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Facebook wants your children's mind

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Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#21

Post by brian-armstrong »

vm wrote: post #14

Part of me thinks the the anti-Facebook media sentiment is because Facebook replaced newspapers/magazines as the highly profitable media aggregator. Old media struggles for relevance and lashes out at Facebook, the new winner. Facebook makes fantastic communications tool and gives them away for a whopping $0. I love staying aware of what's going on with my grandparents, old classmates, friends, and family, AND not ha…

This post is akin to calling Malboro 'the greatest supplements company ever created' in 1970

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#22

Post by snvzz »

acover wrote: post #6
gfiorav wrote: post #5

Jeez I quit Facebook like 6 years ago and never looked back. What’s the real need here? Old buddies you barely know of? Let them go. Just drop FB, it’s not that important, and 70% of people are clearly (by reading all the “I quit Facebook drama posts”) over attached to it.

It is a red flag to not have social media

I'd never hire someone who has a facebook account.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#23

Post by smt88 »

deschainz wrote: post #11

I dislike Zuckerberg more and more everyday. What a piece of work that guy is, hiding the reality of FB behind his self-righteous mission of connecting the world while selling you to advertisers and fragmenting your attention and happiness potential.

I hardly think he's hiding it. He's just succeeded in creating a product so addictive that people are willing to sacrifice a lot in order to use it.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#26

Post by smt88 »

All advertising is (intended to be) mind control. It wants to get you to take an action you weren't previously inclined to take.

It follows that any product that's successful at controlling people can sell that control.

If you consider the implications of Facebook-as-mass-mind-control, then Russian election-meddling, viral suicides, and all of Facebook's other facets make a lot of sense.

It also makes sense that Facebook wants to get better at controlling you by learning more about what motivates you, leveraging social pressure, and taking over more of your attention.

(That said, I still enjoy and use Facebook. I'm just worried about how powerful it is.)

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#27

Post by Moru »

vm wrote: post #14

Part of me thinks the the anti-Facebook media sentiment is because Facebook replaced newspapers/magazines as the highly profitable media aggregator. Old media struggles for relevance and lashes out at Facebook, the new winner. Facebook makes fantastic communications tool and gives them away for a whopping $0. I love staying aware of what's going on with my grandparents, old classmates, friends, and family, AND not ha…

All I know is that Facebook was started as a way of enforcing the picking-order of the local school. Ofcourse it grew, from the same reason kids still to this day gets bullied in school. It's just got legalized by the grownup community. And then we wonder why kids are getting burned out before they even start working?

As a bullied kid I already saw what facebook was from the start so I never created an account and cringe every time I see it mentioned on the news.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#28

Post by rhizome »

I have to call what they're doing "the open garden" model. They simply want to be as much of the online context of peoples' lives as possible. It's really no different than the closed garden, except that people do more online now and what would have previously gone to LiveJournal and Flickr and any number of separate sites now all goes into FB, raising the switching costs to the level of closed gardens. It can't take more than a year or two of MBA to be able to fall back on this strategy. Beats working for a living.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#29

Post by pitaa »

osrec wrote: post #13
gfiorav wrote: post #5

Jeez I quit Facebook like 6 years ago and never looked back. What’s the real need here? Old buddies you barely know of? Let them go. Just drop FB, it’s not that important, and 70% of people are clearly (by reading all the “I quit Facebook drama posts”) over attached to it.

> What’s the real need here? Old buddies you barely know of? Let them go. I really like this attitude (not being sarcastic). People seem to think Facebook is a great way to keep in touch. I think it's a great way to waste your time, and slowly devalue your relationships.

Agreed. I have effectively quit Facebook: I log on once a year to reconnect with people I never talk to anymore, and subsequently remember exactly why it is that I never talk to them anymore!

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#30

Post by smt88 »

gfiorav wrote: post #5

Jeez I quit Facebook like 6 years ago and never looked back. What’s the real need here? Old buddies you barely know of? Let them go. Just drop FB, it’s not that important, and 70% of people are clearly (by reading all the “I quit Facebook drama posts”) over attached to it.

I get a lot out of Facebook. I keep up with relatives, new babies, local events, and friends' movements (travel, moving, etc.)

The problem is that many of these things just aren't posted anywhere else.

There is a real impact on my life if I stop using it. I stop learning about the 3-4 events I attend every week, including pop-up restaurants, nonprofit gatherings, and concerts. I stop knowing about major life events for the 100+ people I care about, but can't text every week saying, "What's new?"

It may not have much value to you, but you're one person arguing against 1B+ other people. There's a high chance you just don't use it like most people or don't care about the same things.

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