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Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

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Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#151

Post by superkuh »

hotpotamus wrote: post #135
superkuh wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when you start using the word "addiction" outside of contexts where it applies. You get these kinds of invalid and dangerous arguments comparing actually addictive substances that hijack incentive salience directly on the physiological level to a screen and speakers that most definitely do not.

Gambling addiction triggers the same brain areas as drug and alcohol cravings https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/176745/gambling-addiction-tr... As someone who has had issue with addiction (a real one by your definition as well as screen based one), it's plainly obvious that the brain mechanisms at play are the same.

So does listening to enjoyable music or viewing an impressive art gallery. I assume you're talking about glutamergic activity in populations in the shell of the nucleus accumbens. (edit: after reading the paper, https://www.nature.com/articles/tp2016256 , I was correct).

And that's funny because in the incentive salience theory of addiction, which they cite at the start of their paper, the nucleus accumbens populations don't encode for wanting, those populations encode for liking. The actual voxels of the brain this study should have been watching would be the ventral pallidum and ventral tegmental area. Those are necessary and sufficient for wanting(craving). The nucleus accumbens is not.

You'd think the director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic who cites the incentive salience theory in his first paragraph would actually take the time to understand the neurological correlates of the theory he's citing (but then again, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."). This lack should make you question the other aspects of this study.

Like how a 19 person MRI studies might as well not be studies at all in the neuroscience sense. They're for getting more funding to do a study with actual statistical power to make inferences. And note that in the actual paper they don't call it addiction, it's gambling disorder.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#152

Post by quacked »

Manuel_D wrote: post #97
Teever wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada has forbidden the sale of cigarettes in grocery stores, and they've banned the display of any advertising for them in the stores that are still allowed to sell them.

Sure, because cigarettes have clear and unambiguous harms to health. What makes advertising, I dunno, a remote controlled plane to a kid so much more unethical than advertising it to an adult?

You know, children's advertising in the 1980s and 1990s was heavily researched by psychologists and economists with the explicit goal of manipulating the emotional state of children to get them to bother their parents for toy purchases. I don't have any books or articles off the top of my head, but I've read several articles and analyses of how the pacing, pitch, and coloring of advertisements intended for children were designed to be as stimulating and upsetting as possible. There was also research put into when during the day and year you could play these commercials to the greatest effect, and the advertising slots at certain times were priced higher in response to this.

It is possible that this doesn't harm children. However, the deliberate injection of emotional manipulation and disunity into families with young children in order to stimulate the purchase of toys doesn't strike me as particularly good for the nation, and I don't know that I would have to think very hard about my decision if given the option to prevent it using the law.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#153

Post by quacked »

ff317 wrote: post #31
quacked wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes, and yes. However, the three situations you named are targeting adults. Children and teenagers are worth insulating from the full might of advertisers, propagandists, and always-on virtual social circles.

Arguably, adults are worth protecting as well. A lot of marketing and even design intent for adult products is also extremely misleading and intentionally designed to prey on our collective fallibility. In that sense, it's at the very least unethical, and maybe should be illegal. We have some laws about truth-in-advertising, but they're very weak in a lot of scenarios.

I agree with you. I believe that one of the greatest problems American society faces is a corruption of public life on the terms of advertisers and propagandists, who are often the same people. However, I don't have a great solution for imposing a censorship regime on content generation and consumption, and so it is a little more helpful to simply choose an age at which to draw the line where the law treats you as capable of making your own decisions and protecting yourself from mass media.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#155

Post by zooq_ai »

Timon3 wrote: post #126
zooq_ai wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly where the "Insurance" part comes in. Any act of "god" where pure bad luck is involved, some central entity should absolutely take care of them. However, Government should also not be in the business of prepping bad choices -- diet, family formation, bad lifestyle. Any society that is given unconditional support will degenerate

> That's exactly where the "Insurance" part comes in. How does that work for people who have never been able to work (i.e. chilren in bad households and people with disabilities from birth/young age)? They can't pay for membership, so why would a private insurance company insure them for free? What if all insurance companies happen to not accept them as customers? > However, Government should also not be in the busin…

Lots of children in bad households have made out to be ok, and plenty of children with well-off families.

Disabilities birth/young age is act of "god". It's perfectly fine to take care of them. However they only account 1-2% of the population.

Death due to Missing Coverage is overrated. All Emergency Units take in patients and most exaggerated medical bill people actually don't pay the said bill

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#156

Post by iteratethis »

The only enforceable claim is regarding usage of minors below the age of 13. All other claims are "soft" violations. Legal but unethical.

How do you regulate legal but unethical? You can't. So let's make it illegal. But how?

Maximum notifications per day? Deep introspection of the actual content? Good and bad influencers? Curfue? It's impossible to codify this into law, unless you're China.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#157

Post by Dweller1622 »

quacked wrote: post #150
bilbo0s wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the issue of with these kinds of things, where does it end? Do tv shows target teens too much with high energy music and dancing? Does media target them too closely with intentionally addictive music riffs from Taylor Swift to Billy Eilish? Will we shut down all these video games that clearly target kids with bright colors and, let's call it what it is, "aestheticized violence"? We need to be careful about ho…

Yes, I agree that enforcement of moral norms requires setting arbitrary limits on behavior that aren't necessarily objectively defensible. Every law and ban regarding the dissemination of goods and services involves a slightly illogical compromise between a partially elected moral authority and the citizenry. There isn't really a clear answer to your questions about whether or not "we" would continue to censor video…

[flagged]

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#158

Post by LeroyRaz »

avalys wrote: post #4

Do grocery stores “capitalize on vulnerability” when they place name-brand products at eye level? Do carmakers “capitalize on vulnerability” when they advertise pickup trucks as big tough vehicles for tough, outdoorsy men? Do providers of health insurance for pets “capitalize on vulnerability” when they say you need to buy their product if you love your pet? At some point people need to be responsible for their own d…

There are a great number of regulations placed on products (and their advertising) to ensure customers are informed and protected.

Examples: Drinking disclaimers (drink responsibly). Cigarette disclaimers and off putting mandated packet visuals. The traffic light system in the UK (which displays a colour coded breakdown warning of unhealthy food macros on the front of all ready meals). Alcoholic beverages by law having to specify their alcohol percentages. Foods by law having to specify their nutritional content and ingredients.

All of these regulations have been introduced to ensure customers are not blind to unhealthy choices (e.g., the traffic light system warning against high sugar content designed to make cheap addictive food). While not always effective, I believe that on balance these regulations make society a better place to live in. Similarly one could envision mandated social media disclaimers and warnings, and to regulate this way would be entirely within the wider norm, rather than something unusual.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#159

Post by superkuh »

everforward wrote: post #148
superkuh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I was clear. There is no such thing as "internet addiction" or any subset. There's actually not even "gambling addiction" anymore. It's been properly renamed to "gambling disorder". But I guess we're not talking facts here. Instead we're concentrating on how it feels to us. And various ambitious policians are realizing they can use that collective lay delusion to further their careers. I am not pro-corporat…

> There's actually not even "gambling addiction" anymore. It's been properly renamed to "gambling disorder". You're incorrectly making assumptions about that wording. They're all disorders now. E.g. a heroin addiction is officially "opioid use disorder" in the DSM. It's probably part of some initiative to be more inclusive or avoid the accusatory nature of the word addiction. More than that, you're interpreting in th…

I appreciate the correction and the reference. I am suprised that they decided to put gambling disorder with the substance abuse disorders under "Substance-related and addictive disorders". But the bulk of the paper is about how all the other behavior disorders besides gambling do not have sufficient evidence to include them with the addiction disorders. This continues to support my point, re: interaction with websites.

>reflecting ongoing evidence that gambling disorder triggers reward pathways in the brain the same way that drugs do.

Yes, people find things that are intermittently rewarding to have more incentive salience eventually. But gambling with random operant condition is not hijacking those neuronal populations responsible for reward prediction (like the dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area) and activating them in the absence of reward. It is merely reacting appropriately to actual reward as encoded by activation of the glutamergic populations of the shell of the nucleus accumbens (at least). That's a huge difference... though apparently not big enough to stem the political and social tides.

Re: Meta Designed Products to Capitalize on Teen Vulnerabilities, States Allege

#160

Post by LargeTomato »

lossolo wrote: post #129
Curvature5868 wrote: post #83

The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing, also expose them to constant marketing and propaganda, even within the confines of their bedrooms, as they attempt to connect with peers or complete tasks. Previously, children's exposure to marketing and propaganda was mostly confined to their entertainment hours, during which they watch…

> The dilemma parents are grappling with is this: tablets and smartphones, while beneficial for children's learning and socializing Recent reports from teachers indicate that many children are intellectually behind their peers. A concerning trend is that these children struggle to hold conversations, a problem attributed to their parents phone/social networks addiction. Rather than engaging and raising their children…

What do you mean they struggle to hold conversations? I was an awkward kid and you could say I struggled to hold conversations but it wasn't due to an addiction to tech. I'm also socially well adjusted now, as an adult.
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