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Facebook’s war on free will

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#41

Post by jasode »

trendia wrote: post #25
ikeyany wrote: post #16

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

It had the opposite effect for me -- now that everything gives me a notification, half the time I see the red dot on the corner I assune it's something stupid.

Yes. This recent thread and screenshot complained about 36 red notifications from Facebook instead of real human beings: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6zjzge/n...

Facebook is diluting its red alert into meaningless nagging.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#42

Post by philipov »

ReverseCold wrote: post #35
blfr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm getting tired of these articles complaining about Facebook when you can stop using it literally any minute. Also, Grauniad is a terrible source of tech news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14179497

You can, your friends/family won't, then you can be indirectly tracked.

Anyone who's not on Facebook has demonstrated their antisocial tendencies and needs to be even more carefully monitored.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#43

Post by Y_Y »

blfr wrote: post #15
moretai wrote: post #2

Just get off facebook.

Yes. I'm getting tired of these articles complaining about Facebook when you can stop using it literally any minute. Also, Grauniad is a terrible source of tech news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14179497

This is an excerpt from a book. And it's not that the author dislikes having to use Facebook, but rather it's complex and nefarious interaction with society and the behaviours of its many willing users that is being decried. I'm all for grumbling, but I think a more specific directed kind of grumbling is appropriate for these comments.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#44

Post by danmaz74 »

trendia wrote: post #25
ikeyany wrote: post #16

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

It had the opposite effect for me -- now that everything gives me a notification, half the time I see the red dot on the corner I assune it's something stupid.

It's the same for me, but I'm sure they have all the analytics they need to know what increases engagement and what doesn't...

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#45

Post by artursapek »

rublev wrote: post #34
ikeyany wrote: post #16

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

Disabled all that social media shit way back. Didn't look back once. People who mattered reached out, those who didn't, didn't. Life moved on. So much for all their "psychological influence".

Yeah, it seems like there's a thread on HN every week where half of us jump in to share our story. I haven't been on FB in over 5 years and am much happier without it.

That said, I have other more tolerable addictions (like reddit).

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#46

Post by mcintyre1994 »

golemotron wrote: post #22
ameister14 wrote: post #11

This was written so disrespectfully and dismissively of programmers, hackers and engineers that I have a hard time reading it, despite my extreme distaste for Facebook. >In the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the 60s and 70s, they broke any rule that interfered with building the stuff of early computing, such marvels as the first video games and word processors. Also, Calling a 33 year…

Get used to it. The tech backlash is just beginning. There are two forces. One is the series of gaffs by Google, FB, and Amazon and the resultant public awareness of their power. The second is Trump's election. When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited. He sent the signal that they were not part of the real economy. Say w…

> When he set up his initial meetings with business leaders at the beginning of his administration, the tech giants were notably not invited.

Hmm? https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/donald-trump-meets-with-te...

"President-elect Donald Trump met with some of the most prominent executives from the tech industry today at Trump Tower, with investor Peter Thiel and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at his side. Trump opened the meeting with CEOs from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and others by thanking Thiel for his support."

"Attendees included Eric Schmidt and Larry Page of Google, Tim Cook of Apple, Satya Nadella and Brad Smith of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (who expressed his excitement that Trump’s administration could be “the innovations administration“), Safra Catz of Oracle, Chuck Robbins of Cisco and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook. Thiel’s business partner, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, attended as well."

Seems like different sectors just had different meetings? Which meeting specifically were you thinking of?

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#47

Post by elevensies »

ikeyany wrote: post #16

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

Hysterical notifications are why I deleted the app from my phone. I was getting notified about stuff that I didn't care about, that no sane person would ever care about, and I lost patience with their whack-a-mole settings system.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#48

Post by Bartweiss »

danmaz74 wrote: post #44
trendia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It had the opposite effect for me -- now that everything gives me a notification, half the time I see the red dot on the corner I assune it's something stupid.

It's the same for me, but I'm sure they have all the analytics they need to know what increases engagement and what doesn't...

I suspect it's a question of goals. Facebook talks a lot about increasing usage time and interaction count.

The changes drove me away, but I was a low-time, low-activity user to begin with. Trading me for expanding the value of a 'whale' is probably a sensible move for them.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#49

Post by [deleted] »

elevensies wrote: post #47
ikeyany wrote: post #16

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

Hysterical notifications are why I deleted the app from my phone. I was getting notified about stuff that I didn't care about, that no sane person would ever care about, and I lost patience with their whack-a-mole settings system.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#50

Post by pc86 »

autokad wrote: post #40
zizek23 wrote: post #28

It's the Internet that enables communication. Families and friends would be able to communicate once the Internet became possible whether Facebook exists or not. People would be able to use and get value from the Internet whether Google exists or not. These companies add value but they are not the Internet. If they didn't exist the Internet will continue being useful. What they have been able to do is inject themselv…

whats interesting is i communicated more with my family when we only had a phone to communicate than when facebook came along. I'm not sure how or why it does it, but i believe it actually thwarts communication.

The argument I've heard in favor of this is that in 1995 if you wanted to talk to Aunt Sylvia in Indiana you had to pick up the phone and call her. More often than not, this resulted in a 20-30 minute conversation where you talked about something. This would happen, what, once every few weeks or months? Now, you see her in your news feed, and you might like it or fire off a one-sentence [fragment] comment. This mini-interaction happens on a weekly or daily basis, so you feel like you're more in touch with what Aunt Sylvia's doing now, when in reality it's much more superficial.
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