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Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

bbc.com

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Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#91

Post by twoodfin »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #79
twoodfin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I watch a lot of long-form YouTube while doing the dishes, and occasionally poke at the Shorts. Some funny, mostly dumb and I move on. Maybe a generational thing, but for most of the latter half of the 20th Century most folks had to “exert special effort to regulate their consumption” of network television. Should there have been lawsuits and regulation of couch potatoes?

If you mean 'should network TV be allowed to use behavioural psychology to manipulate people into being couch potatoes' then the answer is yes, that should be regulated against. Anyway, the way you talk about shorts reminds me of drug addicts who talk about how they can control their consumption. Some can. Many cannot but delude themselves. The way I see people interact with shorts/TikTok/reels is very much not restr…

Using behavioral psychology in commercial speech should be illegal?

Good luck with that one. Somebody probably used 18th Century behavioral psychology to try to sell George Washington a horse!

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#92

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #82
troad wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild to me how many people are willing to throw basic civil liberties overboard because they don't like the other guys. Today's media circus is about addictive social media. Before that it was video games and rock music and D&D clubs. Before that it the Satanic panic of the 80s, gay 'recruitment', Soviet spies. Much before that it was witches and heretics. And so on and so on, forever. If you have a choice, mayb…

At some point we limit your freedom of expression to do things like dump toxic waste up river. This ought to be no different. The poisoning of the american mind for profit.

Toxic waste is harmful to everyone all the time, social media is maybe harmful to some people some of the time, kinda like peanuts, should we ban peanuts? I'll further add that social media is beneficial to many people as well.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#93

Post by neves »

mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

Hope they also go after the betting companies.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#94

Post by slopinthebag »

twoodfin wrote: post #85
slopinthebag wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is really true though. People aren't becoming addicted to grocery stores, ice cream parlours and restaurants, or even cable television to nearly (any?) degree. None of those are engineered to addict you in nearly the same degree or magnitude.

What the best evidence that otherwise psychologically healthy people are becoming clinically addicted to social media? People used to spend an awful lot of mindless time watching TV. They weren’t “addicted” in a clinically meaningful sense.

I haven't seen anybody making any claims about social media usage leading to clinically meaningful addiction. So why are you asking for evidence of that?

Also fwiw I'm not in favour of regulating social media, but I am in favour of bringing lawsuits to companies who engage in societally harmful behaviour, and punishing them financially.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#95

Post by bigDinosaur »

twoodfin wrote: post #91
bigDinosaur wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean 'should network TV be allowed to use behavioural psychology to manipulate people into being couch potatoes' then the answer is yes, that should be regulated against. Anyway, the way you talk about shorts reminds me of drug addicts who talk about how they can control their consumption. Some can. Many cannot but delude themselves. The way I see people interact with shorts/TikTok/reels is very much not restr…

Using behavioral psychology in commercial speech should be illegal? Good luck with that one. Somebody probably used 18th Century behavioral psychology to try to sell George Washington a horse!

You dropped the second half of my sentence which pointed to a specific harm. You consequently argued against something which I didn't say. You are not arguing in good faith and this 'conversation' has clearly run its course as you are not capable of engaging the actual points someone is making.

Someone saying that someone shouldn't be able to promote specific harm x is not saying that the idea of 'promotion' of anything in general is necessarily bad, exactly in the same way that we restrict certain harmful things from being sold without being against the idea of selling things in general.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#96

Post by twoodfin »

slopinthebag wrote: post #94
twoodfin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the best evidence that otherwise psychologically healthy people are becoming clinically addicted to social media? People used to spend an awful lot of mindless time watching TV. They weren’t “addicted” in a clinically meaningful sense.

I haven't seen anybody making any claims about social media usage leading to clinically meaningful addiction. So why are you asking for evidence of that? Also fwiw I'm not in favour of regulating social media, but I am in favour of bringing lawsuits to companies who engage in societally harmful behaviour, and punishing them financially.

So what the heck are we talking about ITT?

“I’m so addicted to Firefly!”

That kind of thing?

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#97

Post by slopinthebag »

jen20 wrote: post #43
slopinthebag wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is really true though. People aren't becoming addicted to grocery stores, ice cream parlours and restaurants, or even cable television to nearly (any?) degree. None of those are engineered to addict you in nearly the same degree or magnitude.

> or even cable television to nearly (any?) degree 24-hour commercial cable news (in the US) is the original sin of addictive media.

I'm not seeing any signs of addiction even within an order of magnitude of social media.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#98

Post by bluefirebrand »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #25
jfengel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The personalization component takes this a step above. Making something very broadly appealing is one thing. Targeting what will keep you specifically from turning it off is a whole new level.

So if social media removed personalization from their algorithms and only applied them broadly across large demographic groups you'd be fine with them? (Genuine question I'm curious)

This would be a substantial improvement yes

Imagine a feed that actually just ends when you run out of posts from people you follow instead trying to endlessly keep your attention by pushing stuff it thinks you might like

If I've read all of the posts from my friends I would prefer to not see anything else, but that doesn't maximize engagement for ad platforms so

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#99

Post by maxaw »

dolebirchwood wrote: post #90
maxaw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know a single person who after exposure to short form video has not had to exert special effort to regulate their consumption.

Is this a young people thing? I'm 40. I have never liked Shorts. What am I supposed to get out of 10 seconds of video? And all the sudden jump-cuts, and big obnoxious one-word-at-a-time subtitles... They're all literally unwatchable.

I watched my 78yo step mother become addicted to reels so older people are definitely not immune. But she was able to go cold turkey as she only communicated with her sister over instagram so it wasn’t a problem to just continue with WhatsApp. Young people real life networks are too enmeshed with instagram to have the same option.

Also, what you’re describing sounds like when you’ve haven’t spent enough time on the shorts for the content recommendation algorithm to learn your preferences. Which I agree, is unwatchable. I saw it recently when my friend put on YouTube shorts on a guest account (on an Airbnb smart tv). it was bad. But spend enough time and that will change. But best you don’t!

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#100

Post by twoodfin »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #95
twoodfin wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using behavioral psychology in commercial speech should be illegal? Good luck with that one. Somebody probably used 18th Century behavioral psychology to try to sell George Washington a horse!

You dropped the second half of my sentence which pointed to a specific harm. You consequently argued against something which I didn't say. You are not arguing in good faith and this 'conversation' has clearly run its course as you are not capable of engaging the actual points someone is making. Someone saying that someone shouldn't be able to promote specific harm x is not saying that the idea of 'promotion' of anyth…

OK, sorry, so using behavioral psychology to encourage an audience to stay on the couch watching TV for prolonged periods should be illegal?

This is the Netflix business model, right now.

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