We need to reclaim our attention • Hacker News Board

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#191

Post by jimbokun » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

batch12 wrote: post #55

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…

Respectfully, these examples- radio and TV aren't even in the same league as the manipulation and engagement that comes from the algorithmic feedback loop that backs these services. The comparison is dangerously dismissive.

And TV was already considered a problem as it took up more and more of people's day.

The modern web is the fentanyl version of TV in terms of addictiveness.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#192

Post by nabla9 » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #86

nabla9 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's always the same story. This is the reverse slippery slope fallacy. There is no threshold, no effect size where this tuns net negative, etc. We took these 10 steps, were worried and nothing happened, we can do more steps.

Fair point, it may turn negative at some point but we're not there yet. It's a moral panic. We're not talking about war or genocide, we're talking about the young people staring at their phones too much.

That's another type of fallacy. If there is no obviously horrific consequences, there is nothing. Either/Or Reasoning.

My position is that we don't know yet. Some harms may be transitory and people adult. Making arguments for or against without good data and reasoning is not helping.

Making your mind up prematurely makes it harder to change the opinion when the evidence comes in.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#193

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #145

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…

> One reason so many people think they have ADHD is because they make that mistake. Speaking of which: has anyone had the experience where they sought to be evaluated for ADHD and the professional they went to said "nope, this doesn't look like ADHD"? I'm wondering if there are criteria people use to exclude ADHD as a diagnosis, or if the assumption is that if people are seeking diagnosis/treatment that they're exper…

[deleted]

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#194

Post by neuronic » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

37 wrote: post #30

jmfldn wrote: post #2

This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved on an individual level. They are systemic. "Individual abstinence is “not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.” He said that our attentio…

Correct. It is baked into their business model, to monetize your attention. And they have gotten very good at it. A "race to the bottom of the brain stem" as Tristan Harris likes to put it[0] is the correct way to look at it, AFAICT. To me, it's also a problem of "Moloch does it". Scott Alexander describes it well and gives a handful of great examples in Part I of his Meditations on Moloch.[1] [0] https://www.bloombe…

Of all the examples, reddit is the scariest to me. People think it's a bunch of nerds talking about geeky topics (or whatever) but as soon as a subreddit has a sizable user base it will be targeted by PR firms posing as normal users. More political subs are likely subject to propaganda ops bu8t Im not even going there.

Some things on the frontpage are clear advertisments, there has been evidence of shilling about certain topics by using post templates etc etc. but still somehow the impression persists that some dude from Idaho just posted his awesome BBQ recipe and the perfectly framed and well-lit tech equipment in the background is just coincidence.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#195

Post by Overtonwindow » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

I suffer from severe ADHD, and the only thing that has helped me is a better understanding of my personal dopamine production. I follow a TikToker who talks about his ADHD in terms of "follow the dopamine." It reminds me of the montessori programs, where you let the brain decide what it wants to do.

Allowing my brain to follow the dopamine - essentially auto rotate when attention goes off the rails - has finally helped me to implement some of the other ADHD tricks. All that to say, I think dopamine plays a significant role in attention and wish this article explored that a little. Social media is a dopamine spike. I think it's why we swipe, we're in a Skinner Box of sorts. Swipe. Reward. Swipe. Reward...

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#196

Post by sascha_sl » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #156

wwweston wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One reason so many people think they have ADHD is because they make that mistake. Speaking of which: has anyone had the experience where they sought to be evaluated for ADHD and the professional they went to said "nope, this doesn't look like ADHD"? I'm wondering if there are criteria people use to exclude ADHD as a diagnosis, or if the assumption is that if people are seeking diagnosis/treatment that they're exper…

I don’t know about adults, but parents are often told their children don’t have ADHD. Various estimates place prevalence at around 4% which is common, but not that common.

Quality of the estimations is extremely shitty. I've heard everything from 1% to 5%. And for persistence into adulthood, anything from 40% to 15%.

This is mostly because diagnostic criteria are extremely up for interpretation, and it usually comes down to the doctor if you get a diagnosis or not. I read one particular study that attempted to correlate location with ADHD incidence, and then it turned out that it came down to how the local specialists felt about it.

Reminds me of the reason the DSM comittee rejected cPTSD from inclusion into their officially-opinionated manual. "If we add this, too many people would be affected, we simply can't pathologize this many people at once".

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#197

Post by guerrilla » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #166

guerrilla wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure how that's relevant. I'm sure it's a giant Bell curve

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#198

Post by iainctduncan » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

A few years ago Matthew Crawford wrote a fantastic book about this, "Head The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction". I recommend it every chance I get. The part that changed how I feel about these things for ever was about how the slot machine companies have been rigorously testing how to make them maximally addictive to the point that it's now normal for players in casinos to piss themselves and just keep playing.

Psychologically addictive substances are real, and they can be digital, and they can wreck our lives just as well as psychologically addictive drugs.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#199

Post by Nextgrid » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #167

freeflight wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#200

Post by 300bps » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #170

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 o…

Very insightful response. Taking your fruit analogy further - some fruit evolved to be poisonous to mammals because birds spread their seeds further.

Also liked the manipulation point you made. It’s why you have things from the 20th century like soda companies and McDonalds and all the other organizations just “giving people what they want”.

Now in the 21st century we have Facebook, Instagram and the like similarly low-level poisoning people.