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Social networks are no longer social

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Re: Social networks are no longer social

#141

Post by _lce0 »

RileyJames wrote: post #118
wybiral wrote: post #18

I vote we return to the age of late Geocities, forums, and early blogs. Less conformity in design, less "social" by modern definition, but more people who just liked one topic enough to build something about it and communities forming around them.

When I was in high school, this was MySpace. I remember all my friends learning HTML, or at least enough to copy and paste sufficiently, to build out their custom profiles. It was a constant process of landing on a friends profile, being amazed by some feature or design and then going back to work on your own. It also felt more like people’s profiles expressed through design, or music, or gifs, or other media, rather…

> I can’t see people wanting to manage their own homepage. But then again, I remember we all did in high school for MySpace... maybe we will again.

The keyboard was what allowed such interaction.. How are nowadays' teens to manage such designs if their main device is a touchscreen?

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#142

Post by gruez »

dkasper wrote: post #102
debaserab2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, just waiting for the day I can no longer opt out. Feels like it’s coming soon. Boy those ad designs on the new layout sure are starting to look like regular posts. I’m sure it won’t get any worse, right?

The ads say “PROMOTED” in capital blue letters and Adblockers still work. Is it really so bad?

>Adblockers still work

not on iOS

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#143

Post by jsemrau »

osrec wrote: post #35

Facebook described in 50 years: a network where real world relationships were gamified and users competed for popularity. The network eventually died because the relationships it represented became meaningless in the eyes of its users, and the perceived value of the "game" fell to virtually zero.

Facebook in 50 years : People wanted World of Warcraft but got Star Wars Galaxies instead.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#144

Post by Larrikin »

Paperweight wrote: post #116
pcurve wrote: post #4

The article mentions of days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas. I do miss those early days. For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window once companies started pressuring people use their real identity, and that became the norm.

When everyone's anonymous, anyone can speak their mind without worrying about offending anyone. When everyone's identified, only the crazies and extremists truly speak their mind - they don't care about offending anyone. You might end up with a mix of crazies and extremist "thought leaders" with packs of quiet followers - a suppression of the moderates and deep thinkers.

The failed experiment that is 4chan was founded on this idea and its plainly clear that anonymity in a large community leads people to just spout the craziness constantly and loudly because well researched and thoughtful comments are simply lost in the sea of crap and there are literally no downsides to constantly lying. You can thoroughly debunk a persons claims and they'll resort to insults or usually will stop responding and then proceed to post the same garbage within a day or even an hour.

A minimum of pseudo anonymity that holds people accountable for what they say is an important part of enforcing a healthy community of people making good faith arguments.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#146

Post by renke1 »

dirkgently wrote: post #70
kryogen1c wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a nondystopian (depending on your perspective, I suppose) version of this reality, see Daniel Suarez's daemon and freedom. Highly recommend.

Sorry, but Daemon is one of the worst sci-fi books I have ever read.

Can you elaborate? – A coworker is recommending that book to me. I don't want to waste my time reading it if it's really bad. I am mostly into hard science fiction.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#147

Post by jaked89 »

Reddit is almost perfect in avoiding these issues.

The only thing missing: allow assigning exclusive psuedonames per group. Users shouldn't be allowed to associate one name to another across group.

It currently allows multiple accounts, but this still makes users worry about accidentally responding from the wrong account.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#148

Post by ineedasername »

pcurve wrote: post #4

The article mentions of days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas. I do miss those early days. For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window once companies started pressuring people use their real identity, and that became the norm.

Yes, I remember in the old days of AIM, at least among everyone I knew it acted as a sort of social network itself. (it was separate from the AOL ISP service, a stand alone application)

It was one of the default applications installed in all computer in the labs at University. And it was very common at the time to use its search function to seek out random people and chat.

I wouldn't get too rose colored glasses about that era of computing though, flame wars were nothing new (and there's still probably some Usenet flamewars that continue to rage uninterrupted for decades.)

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#149

Post by ineedasername »

wybiral wrote: post #18

I vote we return to the age of late Geocities, forums, and early blogs. Less conformity in design, less "social" by modern definition, but more people who just liked one topic enough to build something about it and communities forming around them.

Oh! that just reminded me of webrings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring) I liked those.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#150

Post by electricEmu »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #137
_greim_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] notions of etiquette, self determination and even hygiene [...] will find it kind of gross and embarrassing to be caught up in somebody's disinformation. This reminds me of the CGP Grey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Quality video! I hadn't heard the points about mutation of ideas and forming complementary controversies.

What’s quality about it? The title “This will make you angry” doesn’t instill confidence.
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