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“User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
181–190 of 349 posts
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#182>“How could they have just scrolled and scrolled all day?"
It would help if your article used more than just the middle 25% of my screen, thus requiring scrolling to read.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, I spent many years at a large, public US mobile game company and it was the same. We had a considerable number of players who had total spend in the 5-figure range, and a few into the 6's. And that's on one single game. The constant rationalization around the office was basically something like: "They're paying for fun, it would otherwise be drinks/movies/real gambling/etc, we're just a different medium". This,…
I left casual games because of this; every partner and publisher we worked with was heavily pressuring us to optimize for whales. They wanted the long tale for marketing, and the whales for revenue; and once hooked, the core interaction loop was to be as addictive as possible. When I left it was Candy Crush that was the top of the field; and we were in awe. They were _always_ rewarding players, and were pushing micro…
> not to sell dope.
Is there no Breaking Bad effect because it's all legal?
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#184Discussion of the addictive qualities of social media often strikes me as bizarre. Where is examination of the person doing the scrolling? Isn't the flaw there? (The following applies to adults): Ostensibly, the person should be allowed to spend their time as they like if they're engaging in legal activity. If people thought that engaging in social media was bad for them, they would stop. Are we really saying that pe…
I do think this is a worthy callout, that is often missing in discussions about social media and/or any sort of complex system. The general narrative implies (but would never say) that humans lack agency and the ability to act in their own self-interest. And if only we could remove the social media site/system, would we see an enlightened, more perfect human. Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly in favor of designing sys…
>I think a lot of what we see on social media is a reflection of who we are as humans, and what we desire and want to see.
Agreed.
I'm curious why there aren't deep discussions about WHY people want to __insert convenient social media action__. Isn't the flaw that we have a fear of missing out, want to appear to have high status, want to belong to a group whose identity is tied into being against another group, etc.?
I just see most of these discussions giving the above a pass as if that's just who we are and we bear no responsibility in engaging in such activity.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#185Discussion of the addictive qualities of social media often strikes me as bizarre. Where is examination of the person doing the scrolling? Isn't the flaw there? (The following applies to adults): Ostensibly, the person should be allowed to spend their time as they like if they're engaging in legal activity. If people thought that engaging in social media was bad for them, they would stop. Are we really saying that pe…
In a world where every party was rational, your points would make total and complete sense.
The reality, however is that social media companies with their curated feeds, dopamine buttons, echo chambers, and sheer size can push products to the market that cause detriment to the overall cultural environment. The average Joe does not understand that his Twitter feed is _designed_ to keep him hooked. I bet you, if he knew, he'd have quit long ago.
Your argument essentially posits that opioid addicts be held responsible for their addictions rather than our legal system clamping down on big pharma.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#186I did an internship with a very profitable Swedish mobile game before the pandemic, and it was really interesting to see the doublethink: everyone knew we were making a drug, but people avoided speaking of it in that way. It was always "our most engaged players readily spend on in-game items", and never "the most addicted users spend money so they can continue playing" It was a great workplace, but I don't think it w…
Great example of how language is a tool for thinking, but it's also a tool for not thinking. If you want to ignore or obfuscate something, you can seal it off with euphemisms and misrepresentations, kind of like putting an interface in front of an implementation. And as you pointed out, you can use this tactic to deceive not only others but also yourself.
Definitely. It reminds me of Orwell's Newspeak in 1984- although the novel itself shows that having a "clean" vocabulary doesn't completely prevent "unclean" thought deemed by the authorities, having a censored set of language can "nudge" people to certain propaganda.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#187I did an internship with a very profitable Swedish mobile game before the pandemic, and it was really interesting to see the doublethink: everyone knew we were making a drug, but people avoided speaking of it in that way. It was always "our most engaged players readily spend on in-game items", and never "the most addicted users spend money so they can continue playing" It was a great workplace, but I don't think it w…
This all seems a bit silly. Go work for an *unprofitable* mobile game company (or start your own!) to see how quickly your model breaks down.
The idea that you can engineer yourself an addictive game is a silly concept.
That games en masse are evolving for maximal "addictiveness" is unquestionable, but has entirely different implications.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Normal people can't parse probabilities - otherwise nobody would play in the lottery. Yes, they would. The lottery is about giving up something of little value ($1 or $2) for some entertainment and the chance at a truly life-changing situation. I doubt anyone is unaware there's almost no chance they win, and that they're losing on every dollar they spend. Interestingly, the lottery is occasionally +EV to play. I ot…
I agree, playing the lottery is a little like buying insurance for something. Everyone knows that insurance is a losing proposition, but no one buys it to save 500$ on that fender bender, people buy it so that they can get through a catastrophic event like 500,000$ in medical bills.
I would hazard a guess that people who buy lottery tickets are much less likely to buy insurance than those who don't. I think some similar psychological mechanisms may be at play, but not in the way you are suggesting where they overestimate small probabilities across the board. I suspect it has more to do with discounting odds that are against them.
But I wouldn't bet on it.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I did not see any evidence of malicious intent towards our users but a genuine belief we were enabling them to be more productive. The Banality of Evil, this is just a version of "We were just following orders"
No it isn't... I don't think any of the ideas in this article have any evil intent, even if they have evil results. 1. Relative timestamps are just a more useful way of telling people when something happened. It's how most humans communicate time to each other. 2. Infinite scrolling is just what happens when you're not constrained by physical pages. The only reason we used to see paged content was because it was tech…
The medium is the message. We've been talking about this for decades - the structure of the thing you are interacting with determines how you interact with it. Substantive debate is difficult in 140 characters, so substantive debate does not often happen on Twitter. Infinite scroll and auto-play video eliminates the "decision points" where people would otherwise reconsider if they want to continue, so people spend more time on those sites than they would otherwise. Maybe the attributes of these mediums aren't "inherently bad," but they absolutely do influence the way that they are used and it is up to us to make the judgement of whether that has good or bad outcomes. And a lot of us think the results of infinite scroll is a bad outcome.
Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
The frustrating part is there are lots of people making games to tell stories and explore worlds, but they fall into the void almost inmediately after launch due to the slot machine games taking the lion's share of the attention and money.
Thankfully, PC Gaming strangely hasn't been dominated by this phenomenon, despite EA's, Activision's, and Epic's best efforts. Fortnite is addiction-tuned F2P casinowear, and it's done gangbusters, but the industry hasn't managed to copy that formula with great success.
At least fornite cosmetics have limited gameplay impact (although not zero impact).
It is quite possible to be a relatively competitive player without spending a single cent (and without needing excessive grinding to do so, or at least, no more grinding than a paying player).
This is a lot better than most mobile games (pay more or wait # hours to continue), or games with lootboxes whose results give serious competitive advantage. (There are far too many of the latter to even list.)
But I do dislike any game that depends on any form of microtransaction model. I've no real issue with meaningful DLC for single player games (i.e. the equivlent of the old expansion packs), but otherwise a game should either be a one time cost, or a simple subscription. Not some unholy hybrid of the two as has become all too common.