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Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

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11–20 of 247 posts

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

#11

A lot of people make their job their identity instead of something to pay off the mortgage with. Which in turn creates a lot of denial about your actions.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” -- Upton Sinclair

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

#12
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.

What these corporations were trying to do is bad and vaguely feasible to a degree. I think it's bad enough regulation could apply. But there is an additional consideration that's really important in how we as a society deal with this.

Screens are not drugs. They are not somehow uniquely and magically addictive (like drugs actually are). The multi-media is not the problem and not the device to be regulated. The corporate structure and motivations are the problem. This issue literally applies to any possible human perception even outside of screens. Sport fishing itself is random interval operant conditioning in the same way that corporations use. And frankly, with a boat, it's just as big of a money and time sink.

We should not be passing judgements or making laws regulating screens themselves because we think screens are more addictive than, say, an enjoyable day out on the lake. They're not. You could condition a blind person over the radio with just audio. The radio is not the problem and radios are not uniquely addictive like drugs.

We can't treat screens like drugs. It's a dangerous metaphor because governments kill people over drugs.

Without this distinction the leverage this "screens are drugs" perceptions gives governments will be incredibly dangerous as these cases proceed. If we instead acknowledge that it's corporations that are the problem and not something magical about screens then there's a big difference in terms of the legislation used to mitigate the problem and the people to which it will apply. The Digital Markets Act in the EU is a good template to follow with it only applying to large entities acting as gatekeepers.

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

#13
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.

> and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children.

And society as a whole. Even if you don't participate you don't escape the blast radius of the harm they've caused over the past 10-15 years.

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

#14

>The verdict has forced those inside the companies to grapple with the fact that many outsiders do not view them as favourably as they have come to view themselves. I'm not sure this rings true to me. Meta has to know that millenials and younger are giving up on their platforms, they have endless internal data showing it, right? If anything they are just afraid of endless litigation while they are struggling to gain…

> Meta has to know that millenials and younger are giving up on their platforms, they have endless internal data showing it, right?

Do you have a source for that? I don't think it's true when looking at global Meta numbers across _all_ Meta social platforms (FB+Instagram+Threads) combined.

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

#16
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.

But so is cable television designed to be addictive. So are most restaurants and ice cream parlors and grocery stores designed to get you to spend more. Most loyalty programs are designed to be addictive to get you to come back, etc. etc. I just worry we left no levers for the public to regulate these entities and this is the worst option of very few options. Who isn't liable under this kind of logic?

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.

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

#17

A lot of people make their job their identity instead of something to pay off the mortgage with. Which in turn creates a lot of denial about your actions.

It's the other way round. It's easy to push the limits or even indulge in psychopathic denial, if this allows one to pay off a mortgage sooner and take another one. If job is your identity most of the times you simply throw away the years worked there and rarely earn a fortune.

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

#18
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.

What these corporations were trying to do is bad and vaguely feasible to a degree. I think it's bad enough regulation could apply. But there is an additional consideration that's really important in how we as a society deal with this. Screens are not drugs. They are not somehow uniquely and magically addictive (like drugs actually are). The multi-media is not the problem and not the device to be regulated. The corpor…

Maybe governments should stop killing people over drugs.

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

#19
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.

In what sense do you mean Instagram is “addictive” to a neurotypical adult?

Reels are non-stop dopamine hits, just like TikTok. It's incredibly addictive to scroll through. That is by far the worst part of Instagram for anybody.

Everything else outside of reels is the usual social media fake life facade, and everything amplified to the max for engagement to get it pushed to feeds via "the algorithm" (note: Interactions don't need to be positive to promote it to feeds)

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

#20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But so is cable television designed to be addictive. So are most restaurants and ice cream parlors and grocery stores designed to get you to spend more. Most loyalty programs are designed to be addictive to get you to come back, etc. etc. I just worry we left no levers for the public to regulate these entities and this is the worst option of very few options. Who isn't liable under this kind of logic?

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.

And feeding toxic content to children while doing so.
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