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Facebook wants your children's mind

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101–110 of 155 posts

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#101

Post by egypturnash »

What if

we declared Facebook to be a monopoly and broke it up like we did Ma Bell in the 70s?

I dunno. Feels like it's too big, too ubiquitous, and is too much oriented towards encouraging behaviors that are much better for their pockets than for anyone using it.

Hell, look at this story: Facebook already has (according to a quick google search, [citation needed]) about 58% of the US' entire adult population, or 3/4 of all adult Americans who use the Internet. (which is about 81%). Their user growth rate is going flat, because they're running out of people willing and able to be online. But they need to keep acquiring new users no matter what, so now they're turning their eyes to the people who they are legally barred from giving accounts to.

Gotta find more eyeballs to show ads to.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#102

Post by vinay427 »

dsnuh wrote: post #50
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 find myself thinking about the effects of social media on humans. I feel we entered The Button Age. Want a pizza? Hit this button. Want to get groceries delivered? Want to watch a movie? Hit a button. Want to show you care about some cause or event? Hit a button. Want to reward your brain with dopamine and feed your narcissistic behaviors by pretending that viewing a curated timeline of people's "lives" is friendsh…

I suspect this is why my attention span decreased significantly after extensively interacting with these websites for several years. I find a reduced ability to read books (of any kind), among other tasks over a longer time span. Longform pieces, such as books in particular, do at least force us to invest in the long term for a reward at the end, rather than near-instant gratification.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#103

Post by 0942v8653 »

egypturnash wrote: post #101

What if we declared Facebook to be a monopoly and broke it up like we did Ma Bell in the 70s? I dunno. Feels like it's too big, too ubiquitous, and is too much oriented towards encouraging behaviors that are much better for their pockets than for anyone using it. Hell, look at this story: Facebook already has (according to a quick google search, [citation needed]) about 58% of the US' entire adult population, or 3/4…

Social media is one of those things which by nature is difficult to break up. I'd say it's as hard to really fix as any natural monopoly.

Facebook is not near as bad as Google is in terms of quiet influence, at least among the younger generation.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#104

Post by code_duck »

Erik816 wrote: post #52
acjohnson55 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally use it quite a bit for keeping these relationships alive. I think Facebook is a great tool for that. I have contentious debates over ideas with people I know, but more importantly, with people a couple links away from me. It's been an extremely helpful bridge out of the filter bubble I'd probably otherwise inhabit. Of course, I'm not at all sure the benefits I've gotten have any resemblance to most peopl…

Contentious public debates with people I barely know is exactly why I use Facebook less than I used to.

Then, after you have a contentious public debate with someone you barely know, your actual friends and acquaintances on FB are repeatedly encouraged to go read the exchange. And since you were talking to that person so much, FB's algorithm reasons it means you must like them a lot, so your news feed starts telling you about everything the person you were arguing with is doing.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#105

Post by ACow_Adonis »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #84
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's my age/class/nationality/background or what, but there is no way in hell I would participate in any serious discussion on a platform like facebook, both because they're using that data, and because it's notionally attached to my identity. Indeed, the main reason to have an account there now is to avoid the "you don't have a facebook account" judgement. The thought people would put themselves out…

Yep, I am incredibly privileged to be able to do so. But I also know that some of the people I interact with wouldn't otherwise have much exposure to a non-strawman version of my point of view that they can actually interact with. At the moment, I think it's probably the most politically effective thing I can do.

I don't necessarily think you shouldn't have strong/ controversial conversations.

Indeed, growing up, that was pretty much what the internet provided me: both a way to be exposed to new ideas, to challenge others, etc, and a way out of the stiffling intellectual backwater that was highschool/suburbia.

But, "back in my day", we did it privately. Anonymously. We had handles/aliases. In person friends had conversations in person. On the internet, you operated behind your handle/alias. And you better believe that your real name and identity was almost never voluntarily connected to your handle/alias.

I had people that I'd known for years, whose real names I still don't know, and I'm never going to.

The "idea" of being simultaneously identified by your real name, using a public corporate for-profit communication system that has a memory and saves your communications, and having contentious conversations are ideas that are so absolutely alien to me I sometimes still have to kick myself that some people are doing it.

It's like old people who click on ads, or open attachments in emails: why would you even do that!

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#106

Post by acjohnson55 »

code_duck wrote: post #104
Erik816 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contentious public debates with people I barely know is exactly why I use Facebook less than I used to.

Then, after you have a contentious public debate with someone you barely know, your actual friends and acquaintances on FB are repeatedly encouraged to go read the exchange. And since you were talking to that person so much, FB's algorithm reasons it means you must like them a lot, so your news feed starts telling you about everything the person you were arguing with is doing.

To an extent, I think that's a good thing. It keeps challenging points of view in my feed. If I ever found someone truly abusive, I'd block them. But that's never happened to me. As I said elsewhere, my discussions can get pretty heated, but I try always to be respectful.

At the end of the day, I'm more concerned with how my point of view appears to lurkers than to someone I'm debating. I'm unlikely to change that person's mind in any given convo.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#107

Post by iliaznk »

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'm having a very strong déjà vu right now. I've seen this very thread under any recent Facebook-related post.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#108

Post by Angostura »

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 don’t use it for talking with ‘friends’. I find the groups dedicated to my local neighbourhood and clubs really useful though (can anyone recommend a plumber, has anyone seen my cat, there’s a planning consultation coming up)

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#109

Post by MikkoFinell »

philonoist wrote: post #100

My question after reading all the comments here is, is there any alternative? or is there really a choice? If I have to build a social networking site, say - FriendBook, what features would you like in it? So is the case with WhatsApp. Privacy, if not now, will be unsustainable part of business model later. Look at Apple Ping[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping

Why do you presume an alternative is even needed? We did fine before facebook (some would argue better) and we will do fine after it.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#110

Post by jansho »

username223 wrote: post #71

Zuck: > My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age. According to Wikipedia, Zuck has two children. Let's see their public profiles!

His philosophy? That’s a well-known fact to anyone working in education and child development. What irony that his products are actually hijacking those crucial early years; lower attention span, need for instant gratification, potentially unsafe materials, device reliance, overstimulation ... seriously this is cruel.
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