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Against Facebook

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Re: Against Facebook

#21

Post by Lionsion »

alex_young wrote: post #8

> Media Consumption Strike ... > No TV/Netflix/Youtube > No radio > No podcasts > No social media, delete your Facebook account > No messaging/chat > No idle web browsing > No news aggregation sites > No gaming > No using a computer if it is not directly related to creating or resisting (not consuming) Seems kind of extreme to me. Article mentions that our "attention has been colonized". Maybe focus a little more on…

>> Media Consumption Strike [list from OP]

> Seems kind of extreme to me.

Not really. Literally the next paragraph after that list is this:

> Don’t be a fundamentalist about the rules. Rules are meant to be broken. If it’s art, the rules are more loose; if its corporate media, more strict. Cinema, literature, sci-fi, comic books, indy games: as long as these types of works are not connected with our professional, interpersonal, or political responsibilities, use them in moderation. In general, make sure media consumption is done with more moderation than usual. The goal is to break your habits.

Re: Against Facebook

#22

Post by ch_sm »

> Twitter invents the “pull-to-refresh” UI gesture that leverages variable rewards to trigger addictive behavior as a way to increase user engagement with the timeline; Facebook invents the “red dot” notifications that keep people checking their phone for the next new thing.

two minor corrections:

1) pull-to-refresh was not invented by Twitter, but by Tweetie, a third-party Twitter client.

2) The "red dot" for notifications was not invented by Facebook, but most likely first appeared on Apple’s mail.app about 20 years ago in the first version of Mac OS X.

Re: Against Facebook

#23

Post by eumenides1 »

dkn wrote: post #7
sebringj wrote: post #5

This article makes it sound like people are forced to be social addicts. Maybe some of us our outliers here so it may be odd for me to say this but I honestly have spent more time coding social networks than actually using them. So no, I don't get how people are forced to use them.

They aren't forced to, they are trained to. The usage of a social network is innocuous at first. Similarly, a person is not necessarily forced to start using narcotics to develop a dependency.

HN is definitely an outlier for population that uses social media. I'm not trying to be edgy, but I believe it's our relationship with computers/technology that makes us this way.

Computers do what we say (to our own detriment sometimes!) and we are used to parsing what the computer is telling us. We think of computers and systems as their parts and as a whole.

So we are wary of computers/phones/internet by training (self or taught or nature). Because of this relationship, we have an easier path to detach ourselves from "Facebook" and simply stop. Facebook is not doing what "I" intended, cut it out.

I think the general population's relationship with technology is that it tells you information and the information becomes your world. To them, it's an eye, an ear, an arm. Cutting out a body part is hard.

The real kicker is that we as programmers understand Facebook wants "engagement" and that it is programmed to maximize our engagement. The general population doesn't know or understand this fact. Some of use choose to disengage because it isn't desirable behavior. Some of us don't mind/care. I think the general population (on average) understand know enough to care.

Re: Against Facebook

#24

Post by LinuxBender »

ProAm wrote: post #15
SolarNet wrote: post #13

Not going to happen. There is a need here, people want some sort of social media. The best we can do is offer a better alternative. A federated protocol (e.g. like email) would solve a lot of problems. The problem is that unlike email, not enough open source dev time goes into federated open source social media. Projects like diaspora, mastodon, and the like (there are even go and rust implementations of these protoc…

5 steps is too many

This is actually true now. I set up a mumble voice chat server. It is about 3 steps to set up your login. Nobody would use it. They use discord which is super happy-clicky and logs all messages forever. I predict Discord will be the next FB discussion.

Re: Against Facebook

#25

Post by Lionsion »

sebringj wrote: post #18
Lionsion wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article makes it sound like people are forced to be social addicts. I think "forced to be social addicts" is a misreading of the article. I think a more accurate rephrase is that "people are manipulated to be social addicts." This essay is basically: 1. Statement of the problem, including exposure of some misleading narratives. 2. Advice to avoid being manipulated by technology and media, including but not lim…

Do you believe that we are manipulated to be addicts? There are real addicts with genetic reasons for being so and then there are the rest of us that can control our behavior. Our behavior can be manipulated but we are not going to be addicts from that. More of a waking up and tuning out rather than a withdrawal I would think but this isn't me arguing, just commenting as its an interesting topic and I value your inpu…

> Do you believe that we are manipulated to be addicts?

I believe the companies do their best to try (under the banner of metric-driven "engagement"), but people experience the addiction to varying degrees, with varying degrees of disruption. Some people are certainly more susceptible than others. You see the same thing with substance addiction, an addict can vary from a fully functional smoker to a homeless meth-addict whose lost their teeth.

I think this is true with social media as well. I don't think I'm too susceptible to addiction, but at times I've caught myself getting into habitual use of social media based on some of its reinforcement mechanisms.

Re: Against Facebook

#26

Post by LinuxBender »

Lionsion wrote: post #19
LinuxBender wrote: post #9

In my experience, people that have been absorbed into the collective must decide for themselves to leave it. Some may not have the will power or desire to do so and some may be oblivious to the effects it has on them. In my opinion, this is nearly identical to seeing friends hooked on powerful drugs. I can't tell them it's hurting them. They have to experience enough negative effects to reach out for help themselves.…

> They have to experience enough negative effects to reach out for help themselves. I think, when it comes to social media, the harmful effects are much more subtle and harder to identify and articulate than those for addictive drugs. There's a benefit in pointing out and elucidating them, as well and the mechanisms by which they operate. For instance, until someone told me, I didn't realize the Facebook app works ju…

In principal, I completely agree with you. I have just found the effort futile. This could be the circle of friends I have are just drawn to this. I see it as a dystopian story unfolding in real time. Then again, I saw the FB campus as highly dystopian and couple of my friends understood why.

Re: Against Facebook

#27

Post by SolarNet »

ProAm wrote: post #15
SolarNet wrote: post #13

Not going to happen. There is a need here, people want some sort of social media. The best we can do is offer a better alternative. A federated protocol (e.g. like email) would solve a lot of problems. The problem is that unlike email, not enough open source dev time goes into federated open source social media. Projects like diaspora, mastodon, and the like (there are even go and rust implementations of these protoc…

5 steps is too many

Sure, but right now it's >20 and can't be encoded in a blog post. I know plenty of people who will take a 5 step alternative to facebook, and then get their friends/family on board with the amortized single step (e.g. sandstorm is single sign on for all services, so once they are on the sandstorm server, they just have to install the app on their phone).

Re: Against Facebook

#28

Post by Lionsion »

LinuxBender wrote: post #26
Lionsion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have to experience enough negative effects to reach out for help themselves. I think, when it comes to social media, the harmful effects are much more subtle and harder to identify and articulate than those for addictive drugs. There's a benefit in pointing out and elucidating them, as well and the mechanisms by which they operate. For instance, until someone told me, I didn't realize the Facebook app works ju…

In principal, I completely agree with you. I have just found the effort futile. This could be the circle of friends I have are just drawn to this. I see it as a dystopian story unfolding in real time. Then again, I saw the FB campus as highly dystopian and couple of my friends understood why.

> In principal, I completely agree with you. I have just found the effort futile. This could be the circle of friends I have are just drawn to this.

Yeah, I think it's more of a marathon than a sprint. Right now, I'm satisfied if someone's engagement is knocked down a level (e.g. heavy to moderate, moderate to light, light to none, none to deleted).

Re: Against Facebook

#29

Post by eecsninja »

alex_young wrote: post #8

> Media Consumption Strike ... > No TV/Netflix/Youtube > No radio > No podcasts > No social media, delete your Facebook account > No messaging/chat > No idle web browsing > No news aggregation sites > No gaming > No using a computer if it is not directly related to creating or resisting (not consuming) Seems kind of extreme to me. Article mentions that our "attention has been colonized". Maybe focus a little more on…

Agreed that this extreme. It doesn't cut to the heart of the issue, which is that these services are being funded somehow. Mostly by ads, I'm guessing. Somewhere out there are people who are not only unable to resist giving their attention to social media, but also unable to resist giving money in the form of clicks.

I've never clicked on these ads. If I want to buy products, I go to amazon.com. I book my flights and hotels through travel websites. I imagine many people on HN would say the same. But then again, we are not representative of the population at large.

Re: Against Facebook

#30

Post by sudouser »

ch_sm wrote: post #22

> Twitter invents the “pull-to-refresh” UI gesture that leverages variable rewards to trigger addictive behavior as a way to increase user engagement with the timeline; Facebook invents the “red dot” notifications that keep people checking their phone for the next new thing. two minor corrections: 1) pull-to-refresh was not invented by Twitter, but by Tweetie, a third-party Twitter client. 2) The "red dot" for notifi…

this is like going to a protest against abortion and talking about coffee cup design...
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