" into my every day life.

[1] - https://inthemoment.io

[2] - https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-technology-hijacks-peop...

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#68

Post by Chathamization »

overcast wrote: post #64
Chathamization wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good and really useful comments on here. But there's also a lot of fluff. Beyond that, the way things are set up encourages compulsive behavior. If you take several hours to comment on something, there's a good chance your comment will get buried. Wait a few days, and there's a good chance no one will read it. After making a comment, there's a certain urgency to check to see who's replied to you, because if…

HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The only real addictive bit is the points system on HN. I'd be fine with that just going away. It wouldn't be the first time I've refreshed posts I've made repeatedly to see the tally go up.

> HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums.

The old style of forums didn't have the same kind of compulsive pressure, since you could always respond the next day/week/month and the topic would bump back up to the top of the post. If you don't respond on HN or Reddit quick enough, no one is going to see your comment. I frequent some sites that has the older system, and I'll find myself occasionally saying "This isn't that important; wait a few days and see if you feel like responding." But that's not really much of an option here - how many people are going to read your comment if you make it several days later?

And it wouldn't be hard to devise a system that actively discourages compulsive posting behavior. If you, say, had a web forum where everyone could only post once a week, you'd have much less of that urgency (and you'd get a discussion with more users, not just the fraction that habitually post everywhere).

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#69

Post by [deleted] »

codingdave wrote: post #54
rtx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for the butt point, maybe you are not unique and are just seeing whats popular.

No, I post and look at almost exclusively photos of the outdoors in the western USA. I have no recommendations for butts, and few for photos of people of any kind -- they accurately point me to other nature and landscape photographers, and not much else.

[deleted]

Re: Why our outdated brains are making us unhappy

#70

Post by overcast »

Chathamization wrote: post #68
overcast wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The only real addictive bit is the points system on HN. I'd be fine with that just going away. It wouldn't be the first time I've refreshed posts I've made repeatedly to see the tally go up.

> HN certainly isn't a utopia, and a lot of the problems mentioned are just inherent to online forums. The old style of forums didn't have the same kind of compulsive pressure, since you could always respond the next day/week/month and the topic would bump back up to the top of the post. If you don't respond on HN or Reddit quick enough, no one is going to see your comment. I frequent some sites that has the older sy…

Yeh I see what you're saying. HN has a gaming aspect to it, which buries posts if they aren't being accelerated.
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