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Can't remember who this quote came from but it went something like this: "The only two things that call their clients 'users' is drugs and software."
Often something made in the name of user engagement makes me less addicted instead Say we have something that shows all expanded comments immediately: keeps me on that site Then they do an "engaging" redesign where only 10% of the comments actually show and requires lots of clicking to expand them, and lots of unrelated animated images show below: makes me want to close that tab and do something else
> There is something about social media that human beings are not psychologically prepared for.
I would state it: Engineers and business people have distilled what creates craving and then satisfies it by creating more craving.
No different than distilling the sugar, heroin, or cocaine from otherwise healthy, innocuous plants. We regulate some of that distillation. Even what we don't regulate, as a society, we generally look down on people that addict others. Why we reward programmers as we did the Sacklers doesn't make sense to me. I would think we would consider employees and investors of antisocial media companies villainous pariahs.
The author knew that adding a strong and clickbaity title is code for "addiction" still used it and published it in various places for getting the engagement. The companies and their managers are driven by same sort of metrics as the author.
On Facebook.
I'd add that algorithmic feeds are another part of the triad (quartet?), and probably the worst offender. Personalized addictive content is on the rise (tiktok, YouTube, even Facebook and Twitter curate your newsfeed "for you" ), and these ml-determined feeds drive engagement to the highest possible levels, leading to an incredible waste of time, a distorted world view (mostly the posts with the highest engagement wi…
Humans are so short-sighted, we don't even need a superintelligence to outsmart us. We happily stand by and collect profits while letting the AI do whatever it wants. Really, we need regulation that makes companies care about side-effects of their AI technology.
Often something made in the name of user engagement makes me less addicted instead Say we have something that shows all expanded comments immediately: keeps me on that site Then they do an "engaging" redesign where only 10% of the comments actually show and requires lots of clicking to expand them, and lots of unrelated animated images show below: makes me want to close that tab and do something else
Do you have an actual example website/app that does this “less addictive” thing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have an actual example website/app that does this “less addictive” thing?
Reddit's redesign. 'Less addictive' for me. I'm sure there must be some target audience for whom this is more addictive, but I'm not the one, I just want to read the comments of the thread I choose myself in peace.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not much of a code though is it? I mean, it's as subtle as "executioner".
I don't know, people, especially kids on YouTube, seem to be proud of the label these days.
I always thought it was pretty obvious when YouTube rolled out screen time reminders. It had nothing to do with anything but minimizing liability in case the general public ever catches on to what they are doing to kids mental health. What’s hilarious is they probably have some “data retention policy” and will get away with it. I guess it’s why SV engineers want to care about social issues so much. When you’re up in…