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Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

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Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#61

Post by gustavmarwin »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #16

My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram are attention platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone when they go to restaurants and take ph…

You make an excellent point regarding Apple.

I think most people don't know and/or don't care, but you can get the best of both world with CopperheadOS.

Note: CopperheadOS is not for everybody though, I suggest reading this before trying it: https://copperhead.co/android/docs/usage_guide

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#62

Post by ThomPete »

Which just means that someone else will step in. People will move towards where they needs are met. People dont want the addiction but they want what they are addicted to and you can't just put the genie back in the bottle again.

I view this is a political / strategic positioning to guard against legislation I don't see it having any real effect or being of any significance just as I don't consider addiction the fault of clever algorithms but rather human nature. Instagram is probably the best example of that. It's the one considered to pushing most people into depression yet it's mostly based around people sharing images not clever algorithms (yes I know they use algorithms on instagram)

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#63

Post by Qwertie »

ghostcluster wrote: post #13
eutectic wrote: post #10

Corporation's are made of people and people don't only have the direct interests of the company in mind. I don't understand the commenters responding negativepy to these proposals; by all means be circumspect, but don't criticize a company for making a positive change just because you think it doesn't go far enough.

I responded with apprehension and gave an example of a similar initiative that Nintendo has already shipped [0], which has been widely mocked, and I explained why these sorts of nagging notifications are a tricky balancing act (the product doesn't know the context of your use, but can only guess, and it is grating when it gets it wrong). [0] https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/997614-nintendo-3ds/747... https://www.…

It wasn't widely mocked. I have met numerous people who played Nintendo games with this warning and seeing some neckbeards on the threads you linked I had never seen anyone complain about it. Most people just take a break or don't play for extended times to even see the warning.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#64

Post by onion2k »

dschuetz wrote: post #3

It's clearly a contradiction. Companies like Google thrived on addictive behavior of users online. Now that Google basically is the Internet for consumers they want to crack down on online and tech addiction? Really? What I've read in the article means to me that Google will toss away the responsibility to users by making them aware of their usage patterns. "We told them they need a break from consuming our apps, but…

Internet companies, but Google especially, thrive on high numbers of short interactions that end in an ad click. Someone spending an hour in Gmail and then clicking an advert is less profitable to Google than someone spending 15 minutes in Gmail and then clicking an advert on 4 separate occasions. The ideal for Google is for people to spend less time on their site, but to keep coming back more often.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#66

Post by thankthunk »

ghostcluster wrote: post #4

I am inherently suspicious of these types of nanny-tech initiatives. Nintendo did something similar recently in many of their games — warning you that you've been playing for X amount of time, mayba take a break? — and it came off very grating and presumptive, to the point that there were many popular memes created to make fun of it. It's hard to do these types of warnings with a naive implementation because the syst…

> I am inherently suspicious of these types of nanny-tech initiatives.

As you should be. It just gives google more excuse to monitor you. They have justification for monitoring you more closely. To "help" you.

It's so funny to me how the HN crowd who attacked google,facebook, etc relentlessly for monitoring their users are now demanding google,facebook,etc monitor their users even more to manipulate their behavior.

What happened to individual responsibility? And why the focus solely on social media? Should ISPs do the same thing? What about 24/7 stores? What about TV? What about news organizations? Should we only allow news organizations to print on odd numbered days to help news junkies?

I know most of the anti-social media rhetoric is just paid propaganda funded by the elites who want control over social media. But I just don't understand the supposedly "independent minded free thinking" liberals on hacker news advocating for nanny-state and nanny-corporations.

Is this hacker news or geriatric news. It seems like most posters on here are bitter 50+ year olds who rail against technology. There is something so eerie and strange about the HN crowd lately. Is it that most HN are just old now?

I would never expected this type of thinking from developers, let alone "hackers" on "hacker" news.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#67

Post by gaius »

Plans are meaningless - I will believe it when I see Google explaining to their shareholders that they plan to systematically reduce the value of the company. Maximising time spent online in front of ads is literally their entire business!

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#68

Post by KirinDave »

jadedhacker wrote: post #58

I am feeling cynical because none of the announcements mentioned notifications or random reward content. Nor am I familiar with research that shows grayscale reduces addictiveness. I like the put down gesture silencing phones, but there's two things wrong with it. 1) it encourages you to leave the phone easily accessible instead of turning it off 2) its exactly the kind of corporate move to give just enough control t…

Well, look I don't have data at google scale but my mobile scale info suggests people do not turn their phones off and they won't.

You might say, "You should" and I'll say, "And if my family needs to get ahold of me for some emergency? Should I just ignore them calling about some emergency with my three year old daughter for dubious performative gestures?"

As for 2, once can imagine a world where Google doesn't want to have such revenue concentration in ads. Destroying the industry as they leave it is not a bad idea, if it gets them where they need to be. But of course, I'm skeptical.

Re: Google's Plan to Make Tech Less Addictive

#69

Post by yellow_postit »

gant wrote: post #59

If Google really wanted to help here, why don't they just, you know, make every part of YouTube less optimised for maximum view time. Remove autoplay, turn down the recommendations. Nah, we're gonna throw some optional, possibly ineffective shit into our mobile OS instead so we can say we did something.

Those features you listed seem like quite useful ones for day to day usage. Many things won’t have a bright line “this makes the product useful” vs. “this makes the product addictive” feature classification.
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