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Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

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Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#121

Post by lonelappde »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #50
numpad0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both side's on it. In fact there's no sides. Just that Twitter is competent at removing constructive elements and distilling hatred/rage/anger for profit and it's working against you. There are few ways to strip out some of their 10-year "improvement" and oh how deserted it looks under there...

I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'm quite convinced certain subcultures are overrepresented on Twitter, and that while Twitter is open to all, that doesn't mean it's a representative cross-section of the general population. I think this is true of most social networks, and is more obvious in certain cases, e.g. , Tumblr.

The internet attracts people who are marginalized in meatspace. Queer people and neonazis are both marginalized.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#122

Post by hogFeast »

ja3k wrote: post #108

I wonder if selecting your population via people who respond to a Facebook ad about studying quitting social media introduces any bias. (I can't see the article so I don't know what their ad actually was) I worry that the correct takeaway is people who are interested in the idea of taking a break from social media probably should. Maybe the study was sufficiently well compensated that people who feel positively about…

It is amazing to me that yours appears to be the only question that asks this.

But yes, there are problems with this study imo...none of which are really addressed in the paper. Giving someone $100 to quit is kind of an "economist" thing to do but is that really enough of an incentive to do something you wouldn't otherwise do? No.

They do say that their ad didn't mention quitting Facebook. And they did some kind of survey first (which is how they got the $100 figure if I understood that correctly) but it still doesn't look great to me. In particular, they claim that they did an RCT because they randomly assigned the people who clicked on their ad...that isn't random.

I also think compliance is far harder to observe than the author's believe. The subjects deactivate, and if they log back in it reactivates but is that foolproof? Not really. Tbf though, the number of subjects who fail to complete is low given upside of $100...so maybe.

The key parts of the survey really rely on self-reporting (will people have a bias to report improved wellbeing given all the bad publicity about FB? probably).

But yeah, this isn't really an RCT. It would be nice to see one but I think the issue is that most people who use Facebook a lot probably aren't interested in stopping.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#123

Post by lonelappde »

collyw wrote: post #78
numpad0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both side's on it. In fact there's no sides. Just that Twitter is competent at removing constructive elements and distilling hatred/rage/anger for profit and it's working against you. There are few ways to strip out some of their 10-year "improvement" and oh how deserted it looks under there...

Both sides are indeed on Ttwitter but it feels like it has a strong skew to the left. And as Time Pool discussed on Joe Rogan, the platform itself censors right wing opinion far more than left wing opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E

There are more than two sides.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#124

Post by karatestomp »

Angostura wrote: post #83
bedobi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here! I haven't had a TV in many years and since quitting the news (on every medium) I'm much happier and have much more time and energy to devote to fun and productive things.

How do you know what is going on in the world around you? Or don't you realy care that much?

What’s going on in the world is rarely useful to know, unless you’re talking about weather and traffic reports. Keeping up with it every day is just another entertainment hobby, like watching home remodeling shows or whatever. It’s fine, but only marginally useful or improving.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#125

Post by VLM »

mlang23 wrote: post #110
GekkePrutser wrote: post #67

I wonder if people will ever quit Facebook.. I mean after all the stuff that's happened and they still haven't. We had a discussion about this recently in my Spanish class. Someone asked me for my facebook and when I said I closed it long ago they were all like "eeewww privacy freak". So I explained my reasons, the abuse of personal data, the manipulation of the masses (Cambridge Analytica) and the others immediately…

Facebook, like many other things in our society, is a Clan-thing. "My clan vs your clan" is a game that humans play very very well. Their initial reaction is just "oh, you are not one of us". If you talk about the details, they might agree with you, but they still fall for the "not one of my clan"-thing initially. Same happens with many things. Linux vs Windows vs Mac OS Android vs iOS Left vs Right Vegetarian vs mea…

HN contains many obvious example of clan behavior. New Urbanism, bicycling, cooking for yourself instead of eating restaurant food every meal, Trump derangement syndrome, Brexit is going to cause the collapse of civilization, all strictly enforced groupthink on HN.

It never fails to amaze me how we (as a group) can have a free and open discussion of microcontroller RTOS options, but god help someone who has the wrong opinion about bicycling the groupthink will incinerate them.

Free to have any opinion here about tech things, but the counter reaction to that is no freedom at all about non-tech related opinions.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#126

Post by brianmcc »

rubidium wrote: post #84
brianmcc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad the change is working for you. There's definitely such a thing as overdoing TV binges. But all of us need to be cautious about ditching a legitimate entertainment and relaxation medium because it's not "productive", productivity isn't the only goal in life. It's OK to chill out and recharge! (Not in any way criticising you - just the community here often appears obsessed with maximising personal output and I thi…

The bigger point is TV is a poor way to ‘chill and recharge’. It zaps your creative process, deadens your judgment, and isolates you from those around. Reading, conversation with friends/family, poetry, painting, sitting and enjoying a good meal/cigar etc... all have the quality of chill and recharge without the negative effects of TV.

Yeah I don't see it as competing with other "wholesome" activities (cigars?!), just: don't beat yourself up for enjoying a bit of low-effort, passive entertainment!

Personally I find decent TV shows a great way to unwind after a busy day, but of course YMMV.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#127

Post by fenwick67 »

zenhack wrote: post #23
Santosh83 wrote: post #5

Facebook is moderately useful for keeping in touch with people you want to hear from and who just won't use email/Mastadon or whatever, and for interest-based groups and events. That is all. And as long as you strictly restrict yourself to using only the website through a browser and eschew their apps and carefully go over the privacy settings and tune them to your needs you should be okay. As for endlessly scrolling…

> As for endlessly scrolling the newsfeed all day, well that is not so much Facebook's fault as that people who do that are probably having too much idle time and not knowing how to do some productive or more creative activity. If Facebook did not exist those people would trawl through Twitter or Youtube or something else. ehh... yes and no. On the one hand, there is something to the idea that folks should take respo…

This is what pisses me off about using Facebook.

I just want status updates and photos from my friends. If I could literally mute all shared content (memes, twitter dunk screenshots and "shares") it would be a much nicer platform to use, but from Facebook's perspective this would be awful because I would be on and off the site in a few minutes.

It turns out I really just wanted MySpace with photo albums.

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#128

Post by brianmcc »

mlang23 wrote: post #85
brianmcc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad the change is working for you. There's definitely such a thing as overdoing TV binges. But all of us need to be cautious about ditching a legitimate entertainment and relaxation medium because it's not "productive", productivity isn't the only goal in life. It's OK to chill out and recharge! (Not in any way criticising you - just the community here often appears obsessed with maximising personal output and I thi…

Maybe I didnt express myself well enough. I didn't raise the issue of spending too much time in front of television to promote 24/7 productivity, not at all. I know quite well how important it is to just chill out and wind down. However, most TV programs that I was watching before I quit it completely felt like they were slowly poisoning me with stupidity. It is really the lack of quality and frankly, intelligence, t…

Sounds like we are in agreement. And yes there's a world of difference between world-class TV drama and the dross that fills much of the airwaves that frankly perhaps should come with some sort of health warning...

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#129

Post by icebraining »

mlang23 wrote: post #88
vidarh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my sons screen time is spent socializing. He rarely watches TV, but he spends a lot of time in multiplayer games where he is simultaneously on discord and building friendships. Yes, he needs face to face socialization too, and he gets plenty of that at school and various other activities, but the point being that screen time can be very passive or it can be active and involve lots of social contact.

When I was younger, I spent quite a lot of "active screen time" with IRC. Back then, it felt like I am connected to other people. In retrospect, it would have been far better for me if I used that time to socialize with real people IRL. If I could go back in time, I would force myself to go out and meet real people, instead of simulated friendships in a chatroom...

Yeah, but your current judgment of what would have been better is tainted by the fact that you spent a lot of time on IRC, so can you really trust it?

Re: Economists study what happens when people stop using Facebook

#130

Post by philpem »

VLM wrote: post #116
philpem wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. Haven't had linear satellite/cable in years. Gave it up in my teens. Since then I've moved over to science videos and the like (NileRed, Nurdrage, RI Lectures) and metalworking/machining. Things you'd never in a million years see on cable TV. For all its faults - Youtube has a lot of factual content produced by people who want to share their cool hobbies with the world. The thing I really want to…

If you like NileRed I think you'd enjoy "Applied Science" and maybe "Cody's Lab". "Scrap Science" is pretty good, I felt bad for the guy after spending a year failing to make heavy water. I spent a couple years in a chemistry lab and that guy's "bathtub chemist" techniques make me cringe but it all generally works out, well, aside from failing to make heavy water. The "Hydraulic Press Channel" is very tangential but…

You've more or less posted my entire Youtube subscriptions list there!

Applied Science (Ben Krasnow) is one of my favourites. Cody's fantastic too, for the backyard-science angle. I find Hydraulic Press a bit too "let's break stuff and laugh", but it's fun to watch and switch off for a few spare minutes. Same for Backyard Scientist ;)

Post-Apocalyptic Inventor is good for my scrapyard-challenge-but-real fix.

My real hook at the moment is How To Make Everything. He starts with Stone-age technology and shows the progression from there. It's fascinating to see how we got from "there" to "here" with a series of successive discoveries and refinements.

BosnianBill's Locklab, Locknoob and Lockpicking Lawyer are other favourites (but then, I've always found security tech interesting).

I've got an interest in retrocomputing so LGR, Modern Vintage Gamer, Adrian's Digital Basement and CuriousMarc are on there too.

I do mean the Royal Institution's official Youtube channel, yes. I started watching for Andrew Szydlo's chemistry demos and stayed for the other content!

I've heard of MIT OCW (since the original announcement popping up on Slashdot), but never really looked into what was available. Perhaps I should!

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