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A Teenager’s View on Social Media

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Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#291

Post by fargolime »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #251
fargolime wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling old too. I do_not_get the need to post the highlights of your day throughout the day. It reeks of narcissism. I feel sorry for them, in my oldness.

Well, lets put it this way, you never told your group of friends while in school about something cool that happened and would make you look good? Many social media interactions are that type of chatter, nothing more, but over a different medium than speech.

Sure I do that. But not a dozen (actually mundane) things daily, like the teen's "I'm about to go to this cool party". Among my friends we might mention the highlight of the week by email.

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#292

Post by UrMomReadsHN »

kristiandupont wrote: post #274
UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how someone can not "get" twitter but use instagram. Aren't they basically the same thing except instagram is pictures and twitter is text? That's what I thought, but I never used either.

Well, "getting" a social medium is not about understanding the data model.

I suppose you are right.

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#293

Post by attemptone »

joshstrange wrote: post #10
dominic2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Whatsapp has emerged as the better group service that everyone is using. It's a little too easily brushed aside in this article.

I disagree, none of my friends use WhatsApp and I've never heard them mention it. It's all about group texts or FB chat groups. (I am 23)

Here in europe it is widely used. There might be some difference between what americans use and what europeans use. (She says that kind of in the article)

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#294

Post by nikster »

nostromo wrote: post #38
canvia wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you use a personal aggregator that combined feeds from all those networks into one?

No way. :) I use these services in different contexts. When I'm relaxing and looking at Instagram, the last thing I want is a business article from LinkedIn or a political diatribe from Facebook. In fact my primary problem with Facebook is that it tries to be everything to everyone.

Yes, Facebook tries to be everything to everyone. It kinda has to, more or less, for the sheer number of users.

Nilay Patel recently argued that Facebook is the new AOL, it's the portal of the 2010s. I think that is an apt description. I am using it yet also kind of just pining to drop it.

I also use it for groups and messaging. Somehow, Facebook groups are great. They're super simple, and they just work. The newsfeed on the other hand is completely broken.

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#295

Post by nikster »

alexqgb wrote: post #161
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I noticed growing up, even when I was a teen, was stuff like "what teens think today" seemed bullshity and something certain adults wanted to hear, which often never reflected my experiences. In this case, the HN-friendly Facebook bashing. Now as a middle-aged adult, its obvious its questionable writing. Its either PR of some kind or a half-assed article by someone with a teenage daughter and a deadline. A…

This. I mean, I can understand obsessing about the teen / YA demographic if that's who you're selling to, but the idea that what they do represents some ground-shaking historical shift, and not just a (fairly well-understood) phase in normal human lives is just ridiculous. For me, one of the most interesting things about this piece was the total bafflement with Twitter. Not that they didn't like it, they just didn't…

I'm an adult and I don't understand Twitter either.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the basic idea - it's just that Twitter, the company, constantly wants to make it into something it isn't. And invariably fails at that.

I now use it for my geeky posts, and occasionally, rarely, to check my feed for interesting tweets from the masters of the startup scene.

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#296

Post by nikster »

tomashertus wrote: post #185
bgun wrote: post #19

many have nailed this on the head. It’s dead to us. The next few paragraphs then go on to describe Facebook as essential social plumbing. I think an FB product manager would be delighted to hear that Facebook is "dead" in this way. This is precisely why the most successful social network of its generation was built, first and foremost, to be a platform rather than a cocktail party.

I think that Facebook's NewsFeed is the biggest mess and the over-algorithmization just killed that product. People don't want to have fancy algorithms sorting their lives. Rather have people decide what they want to see. They aren't geeks like we are. I'm usually delighted when I see heat map and sorting alg based on heatmaps and heavy machine learning. But these kids? They don't care that you have there 2k develope…

Spot on. FB news feed is completely broken, and the only reason is that they're constantly tinkering with it - I guess to optimize for views, for staying time, for click throughs - whatever it is.

They need to show posts from people I follow in the order they were posted.

To prove the point, that's exactly how Facebook groups works. And I totally agree with the author that Facebook groups is great, certainly better than other ways of organizing groups.

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#297

Post by nikster »

themodelplumber wrote: post #31

This is weird; the author possibly met with the CEO of Snapchat more than once recently: https://twitter.com/thatswattsup/status/546018511902867456 > Can't wait to visit my friends at @Snapchat again tomorrow :D https://twitter.com/thatswattsup/status/545326840940740608 > Loved hanging out with @evanspiegel yesterday, he's one of the nicest and more genuine guys I've met. Thanks for having me @Snapchat! ...influencer…

Those links no longer work. Tweets deleted?

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#298

Post by nikster »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #3

This is filled with gems that old farts like me (I'm 30) don't have any idea about. If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it. Super interesting take - it's as though they are posting not to show people stuff but to get people's approval for what they are posting. Simple but critically different in my opinion. Facebook is often used by us mainly…

I'm 40. Shocking I know. But to all those who think this is just ancient (the younger they are the older that seems) I have only one response: There's nothing you can do to avoid the same fate! Except a premature death, but that would be even worse, right? Hahaha. Anyway.

I have a 21 year old friend, this is how she's using Facebook:

- Accept all friends requests. There are lots because she's cute. - Go through the feed relatively often, liking every single post. - Post stuff, see who likes it. Those friends who don't like her posts are unfriended.

Needless to say, she gets a lot of likes on her posts. It's absurd to do this, of course, but at the same time it's just taking what normal people do, and taking it to its logical extreme.

I am guessing if the Facebook engineers responsible for optimizing the news feed saw this they'd have a heart attack.

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#299

Post by nikster »

snlacks wrote: post #37
stinos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's as though they are posting not to show people stuff but to get people's approval for what they are posting Yes that's what lives pretty strong in that generation - and on social media in general, I have the impression. For some that goes really far, maybe too far, and people become unhappy or even depressed if they are not seen/approved by others. Which is like in real life, but also at the same time not quite:…

I think that's more a quality of young people, not just "this generation." I was probably like that once, even though I think I wasn't. I remember everyone around me being concerned with being "liked." More importantly, Mean Girls and Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Wonder Years all seem that way. Who know with kids, they make no sense in any generation. :)

Spot on. I've since forgotten about this, but at that age I do remember caring way too much about being liked and what others thought.

It was not that I was so vain - it just seemed like a reality to me. Reality seemed to be, you have to be cool like these guys / that guy / whoever or else you will never have a girlfriend and never have sex and die alone.

In hindsight, that's stupid, idiotic even. But back then that was my life. And it's still like that for teens now. Explains why I can talk to a teen and they seem like perfectly reasonable people, except 10 minutes later they go off and do something unimaginably stupid.

Maybe it's a sort of random mutation of our social genetic makeup - teens must do stupid, senseless stuff, and some, randomly, discover something great (while lots of others just embarrass or injure themselves).

Re: A Teenager’s View on Social Media

#300

Post by nikster »

ap22213 wrote: post #47
stinos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's as though they are posting not to show people stuff but to get people's approval for what they are posting Yes that's what lives pretty strong in that generation - and on social media in general, I have the impression. For some that goes really far, maybe too far, and people become unhappy or even depressed if they are not seen/approved by others. Which is like in real life, but also at the same time not quite:…

Well, I'm almost 40, and I similarly feel the inherent disappointment when one of my posts is not liked by my peers. Not achieving a certain number of likes feels like social disapproval, or maybe misunderstanding. Of course, I grew up with punk rock music, so when that happens, I just say F them and move on with my next un-liked post. (Then, the game is to see how many old friends I can repel)

First of all you have to understand that your post will be shown to very few people initially, and if it doesn't get any likes from these few people - let's say it's 10 - immediately, then it won't be shown to anyone else. One reason the newsfeed sucks, and I believe it's the reason I never see posts from the vast majority of my friends.

And then, to me, the quality of the likes matter.

I recently posted 3 different links that were all about stuff very close to my heart - things I really care about. One was a 40 minute video. It got one like, but that like was from my father - I'd trade that for 100 friends likes. One was an article I loved; it got one like, but the guy loved it so much he shared it. And this is something - if I have reached one person's heart, it's a huge success. Another one, forget what that was, but it got likes from my brother and another person close to me.

If a post gets no likes, yeah, first of all, fuck them, and secondly only 10 people saw it thanks to Facebook's clever constant optimization algorithm so F Facebook, too.

Let's be honest, I have 300 friends, the likelihood that all 300 saw a post of mine and did NOT like it is pretty much zero. The only way I can get a post with no likes is if it was only shown to a small percentage of my friends. (or if I posted total crap but I'm not, I swear ;) )

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