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'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

theguardian.com

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Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#181

Post by zby »

I have a rule to keep all my personal life off the internet and use it only for intellectual and public life. It is impossible to follow it strictly - but I manage to do it most of the time. I think it alleviates much of the problems described in the article. In particular I don't often feel like I have lost time following what the computer offers (be it facebook stream, Hacker News, wikipedia links or whatever). And maybe I am mistaken but also 'likes' and '++s', or upvotes on anything also do have some more meaning in this arrangement.

I also don't use Facebook on my phone - only on a desktop. I still don't use the smartphone much - only on pull bases.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#182

Post by samblr »

vonnik wrote: post #47

This excellent article fails to mention artificial intelligence. Facebook has recruited one of the world’s top AI teams, led by Yann LeCun. Their work and Google's are the equivalent of tobacco companies engineering cigarettes to ensure that nicotine hits a smoker's brain more quickly. Facebook and other social networks are the cigarette companies of the mind. Cigarettes blackened our lungs with tar, and social media…

>> Facebook has recruited one of the world’s top AI teams, led by Yann LeCun

Information I have is dated (~10 years) - Facebook had 'top' psychologists team working to design product behaviour.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#183

Post by sgberlin »

kilroy123 wrote: post #102
bit_logic wrote: post #53

Something that helps a lot is to be ruthless with notifications on a smartphone. I basically have it set to only bother me for calls, SMS, and chat apps. Everything else is turned off. And whenever I get a new phone, it surprising how bad the defaults are. Basically every apps default is to spam notifications.

Here is what I've done: - I have a gmail filter for emails that contain 'unsubscribe'. They skip my inbox so all emails I get are real ones I need to look at. (It's magic) - I don't have facebook installed. Only messenger. - Twitter notifications off. - Snapchat notifications off. (Except direct snaps) - Instagram notifications off except for comments. - Slack notification only for direct messages or mentions. - Inst…

That's exactly my setup. For the past year or even longer I've unsubscribed from basically every automated email that hit my inbox (or off to spam if unsubscribe is behind a login). Additionally I've got a huge list of muted words on twitter, mostly "politics in tech" buzz words. It's a much better experience.

Trying to replace hacker news with a hn newsletter now, but so far not really successful. But well, there are worse things.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#184

Post by jansho »

hodgesrm wrote: post #144

I don't buy the idea that smartphones are extinguishing the life of the mind. Sure, smartphones provide access to almost unlimited trash. But they also provide access to Wikipedia, perhaps the most successful encyclopedia ever developed by humans. They can show you newspapers from across the planet. They let you read Latin histories of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy in the middle ages. [0] C'mon folks, this is…

> But they also provide access to Wikipedia [etc]

But let's be honest, most smartphone users spend their time confined in a limited number of domains: social media, games, shopping etc. In that sense, we can be called a bit zombie in the head.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#185

Post by joe_fishfish »

jeffdavis wrote: post #110
vonnik wrote: post #47

This excellent article fails to mention artificial intelligence. Facebook has recruited one of the world’s top AI teams, led by Yann LeCun. Their work and Google's are the equivalent of tobacco companies engineering cigarettes to ensure that nicotine hits a smoker's brain more quickly. Facebook and other social networks are the cigarette companies of the mind. Cigarettes blackened our lungs with tar, and social media…

"Capitalism is an accelerant for addictive behavior" I'm not sure that what we have would be described as capitalism any more. If you buy FB stock, are they using that to build new machines that pay dividends over time? You can make an analogy involving software, sure, but it really seems quite different to me. The way I think about it is this: if we all had amnesia and forgot that company XYZ existed, would it still…

How much amnesia are we talking about? Google's core feature of being the best web search engine fits into your "advertise a bit and rebuild the customer base" criterion imo.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#187

Post by pls2halp »

hydrox24 wrote: post #145
pls2halp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a very solid argument for TV as stunting people’s development. There’s lack of reading, albeit not necessarily due to television ( https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-dec... ) There’s a direct link between television and obesity ( http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/75/5/807 ) And more general health dangers ( http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/prolonged-tel... ) Etc…

One substantial benefit of Television was that everyone was simultaneously watching the same thing. This increased political homogeneity by providing a shared belief system, or at least some more common ground. Such homogeneity is correlated strongly with stability and prosperity on a nation-state level. This was particularly true from 1950 until 1970 or so, before cable television exploded (it remained true for long…

But you can also argue that that polarisation is just a step away from homogeneity.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#188

Post by ivanhoe »

hodgesrm wrote: post #176
amazingman wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment contains great content, but it’s also fairly non sequitur. It appears that you didn’t read the article, and instead are responding to the (silly/stupid) headline. The concerns addressed in the article make it much more difficult to take the posture you’re taking here.

Thanks. I just want to say I did read it. It has a number of concerns that are mixed together in a way that's not entirely consistent, compelling, or even especially new. Consider the idea that democracy is being destroyed because people are helpless addicts of social media. You can make a plausible argument that American society and democracy are going through a troubled spell. But it's a big step to say that's all…

Speaking of the fake news, Internet and the social media are at the same time THE BEST way to verify information.

How would one go to independently verify some news article in 80s? There was no quick way to do it, and consequently nobody did it, people just expected it's true if it's in the newspapers (and often it wasn't).

Now you just need to google a little or google search the image and the problem solved - or even better, surround yourself with others paranoid enough to do the googling on every piece of info. There was no a single fake news in my feeds (and it's not just US news but our local, even more untrustworthy, ones), that within a few hours someone didn't reply with "fake" and a link to prove it. You just need to follow and friend with intelligent people from the both sides of political spectrum and let them filter out the noise for you. And also you need to discipline yourself not to over-emotionally jump to the conclusions - arguably this is the hardest part and also the main reason social networks are considered harmful: you can respond immediately, so responses are much more emotionally driven, people never bother thinking of all the angles.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#189

Post by [deleted] »

hodgesrm wrote: post #144

I don't buy the idea that smartphones are extinguishing the life of the mind. Sure, smartphones provide access to almost unlimited trash. But they also provide access to Wikipedia, perhaps the most successful encyclopedia ever developed by humans. They can show you newspapers from across the planet. They let you read Latin histories of the Norman conquest of Southern Italy in the middle ages. [0] C'mon folks, this is…

[deleted]

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#190

Post by TeMPOraL »

atomashpolskiy wrote: post #177
alansammarone wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think all of these are a problem per se. The problem is (and probably always was) people with empty minds. Sure, now they can fill it more easily with junk, but the whole point of technology is to make life easier after all. If you're learning or working on something you love and you want to have more time to do, its a perfectly reasonable choice to outsource "what I'm I going to eat next" or "how do you I ge…

> but the whole point of CONSUMERIST technology is to make life easier after all. FTFY

No. Technology, period. It's whole point is to make easier things that are difficult, and make possible things that are otherwise not.

Consumerist technology is just crap version of actual technology; the former being designed primarily to make money off consumers.

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