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Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

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

#121

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

wincy wrote: post #53
georgemcbay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

My wife and I parental lock each other’s iPhones. I have social media but have to go to my PC to check it. This friction makes a world of difference. I was astounded hanging out with my friends in person last weekend how every one of them at some point pulled out their phone mid conversation to watch TikTok, or Wordle, or whatever. They thought I was the weird one when I mentioned all social media sites and apps are…

Remember when that type of behavior was rude? I had a conversation with a couple in 2011 and they had told me that they saw Steve Jobs and his wife at a restaurant and Steve was on his phone most of the time and how rude it seemed. I've thought about that periodically over the years as I've seen the addiction grow and become commonplace and especially as I've seen those same habits develop in myself.

I remember going on dates a few years later, 2014/15, and the phone usage during the dates seemed rude and slightly offended me. Now it's so common it's not even really noteworthy.

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

#122

Post by rudhdb773b »

czhu12 wrote: post #84

What would be an actually good faith way of regulating this short of banning it for children (which I’d think is fine). How do you define what is too addictive? At any given time it seems like whatever is defined as the most addictive is just the one with most market share? For me personally I think most addictive is actually hacker news (god bless you all)

Why regulate? Look at the failure that is the "war on drugs".

The solution is education. The government should be educating society and especially parents on how to protect their children.

Education worked to cut cigarette use, and is starting to lower alcohol consumption as well. It can work for social media without all the negative impacts on civil liberties that come with regulations.

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

#123

Post by twoodfin »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #113
twoodfin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those attributes are necessary beyond those of an ordinary bag of Lays to meet the definition: “things which are harmful and which people have trouble not doing”

It's a matter of degree. I don't impulsively drive to the store to purchase another bag immediately after finishing the one I have whereas (for example) many people exhibit such behavior when it comes to tobacco. In the case of social media the feed is intentionally designed to be difficult to walk away from and it is endless (or close enough as makes no practical difference). Even if it weren't endless, refreshing a…

How would you contrast social media with Netflix in this regard?

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

#125

Post by fc417fc802 »

twoodfin wrote: post #111
wredcoll wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"average of 30 minutes" covers a pretty massive range. Lots of people can get drunk once a month and suffer or cause no real harm. Some people get drunk everyday which is slightly more harmful.

So any producer of X should be regulated or otherwise held liable for the injuries of unhealthy individuals who misuse X?

Depends. Was the product intentionally designed to be that way? The addition of caffeine to soda is the closest example that immediately comes to mind but in that case many individuals are specifically seeking the additive.

There are many physical products that are today designed to minimize harm and misuse after facing liability historically. So I suppose the direct answer to your question would be "yes, absolutely, and there's a figurative mountain of precedent for it".

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

#126

Post by burnished »

hightrix wrote: post #68
superkuh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Screens are drugs. They are uniquely and magically addictive. Try to take away a kids tablet, a teen's phone, or an adult's phone. They will fight just like an addict.

Motherfucker you try to take my fork while I'm eating and you're going to get a stabbed hand. Are forks addicting?

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

#127

Post by nojvek »

ktimespi wrote: post #76

The fact that I couldn't turn off shorts recommendations on youtube is just so, so annoying. It's such a time sink and I'm glad that the tides are finally shifting against addictive algorithms like these.

Yeah not having a switch to turn off shirts is a great indicator that Google’s “do no evil” is a relic of the past.

Google gives no fucks other than printing more billions every quarter.

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

#128

Post by twoodfin »

wredcoll wrote: post #116
twoodfin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Netflix makes the same profit whether you watch 30 minutes or 30 hours a month. Tiktok gets paid for every extra second you spend there.

Netflix certainly doesn’t think about their subscriber audience that way.

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

#129

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

underlipton wrote: post #80
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.

It's also that this is not a function of their nature, but of the way that they've been designed to function. Things were not this bad 15 years ago, and the fact that social media existed and functioned the way that it functioned back then was incredibly important in allowing movements like MeToo and BLM and Dreamers and many others to build momentum. When social media is a tool of regular people, it's an awesome, aw…

I think a lot of it is the ease of access now that we carry computers with us everywhere. I was tweeting from my phone in 2009, but I had to send the tweets via text message, so there was no infinite scroll accessible all day everyday to suck my mind into the phone. We had to actually make a decision to sit at a computer and go to the website to fully be fully immersed.

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #125
twoodfin wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So any producer of X should be regulated or otherwise held liable for the injuries of unhealthy individuals who misuse X?

Depends. Was the product intentionally designed to be that way? The addition of caffeine to soda is the closest example that immediately comes to mind but in that case many individuals are specifically seeking the additive. There are many physical products that are today designed to minimize harm and misuse after facing liability historically. So I suppose the direct answer to your question would be "yes, absolutely,…

[deleted]
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