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A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

minimizedistraction.com

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Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#211

Post by wdutch »

Stratoscope wrote: post #149
tchalla wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lately I've been watching The Sopranos on Amazon. As soon as the end credits roll, a "Next Episode" box pops up in the corner and I am in a race against time to click the teeny Cancel button. I think they give me five whole seconds before auto-starting the next episode. There should be a global setting to switch Autoplay Off in your settings.

You are my hero of the day! I did find that setting for YouTube, but I didn't realize that Amazon had it too. To change it, go to Prime Video, click the gear icon in the top right, select Settings, then the Player tab to turn off Auto Play. Bada Bing! Now I won't have to feel like I should whack someone after each episode.

I had an "I feel old" moment stood at the front of my classroom trying to figure out how to turn autoplay off on youtube (shockingly enough, after showing a carefully chosen video to my class I don't want it to start showing videos of Disney's Elsa).

I clicked the gear icon and went through all the settings looking for the autoplay option. Then my TA pointed out the option is on the video itself.

The UX is confusing because all the options there are specific to that one video but autoplay is global. I would have never thought to look there. Now it's right there where some sneaky kindergartener can switch it right back on when my back is turned...

This is one small piece in the feeling that's been growing in me since leaving the tech industry that tech is hostile to me and the best interests of the children I teach.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#212

Post by eloisius »

hinkley wrote: post #178
perihelions wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone wants the plain text transcription of the slides, this site appears to have that: https://digitalwellbeing.org/googles-internal-digital-wellbe... > "A Call to Minimize Distraction and Respect Users’ Attention." > "by Tristan Harris." > "I’m concerned about how we’re making the world more distracted. And my goal with this presentation is to create a movement at Google to create a new design ethic that aims t…

Wait, isn't Tristan Harris pseudo-famous for walking/running away from Google and starting a tech ethics company? He's one of the stars of the Social Dilemma, right?

He's the founder of the Center for Human Technology[1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Harris

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#213

Post by madrox »

acituan wrote: post #206
madrox wrote: post #196

Having heard this call for years, I've come to the conclusion that this is the 21st century's "TV rots your brain." We've replaced channel surfing with doom scrolling. TV stations are mostly run by white men, too. At best, I can say that there's a fundamental human need to stare into space for a while. We could delete all technology tomorrow, and we wouldn't magically be less distracted. At least now, there's a hope…

> I've come to the conclusion that this is the 21st century's "TV rots your brain." We've replaced channel surfing with doom scrolling. The difference with the TV is that TV didn't have individual, high granularity demographic and usage data to conform to its users' most exploitable side that ultimately drives mindless "engagement". TV ratings had coarsely sampled data at household levels and whatever broadcast was w…

> The difference with the TV is that TV didn't have individual, high granularity demographic and usage data to conform to its users' most exploitable side that ultimately drives mindless "engagement". TV ratings had coarsely sampled data at household levels and whatever broadcast was what everyone saw.

I agree. I fail to see how what we have now is inherently worse...especially for cultural minorities. Exploiting psychological weakness to keep people's attention goes back a long, long way. That's never going away.

I also find your analogy to be a bit of a straw man. For it to work, there would have to be evidence of mental "obesity" that somehow began with social media and did not exist before. I don't see it, and you'd have to give me more than anecdote to change my own anecdotal views at this point. If you're saying it did exist before, but now we've crossed some line and now it's too much...well, we're back to what our grandparents said about television again.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#214

Post by eloisius »

greyface- wrote: post #160
caturopath wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's galling that using notifications for ads is allowed by the marketplaces.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#4.5... 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a…

Dear god I wish they would, or segregate notifications into channels that can be subscribed to, or require developers to submit a template for each notification[0], or let me match with a regex. Anything. Notifications should strictly be for notifying me about things I asked to be notified about. Not spam. It seems sort sighted for Apple to let their notification system become a spam tube, it just devalues their platform.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27459256

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#215

Post by danybittel »

AlbertCory wrote: post #195
edmundsauto wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you using a somewhat circular definition? The trick is to differentiate smartphone usage from addiction, which is determined by whether it's harmful.

I don't think it's circular. There are articles (I can't point to them now, sorry) about the effect on the brain of intermittent rewards, and how that IS addiction. Although certainly not identical to that of heroin, which is well-studied. So no, I don't agree that "the trick is to differentiate smartphone usage from addiction." It's to define a (probably) new type of addiction.

Maybe it's more like sugar?

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#216

Post by eloisius »

AlbertCory wrote: post #51

It's funny how almost all the comments are about technical aspects of the presentation or how he said it, and not what he said. He's right, FWIW. How many times have I had to yell "Hel-LO!" at some bozo staring at his phone & not watching where he's walking? However, how would you regulate this? If you created a metric of "attention-sucking" and set a legal limit on it, the web giants would immediately game it.

I just recently learned this, but in Taiwan it's a fineable offense to use your cellphone while walking on the street. It doesn't seem to be widely enforced, but I was very surprised that it's on the books at least.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#217

Post by danybittel »

Isn't it ironic, that google initially beat the competition, by being a distraction free, no bullshit search engine?

People DO care about this stuff. It is a question on how much they put up with, if there's an alternative and how difficult it is to change.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#218

Post by RandomWorker »

danybittel wrote: post #217

Isn't it ironic, that google initially beat the competition, by being a distraction free, no bullshit search engine? People DO care about this stuff. It is a question on how much they put up with, if there's an alternative and how difficult it is to change.

This! I moved to duckduckgo, it also has some very nice features calculating weight/length conversions and time shifts. It's super clean. Type in "Jupyter notebook keyboard shortcuts" and it just gives you the table. It's wonderful. If google would still be that clean and gave me features that I need, I would return. But, 90% of my searches are now with a competitor.

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#219

Post by KeepFlying »

spoonjim wrote: post #185
sillysaurusx wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criminalization of dark patterns? It’s not impossible to imagine — intentionally tricking a user is sometimes called fraud — but I’m not sure we’ve thought through the implications of criminalizing website design. The biggest companies are the ones least affected by regulation, because they can invest resources into complying. Small startups sometimes can’t. A teenager in their bedroom usually can’t. And that’s no sm…

Most regulators do not charge teenagers in their bedrooms except for the most egregious criminal acts. If you are a teenager operating a website from your bedroom, you functionally do not need to worry about ADA, GDPR, etc.

I get what you're saying but that's only because teenagers in their bedroom are unlikely to get enough attention, not because they don't have enough influence.

It's totally possible for a bedroom-made startup to grow to the point where the lack of GDPR enforcement could be directly harmful to customers, for example. True it's unlike they'd get noticed, but I don't think that's a strong argument here.

I want reasonable widespread application of GDPR, ADA, etc with explicitly carved out safeguards for small operations like this teenager.

They shouldn't have to rely on getting lucky

Re: A call to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention (2013)

#220

Post by dcposch »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #173
dredmorbius wrote: post #157

In the 8 years that have elapsed since this pitch was made at Google, one conclusion is absolutely crystal clear: the industry has as little self-regulatory control over its use of such dark patterns as the public has over avoiding them. Regulation, taxation, and where necessary, criminalisation, are obvious and necessary. I'll note that for once, the patterns are not entirely synonymous with massive tech monopolies,…

Criminalization of dark patterns? It’s not impossible to imagine — intentionally tricking a user is sometimes called fraud — but I’m not sure we’ve thought through the implications of criminalizing website design. The biggest companies are the ones least affected by regulation, because they can invest resources into complying. Small startups sometimes can’t. A teenager in their bedroom usually can’t. And that’s no sm…

The standard solution is to exempt small organizations.

It's why, for example, you can start a company with minimal accounting. When you hire your first employee, your requirements increase. Then above 50 employees the IRS considers you a Large Employer, etc.

It would be reasonable to apply basic consumer protection laws to any service with more than, say, a million users. "Any subscription entered into online must be cancellable online," that kind of thing. Laws against dark patterns. Dorm room startups remain totally unencumbered.

The fact that it's 2021 and a lot of very low-hanging-fruit protections like this don't exist, is evidence that our legislative apparatus is degraded. Maybe in a future decade we'll have better functioning institutions--it has happened before--but not today. Lina Khan running the FCC is a hopeful sign.

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