Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 511 posts

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#141

Post by everforward »

mbesto wrote: post #18
Insanity wrote: post #2

Social media was never really “social” in my opinion. Reading updates from hundreds of people you have shallow interactions with offers the illusion of having a social life. So I’m not sure if this change to “fads” makes it meaningfully less social than it already was.

I am very critical of social media but this is far too of a myopic take. There is a ton of real life social benefit to these platforms. Simplest example - someone posts a picture/video of them in a city that I also am in and now I know they live there / traveling there and I can meet up with them.

This is bizarre to me, because anyone I know well enough to link up with on a trip also knows where I live and vice versa.

That’s just a really odd relationship to me. Maybe it’s a social media thing.

FWIW, I hear things like this but have never heard of any of my friends that use social media actually doing it. In the same way that you could use an Emmy as hammer, but nobody does.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#142

Post by ffsm8 »

walthamstow wrote: post #92
UltraSane wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"one of them always has a 24 hour news going " Why didn't you say which one? I bet it is Fox.

It doesn't matter which one. My mother mainlines BBC News which is state-owned, establishment-centrist, has no adverts or profits, but has the same effect of dialing up the viewer's fear of the outside world.

While I'm not American, calling bbc centrist in 2026 is just objectively false. It was centrist in 2000s, but it hasn't been in at least a decade.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#143

Post by IAmBroom »

This thread is doomed by a common HN* affliction: People are bandying around key terms without defining them, assuming and pretending that the definitions are universally accepted.

Here, the term is "social media", which can also be pronounced "boogeye man". We all seem to agree it is bad, but very few are willing to lay down a solid definition.

It isn't limited to bad terms. It happens anytime we argue over whether X displays consciousness, or X has a mind, or X can think.

* And other forums, obviously.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#144

Post by mrweasel »

nailer wrote: post #123

Yes, Tiktok staff made this point when they emerged in 2020 - "Tiktok isn't a social media platform, they're an entertainment platform". Meta's catching up.

That makes talking about the issues a lot simpler. Calling HN a social media makes much more sense if we talk about Instagram, or Facebook as entertainment or advertising platforms.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#145

Post by jermaustin1 »

stickfigure wrote: post #105
everdrive wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case, I don't think most people who claim HN is social media are making a serious argument. They are taking two different things which have a few points of inter-comparison and using that as a basis to claim those two things are actually equivalent. This is done as a retort (eg, "you say you hate social media, but you're on social media _right now_") rather than in service of a larger argument.

I'm making it as a very serious argument. HN is social, it has an algorithmic feed, people upvote and downvote your content, hell it has a social credit score. The idea that HN somehow isn't "social media" is hard to take serious. This is Reddit for a niche audience. The main difference is that HN has a small and relatively high quality community, plus the traffic is low enough that it gets a fair amount of manual mo…

I agree that HN is "social media", but I'm starting to wonder if Facebook/Twitter/TikTok/Reddit/YouTube aren't "social media", but instead a new category of media tangentially related as OP posted to cable news. Something like "attention media" where your attention is the point of it.

HN, on the other hand, your attention matters less. They aren't paying for this platform using our "attention" necessarily. I'm sure it is a way to curate an audience of tech-enthusiasts where they can exploit our knowledge and push their investments in front of our eyes.

I like HN for that reason, I don't feel like I'm the product as much as with other attention-seeking platforms.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#146

Post by croisillon »

nancyminusone wrote: post #96
UltraSane wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"one of them always has a 24 hour news going " Why didn't you say which one? I bet it is Fox.

I had a relative for which it was CNN. We even share the same political views, but watching that stuff or having it on in the background literally from 8 am until midnight is tiring.

when in a hotel on vacations we sometimes have a television and hence bbc or cnn... i used to nickname cnn "the fire squad": whatever the topic they're just shouting and hyperventilating... it is tiring indeed

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#147

Post by anonymars »

close04 wrote: post #38
everdrive wrote: post #3

Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…

> And no, HN is not social media in any normal sense of the word. The pedantry involved in that comparison is extremely tiresome. For an arbitrary definition of "normal"? The last remark is unwarranted and can only have a chilling effect on the conversation. Or outrage bait, a typical sign on social media. Why is it not social media? It exhibits the same signs as seen on any social media platform. Can you define soci…

I think it can become diluted to a meaningless term, or co-opted to mean different things to different audiences (not to sidetrack from the point but the first two examples I can think of what I mean are "fake news" or "woke")

So you're not wrong at all, but I think there's also a significant difference when the personalized algorithms come into play, which can segregate people into their own epistemological echo chambers

I suppose I'd summarize as

1. I don't think we have a precise term for the actual thing, and "social media" is one loose term people use for it

2. There's a spectrum for this, maybe multidimensional:

* Does it display the same reality for everyone? For example obviously true social media will be different depending on your friends, but chronological vs engagement are different. Even new reddit and old reddit I think differ here too

* Infinite scrolling? Or specific page advancement?

* Text? Pictures? Video? (Video duration?) Each one is different

So in that respect, sure, they're all social media, but they're very different, and I think there's probably combinations of those features that result in very different effects/harms

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#148

Post by reg_dunlop »

djeastm wrote: post #99
amelius wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with that manipulation. What baffles me is that they call this manipulation "influencing" and they consider this a positive word.

Similar is when people refer to themselves or others as "content creators" Not filmmakers or artists or writers... "content creators". Like they exist just to produce a continual stream of this amorphous "content" for consumption. Now, perhaps that's all that art/writing, etc ever was. But to just abandon even the pretense is another in a long line of surrenders we've made to commoditization.

Was there ever a time when any of the classical/fine arts were used as propaganda or promotional material, prior to the medium elevating to loftier aims?

Is this history repeating itself?

The idea that content creators could be considered artists is one I may have considered before, but only tangentially.

What I'm also curious about...is how this commoditization and consumption via "influencers" has altered any individuals attitudes towards blatant manipulation. Free will seemed to be a much more guarded value. Now, the willing surrender of our free will seems to be the norm...

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#149

Post by carlosjobim »

malfist wrote: post #28
everdrive wrote: post #3

Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…

Your theory about cable television is fascinating. I never really watched TV growing up, but every time I visit my parents now that they're retired, one of them always has a 24 hour news going and it's just non stop "you should be afraid" and "you should be angry" told to you by pretty faces smiling the whole time. Social media is totally that today too. I quit facebook in 2016 and reddit in 2023 over similar fears.…

News are for news worthy things - which are things that deviate from everyday life. Wars, disasters, crime, in short things of concern. As well as political struggles, economic struggles, and any kind of conflict.

So all is well in that aspect. That's how news have always been, since the first pyres were constructed to light fires to alert neighbouring communities of enemies arriving.

But the sickening aspect of cable news is the way the presenters talk. The voice they use to speak to the watcher is pure venom. It's an extremely angry and condescending voice, and the TV watcher is made to feel inferior to the broadcasters and therefore give attention to the "very important" things they are talking about. Weak minds are conditioned to feel respect and reverence to those who treat them with despise, and unfortunately also to feel the opposite to people who they believe themselves superior to.

It's completely deliberate, to make people addicted to it.

Consider if a well dressed person came to your house and started talking in the same voice as the TV anchors do. You would instantly think it was a dangerous psychopath on the loose, and try to find a weapon swiftly to ward them off. If somebody at a barbecue started talking like the TV anchors, you'd think they were on drugs and tell them to leave. People would call the police.

The next time you catch a TV news anchor, picture them being with you in your living room instead of in the TV studio. You will instantly conclude that the person is mentally and spiritually unwell to talk and act like that. You can practically smell the reptilian from them. Do the same thing with politicians and other leaders too. Many of them say things that on paper seem nice, but with a demeanour that you wonder when they're going to break out into "Who is the boss of you!? I am the boss of you!?"[1]

And I don't think they can see it in themselves or smell it on themselves, like everybody else with a mind can.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QM_AcLBSQM

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#150

Post by [deleted] »

stickfigure wrote: post #105
everdrive wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case, I don't think most people who claim HN is social media are making a serious argument. They are taking two different things which have a few points of inter-comparison and using that as a basis to claim those two things are actually equivalent. This is done as a retort (eg, "you say you hate social media, but you're on social media _right now_") rather than in service of a larger argument.

I'm making it as a very serious argument. HN is social, it has an algorithmic feed, people upvote and downvote your content, hell it has a social credit score. The idea that HN somehow isn't "social media" is hard to take serious. This is Reddit for a niche audience. The main difference is that HN has a small and relatively high quality community, plus the traffic is low enough that it gets a fair amount of manual mo…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN