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We need to reclaim our attention

theguardian.com

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Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#161

Post by Apocryphon »

tomjen3 wrote: post #154
Apocryphon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless if the solution is government intervention, it seems rather funny to say the modern internet is a place that all entrants can play freely. It’s changed quite a bit since when The Diamond Age was first written.

We can play freely, invent new solutions and approaches without having the government test their safety, without having to get special approval by anybody. I am aware of the bias of large companies that stops certain people from building, which is why I wrote play.

The antitrust left says large companies prevent people from building freely, but doesn’t the free speech right also claim that large companies are preventing from playing- or rather, speaking- freely?

Seems like different activities are falling under corporate purview.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#162

Post by multjoy »

trwhite wrote: post #109
slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

Video games are immensely addictive. The burst of adrenaline some of the recent online FPS' give me doesn't compare to any other feeling or experience I've had as a human being. They didn't just happen to be this way. They have been designed to be so thrilling that normal life cannot compete.

This isn't anything new. Degrees have been lost to the temptations of something as plain as a MUD.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#163

Post by barrkel »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
batch12 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People talk about addiction to social media or other attention-farming software, but not many people really take it seriously. People think they are unicorns and while some can get addicted or manipulated-- they think "not me. I am too savvy." As long this issue just keeps getting shrugged off as a new version of tv-is-bad hysteria 'media' companies will keep making their dollars and enslaving the minds of the t…

One form this takes is that people with some regularity claim that 'all this advertising doesn't work on them' while having an iPhone, ridiculously over-priced in ear headphones, designer clothes with large logos on them and shoes with very visible branding. Advertising works, on everybody. The only way to get to a level playing field is to filter it out of your life as much as possible. The only thing I haven't foun…

And a large fraction of fashion items are made out of advertising; that is, the value proposition of displaying a branded item comes from the web of associations generated and maintained amongst your social group by the fashion brand's advertising efforts, which will in turn be associated with you by exhibiting the item.

This means that it is actually possible to not be affected by advertising and still use fashion items, on the theory that everyone else is affected by advertising and the effect you want is to leverage that effect.

I'm sure the most fashionable people are aware of this since they need to parse the fine distinctions of brand associations to maximize their desired effects. Ironically I think they may be the least affected by the advertising even while becoming the strongest real world advocates.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#164

Post by champagnois »

Consider what this does to opinion and independent thinking.

Most attention grabbing platforms are designed to use a variety of reward mechanisns to reinforce the politics of the platform.

Some easily botted platforms (like reddit) will constantly bombard people with anti-civilizational content promoting "anti-work" or very toxic identity politics that further isolates the users, and, in turn, strengthens their addiction to reddit because they will have no friends or family.

I wonder if the platforms are complicit in this or if they are passively incompetent and this terribleness is just being exacerbated by foreign adversaries trying to poison western dialogues and minds.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#165

Post by moonchrome »

redmaverickclon wrote: post #147
moonchrome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this talk about "algorithmic feedback loops" is overselling the quality of said algos (eg. I get more interesting suggestions when I open YT incognito then I do when I'm signed in, I have to scroll through a bunch of stuff I have 0 interest on FB when I open it, etc.) and their importance. It's completely missing the actual attention grabbing factor here - there's a huge amount of content for consumption on deman…

I am not sure. This is just a data point of 1. I used to browse Instagram casually. Like, once is a blue moon. I would see updates from my network and spend a few mins here and there. This was probably like over year or two back. (not 100% sure) And then a few months back I just could not take my eyes off of Instagram reels. This feature wasn't there before I think. I was just completely hooked. It was pretty interes…

>And then a few months back I just could not take my eyes off of Instagram reels. This feature wasn't there before I think. I was just completely hooked. It was pretty interesting. I had to delete my instagram off of my phone.

Sounds like they started showing you different kind of content. I never got into Instagram because I'm just not into the kind of content that gets published there. Not arguing that content presentation isn't a factor here, but I would argue it's the content that's addicting and even if you remove the suggestion algorithms and just did social sharing/recommendations you'd still end up with similar results - viral stuff got shared in chats/groups/mail chains/etc. now it gets served up to your feed directly.

Not saying suggestion algorithms don't improve the experience if they work, but I wouldn't really attribute that much value to them, ultimately we have an industry of influencers trying to create content that will grab your attention.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#166

Post by moonchrome »

guerrilla wrote: post #160
moonchrome wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this talk about "algorithmic feedback loops" is overselling the quality of said algos (eg. I get more interesting suggestions when I open YT incognito then I do when I'm signed in, I have to scroll through a bunch of stuff I have 0 interest on FB when I open it, etc.) and their importance. It's completely missing the actual attention grabbing factor here - there's a huge amount of content for consumption on deman…

Inconsistent reward is more addictive than consistent reward. This has been known for a long time. That's how they make it addictive.

It has the opposite effect on me, I barely open facebook anymore because of how irrelevant it is and I skip the landing page on YT and just search what I'm interested in.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#167

Post by micromacrofoot »

freeflight wrote: post #130
micromacrofoot wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I think addiction is probably the bigger story rather than attention.

I'm not sure how much that actually changes about the discussion, for the better. If this is an addiction, then it will be one that's gonna be very difficult to break for most people. In most places it's nowadays near impossible to go about your day without some kind of online activity or interaction. Especially as during this pandemic a lot of "in person" alternatives for it have been phased out of use. So in practi…

More transparency around algorithmically prioritized newsfeeds seem like an obvious place to start. According to what little insight we have they’re mostly prioritized for “engagement” which in some cases has intentionally come at the cost of people’s moods (according facebook’s own internal reporting).

Large companies have psychology/sociology experts working on this stuff in favor of the respective companies, but any consumer advocacy on the same level is hampered by lack of access and lack of funding.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#168

Post by philipswood »

zentropia wrote: post #120
V-2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess is very addictive, and certainly endless. Same with cardgames. I'm sure your government bureau would quite grow fast, coming up with ever more warning labels.

Do we have an epidemic of chess?

In the late 18-hundreds Chess was considered a bit of an undesirable epidenic.

Check out this gizmodo article:

https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-societ...

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#169

Post by coffeefirst »

slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

Both of these things can be true.

What if this is a moral panic like prohibition or the red scare more than like comic books. Was American drinking culture in the early 1900s insane and were there soviet spies in the 1950s? Actually yes, and that doesn't justify McCarthy or make Prohibition a good idea.

And this is the challenge. How do we respond proportionately without going "OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN" or blending the actual problems with our other phobias?

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#170

Post by dredmorbius »

300bps wrote: post #5

I’ve said for years that the 20th century saw humanity for the first time having to learn to live in a world of infinite sugar, fat and salt. The 21st century will be about learning to live in a world of infinite information. We will all have to be mindful of whether we are consuming the mental equivalent of broccoli, donuts or anthrax.

Yes, this. Humans as a race have evolved to be able to short-cut our own motivational and behavioural control systems. Or more precisely, for one group to manipulate anothers' motivators to serve the interests of the manipulator rather than the party served by those factors.

Wants are a means to an end. They are not the end itself. That is, wants are evolutionarily-derived (or sometimes culturally-instilled) drives or motivators which should result in improved fitness.

Think of these in terms of emotional drives, tastes and our responses to them, favouring aesthetics (symmetry, balance, smoothness, etc.) Those evolved in an environment which was itself not counterevolving to feed those drives faster than they could emerge.

That's not to say that there isn't co-evolution occurring: fruits, say, evolve to be sweet to attract animals which will eat it and spread seeds. But *there is no "fruit sector" specifically engineering high-sugar fruits with a response cycle of days or weeks or months. Even human breeders typically take years or decades, and natural selection generally takes much longer.

Motivators evolved to find things in the environment which improved overall fitness.

"Give them what they want" is engineering rapidly to appeal to psychological behaviours in ways that exploit them specifically to the interests of the engineer. (Or more likely: the investors / shareholders / VC behind them.)

If you're gaming the want itself directly, you lose the argument that what you're providing is at the choice of the target, because you've coopted that choice to your own interests.

https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/107453533345126190

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