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Quit Social Media (2016)

calnewport.com

61–70 of 281 posts

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#61

I quit social media, but the problem is that in the modern dating world a lot of people care whether you have an Instagram and that sort of thing. I truly hate social media, but I find myself considering remaking it just to improve my dating life. It's kind of a depressing situation, to be honest.

If they care, they aren’t worth it - why date a sheep?

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#62
post #38

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

I would rephrase it further to "quit ad-based media." The problems and conflicts of interest introduced by an ad-based revenue model were discussed long before the advent of the modern Web and social media; the relationship between the advertisement industry and mass media (television, radio) was already discussed in depth in the late 20th century [0]: The advertisers' choices influence media prosperity and survival.…

Interestingly this changed somewhat with the clickbait-based model – now, I would disagree that advertisers "want, more generally, to avoid programs with serious complexities and disturbing controversies."

I think this does describe legacy advertisers (and TikTok, for different reasons) – we might remember Tumblr's hyper-specific LGBTQ-friendly (often NSFW) communities being completely liquidated in the transfer of Tumblr to Verizon, arguably killing Tumblr on that date. Verizon's handling of Tumblr validates Chomsky.

But ad-fueled journalism seems to operate from exactly the opposite principle, so long as the controversies that drive engagement do not threaten the sensibility of specific large funders. I've seen a few times in recent memory where an article from the New York Times aired something quite sensational, only to quietly update later that what was initially reported didn't quite occur as depicted. But by that point it is too late, and profit was made.

The overall point still stands – that ad-based always results in a conflict of interest.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#63
post #46
post #9

(2016) Especially important because most of his commentary focuses on the dominant social media paradigm of the time. Mastodon barely existed when this post went live, Mike Masnick was years from writing the paper that inspired Bluesky[0], and it would be strange if someone whose whole thing is getting away from social media kept up on new developments. This post is an interesting historical artifact, but shouldn't b…

What's changed, though, really? I quit[0] social media near the end of 2019, and it greatly improved my mental health and life. While I haven't tried some of the newer options, I've kept up with new developments in the space. Nothing about the "new" social media platforms makes them at all attractive for me to take a second look and join back up. If anything, things are worse . It's even more "algorithmic" and engage…

Oddly enough, the most beneficial thing I have is my Twitter account, because I can often DM airlines or companies support (like fedex support) for quicker responses.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#64
post #54

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

> In life we do not let everyone into the friend circle Thought that ended in high school. You have to be a real pos to not get invites to stuff...

> You have to be a real pos to not get invites to stuff...

The "real pos" is just as often those doing the excluding, as it is those being excluded. Pettiness doesn't disappear at 18 years old. It's hurtful to assume anyone being excluded from something deserved it.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company you work for REALLY does behave like that, you SHOULD DEFINITELY advertise it. Companies like this must be acknowledged and celebrated. The owner must be a really good person.

No form of advertising is good, I don’t want your advertising assaulting my senses. I don’t care if you piss gold or if you’re the pope or king, don’t advertise to me

Please advertise or you will go out of business before I ever hear about you.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#66

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

Metafilter comes to mind. Pay $5 one time for lifetime access. After about 20 years it has dwindled to a white star, but there is still a nuhhet of community left there. Amazing what a token cost does to weed out spam accounts, twinks, etc.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#67
post #29

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

We also do not let people into the friend circle just because they have money (I hope). IMHO healthiest "social media" I could think is interest groups. They eventually need some kind of donation from one or more people, but with no or minimal barriers.

For me no of course, but if you think about unintentionally your friends are from the same income group really (for the most part), if you are rich and go to private school, your friends are most likely rich, and usually hang around "fancy" places.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#68
post #29

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

We also do not let people into the friend circle just because they have money (I hope). IMHO healthiest "social media" I could think is interest groups. They eventually need some kind of donation from one or more people, but with no or minimal barriers.

Barriers to entry don't have to be financial. One can imagine a community of artists who require you to mail them a traditional media sketch before they'll let you in. One of the clubs I know of requires you to go on three hikes before they'll make you a member and give you access to their website.

In both cases there's a small financial barrier (being able to pay for postage or your share or petrol money) but a sizeable time barrier (spending hours on a sketch or walking a total of about 50km).

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#69
post #64
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In life we do not let everyone into the friend circle Thought that ended in high school. You have to be a real pos to not get invites to stuff...

> You have to be a real pos to not get invites to stuff... The "real pos" is just as often those doing the excluding, as it is those being excluded. Pettiness doesn't disappear at 18 years old. It's hurtful to assume anyone being excluded from something deserved it.

It's more that there are maybe a thousand or so people in your highschool, but 7 billion on planet earth. If a thousand people (more like a couple of hundred the same age) exclude you then there are probably unfair network effects or someone poisoning the well against you, but at bigger scales everyone is a stranger and you get to start fresh.

In those cases I think it's more likely mental illness that stops you from making friends, but if no social group has accepted you after tens or hundreds of attempts then it's possible that there's something you might be able to change.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#70

I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”. The incentives are perverse, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the business model and there is an intermediary between the user and information/community they want to participate in. This leads to most problems we see in legacy, ad-based, social media. Most successful social circles are ones where there is a barrier to entry. In life we do not let everyo…

>I would rephrase it to “quit ad-based social media”.

Facebook was terrible for your well being a long time before they enshitified with adds. You may be too young to remember but likes were a hot commodity people would ruin their lives over without any outside help.

For myself I find push notification based social media to be completely cancerous, and pull based one only mildly so. One need only look at the trolls from usenet to see people obsessed with nothing but text based emails.

There is no safe dose.

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