A book on a similar theme from before the internet is [Ways of Seeing][1] by John Berger. The typography, set in bold throughout, doesn't do the text any favors, but the writing and information is good.
How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
181–190 of 443 posts
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#182Kind of interesting idea about how our tools (generic) present us with limited menus, and effectively restrict our options. Facebook has expanded (barely) the options for basic responses to posts (no longer just like, but also a handful of emoticons to express laughter, anger, sadness, etc.). Not as full an option as when using the comment box, but for quick responses it allows for greater expressiveness. At least pe…
> the demo was with a graduation photo, and a few suggested responses like "You look great!" "Congratulations, so happy for you" or something similar).
Don't know why anyone would actually use features like this. It's very impersonal and insincere
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apparently google has an Ethicist. Well, had . From his bio snippet at the bottom: "Ex-Design Ethicist & Product Philosopher @ Google"
It sounded to me like a euphemism for hanging out on the roof waiting for your non compete agreement term to run out.
I don't know that competition is so heavy in the technological ethics industry.
Also, California.
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#184Nothing new here. If anyone is interested to learn about these mechanisms in death there is a great book "Hooked" by Nir Eval. The real problem here are the users. If they keep unconsciously falling for the same tricks over and over again, rather than taking a stand and rejecting manipulative products, there is no incentive for product makers to create product which are _not_ manipulative. You can compare it to eatin…
As with addictive drugs, the real problem doesn't wholly lie on either side. You can't blame the users entirely for the fact that people choose to supply a harmful product for profit, but neither can you wholly blame the suppliers for being tempted to do so when users lap it up. Regardless of the blame question, it will improve when (if) both sides change their behaviour, or when either side changes unilaterally and forces a change from the other side.
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#185The article does a good job of showing examples, but strangely, it doesn't connect this in any way with the vast related research in psychology and economics. This makes me skeptical of the claims of expertise...
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#186Wow, I'm glad this was posted. I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. Modern app design isn't about creating things that are good for the user, but about creating want in the user. This is a problem. For example, there are several studies showing that using Facebook in general makes people less happy. User happiness just happen…
If I find an app is pulling me in too often, I delete it. If I find a website is distracting me too much, I throw it on my hosts file (and redirect it to 127.0.0.1). If I find myself drinking too much beer, I stop. If I find myself craving anything in a way that feels intuitively bad, it's a good sign that I need to change something. I feel like a lot of people respond to those impulses by going out of their way to m…
The reason why such products still exists is exactly because the majority of consumers are not like you.
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#187Anybody else struck by the irony of the glaring "Don't miss Tristan Harris's next story" dialog at the bottom of the article?
Note the verbiage exploiting Fear of Missing Something Important.
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting people hooked/addicted is not new, it's been used in TV series and shows for decades. I'll explain it all in my next post...
Please elaborate in the form of a list of weird tricks
He just did with this:
> I'll explain it all in my next post...
By leaving it hanging your curious mind could not resist the temptation and started to fill in the blanks, and when that wasn't enough you posted a request for more. That's why the main characters never get home or never make out — it's a lot like an infinite scroll.
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can look at it as removing our humanity, or you can look at it as supplementing our humanity. Prior to the written word, we had to devote time and effort to passing down information through the spoken word. By offloading this task to an external device (wall, tablet, parchment, paper, book, screen), we've been able to use that time and brainpower to focus on other items, while also increasing the fidelity of our…
Whilst i somewhat agree with the sentiment, the difference now is in the amount of efficiencies or benefits gained. The gains/benefits from tools, farming, writing etc, are quite large. The gains from an app suggesting a movie or book, or reminding you to do various things in your life, are quite small in comparison. It might be merely a matter of a few minutes. It begs the question, is it worth gaining a few minutes…
That assumes the suggestion is directly comparable to an action you would have chosen yourself. What about suggestions for things where you would have taken no action, or suggestions to not take an action you would have taken? What about suggestions that include information you would not have been likely to come across yourself?
Imagine your friend is in the hospital, but you've been busy, and haven't checked your normal sources of information about your friends for a few days. You get a suggestion to send them best wishes or flowers, because they are in the hospital. This both suggests a course of action you wouldn't have considered, because you didn't know it was a candidate as well as imparts useful high priority information that you want to know that was hidden behind a feed you classified as low priority lately.
Sure, many suggestions may be minimal and not help much, but do we always classify systems based only on their average use? Sometimes it's important to look at the distribution of use, and whether there are other positive (or negative) externalities.
Re: How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" - people who believe climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experie…
But what? The problem with the constant doom is that we get exhausted. At least in the US all we truly care about is war and old people (looking at where the money goes; http://whatwepayfor.com/ ). The problem with the doom sayers is they have no solutions or actionable items that we can say yes or no to. Its just lions and tigers and bears 24/7.
> no solutions or actionable items
Well that's not true, they have no palatable solutions or actionable items. No new toy to buy that will fix things, no low effort/high status ritual to perform. Just a bunch of changes that involve sacrifice on our parts, and involve organizing large groups of people and trying to get them to plan for the future and then act in accordance with this plan. Also some of these choices will result in immediate harm to some people for the sake of future harm prevention, so these are quite easy to argue against using the inherent uncertainty of preventing future harm.
tldr; The problem with the doom sayers is that they have no solutions or actionable items that allow me to consume more things, so we say "fuck that"