Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 210 posts

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#51

Post by avgDev »

duxup wrote: post #2

A lot of talk goes into how Facebook or other social media use algorithms to encourage engagement, that often includes outrage type content, fake news, rabbit holes and so on. But here's the thing ... people CHOOSE to engage with that, and users even produce that content for social media platforms for free. It's hard to escape that part. I remember trying Bluesky and while I liked it better than Twitter, for me it wa…

Current social media have basically found the "bliss point" of online engagement to generate revenue and keep the eyes attached. These companies found a way to keep people hooked, and strong emotions seem to be a major tool.

It really isn't a choice. It is very accessible. Many friends are on social networks and you slowly get sucked into shorts. Then, it becomes an addiction as your brain crave the dopamine hits.

Similar to what Howard Moskowitz did with food.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#52

Post by _DeadFred_ »

burnte wrote: post #38

Social media isn't the problem, people are the problem, and we still working on how to fix them.

Social media leveraging the billions spent on marketing over the years, the skills of knowledgeable experts in multiple disciplines, basically thousands of human years of experts at manipulating people against a random person with zero guard up that wants to chat with their friends/make new friends isn't a people problem.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#53

Post by _DeadFred_ »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #21
farceSpherule wrote: post #12

Social media is the new smoking... Widespread adoption before understanding risks - embraced globally before fully grasping the mental health, social, and political consequences, especially for young people. Delayed but significant harm - can lead to gradual impacts like reduced attention span, increased anxiety, depression, loneliness, and polarization Corporate incentives misaligned with public health - media compa…

Not an accurate analogy in my opinion, but close. - Smoking feels good but doesn't provide any useful function. - Some social media use feels good and doesn't provide any useful function, but social media is extremely useful to cheaply keep in touch with friends and family and extremely useful for discovering and coordinating events. Fortunately the "keep in touch" part can be done with apps that don't have so much o…

'Smoking get's me taking breaks, going outside more, and makes me more social chatting with my coworkers/others on smoke breaks'

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#54

Post by Zak »

The study is based on having LLMs decide to amplify one of the top ten posts on their timeline or share a news headline. LLMs aren’t people, and the authors have not convinced me that they will behave like people in this context.

The behavioral options are restricted to posting news headlines, reposting news headlines, or being passive. There’s no option to create original content, and no interventions centered on discouraging reposting. Facebook has experimented[0] with limits to reposting and found such limits discouraged the spread of divisive content and misinformation.

I mostly use social media to share pictures of birds[1]. This contributes to some of the problems the source article[2] discusses. It causes fragmentation; people who don’t like bird photos won’t follow me. It leads to disparity of influence; I think I have more followers than the average Mastodon account. I sometimes even amplify conflict[3].

[0] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/internal-research-from...

[1] https://social.goodanser.com/@zaktakespictures/

[2] https://arxiv.org/html/2508.03385v1#S3

[3] https://social.goodanser.com/@zaktakespictures/1139481946021...

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#55

Post by wizzwizz4 »

richardubright wrote: post #39
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

I work in survey research and I'm rather appalled at how many people would rather survey a sample of AIs than a sample of people and claim they can come to some valid conclusion as a result. There are many ways AIs differ from real people and any conclusions you can draw from them are limited at best -- we've had enough bad experiments done with real people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Int…

Wait what? Is there an article on this. That sounds absolutely insane.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.06950 "Large Language Models Do Not Simulate Human Psychology" is a recent preprint.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#56

Post by abnercoimbre »

SkepticalWhale wrote: post #8

I'd like to see more software that amplifies local social interactions. There are apps like Meetup, but a lot of people just find it too awkward. Introverts especially do not want to meet just for the sake of meeting people, so they fallback on social media. Maybe this situation is fundamentally not helped by software. All of my best friendships organically formed in real-world settings like school, work, neighborhoo…

I call it technology for touching grass e.g. look at The Offline Club [0]

[0] https://www.theoffline-club.com/

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#57

Post by pixl97 »

avgDev wrote: post #51
duxup wrote: post #2

A lot of talk goes into how Facebook or other social media use algorithms to encourage engagement, that often includes outrage type content, fake news, rabbit holes and so on. But here's the thing ... people CHOOSE to engage with that, and users even produce that content for social media platforms for free. It's hard to escape that part. I remember trying Bluesky and while I liked it better than Twitter, for me it wa…

Current social media have basically found the "bliss point" of online engagement to generate revenue and keep the eyes attached. These companies found a way to keep people hooked, and strong emotions seem to be a major tool. It really isn't a choice. It is very accessible. Many friends are on social networks and you slowly get sucked into shorts. Then, it becomes an addiction as your brain crave the dopamine hits. Si…

Another way to put it is, social media is an unregulated drug.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#58

Post by getnormality »

> ...the dynamics that give rise to all those negative outcomes are structurally embedded in the very architecture of social media. So we're probably doomed...

No specific dynamics are named in the remainder of the article, so how are we supposed to know if they're "structurally embedded" in anything, let alone if we're doomed?

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#59

Post by unsignedint »

Social media as a vessel for diverse discussion is a tall order. It’s too public, too tied to context, and ultimately a no-win game. No matter how carefully you present yourself, you’ll end up being the “bad guy” to someone. The moment a discussion touches even lightly on controversy, healthy dialogue becomes nearly impossible.

Think of it this way: you’re hosting a party, and an uninvited stranger kicks the door open, then starts criticizing how you make your bed. That’s about what it feels like to try to “fix” social media.

Re: Study: Social media probably can't be fixed

#60

Post by 627467 »

> Ars Technica: I'm skeptical of AI in general, particularly in a research context, but there are very specific instances where it can be extremely useful. This strikes me as one of them, largely because your basic model proved to be so robust.

You can't accuse them of hiding their bias and contradictions.

How can a single paper using a unproven (for this type of research) tech disprove such (alleged) skepticism.

People bending over backwards to do propaganda to harvest clicks.

Post reply on HN