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Negativity drives online news consumption

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Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#211

Post by hot_gril »

EGreg wrote: post #138

Just as I have been saying, we need an alternative to the capitalist profit-driven media organizations. Outrage drives “engagement”, for both social networks and for publishers. All of the profit-driven outleys are subject to market pressures. Even NYTimes which won more Pulitzer prizes than anyone admits to A/B testing headlines for clickbait. Let alone FOX News or YouTubers with “X does Y, immediately regregts it”…

The news on Twitter isn't really for-profit, more like for glory or popularity in many cases. I'm fully convinced now that the issue is the one-to-many distribution. When news only travels from friend to friend like the old days, it tends to be more positive and less devious, and there are studies behind this. You don't make friends sending them fake ragebait, but it certainly works on Twitter.

I'd have to see your app in action to know what it really does, but it does sound like the same kind of distribution as Twitter.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#212

Post by hot_gril »

siva7 wrote: post #193
Dalewyn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common bit of wisdom I've heard from older folks is to ignore the news. Don't read the newspaper, don't watch TV news, don't listen to radio news, etc.; they all say nothing in them is worth our time. It's among the most useful piece of advice I've ever had.

Very true but does HN count? Would you be happier without your daily influx of GPT news and tech layoffs?

I ignore a lot of the big topics. Layoffs don't concern me beyond just knowing that they're happening.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#213

Post by hot_gril »

t12hrow wrote: post #139
ar-nelson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, news serves three purposes: --- 1. To let you know about local or world events that could affect you and those close to you. 2. To let you know about world events that affect others far away, in order to judge the effectiveness of political decisions and the necessity of future political decisions. 3. As a form of entertainment derived from the ongoing story of world history (or celebrity gossip, or…

> perhaps government-funded I suggest the opposite. I'd like a proof that there is no government involvement. Believe it or not, I think the closest to this is ideal is 4chan /pol/. It's not backed by any major corporation (unlike HN which is backed by Y Combinator), it's not partly owned by Tencent/China (unlike Reddit), and so on. There's no algorithm, there's no karma, there's no blue badge, it barely scrapes by u…

4chan only (sorta) works at a small scale, which it is. It's a niche. "No normies!"

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#215

Post by nradov »

bpm140 wrote: post #186

About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on M…

I guess it's one of those game theory things. Individually each of us can improve our lives by "defecting" and ignoring the news. But if we all "cooperate" by consuming a lot of news then we have better odds of voting in ways that actually improve the world. An interesting moral dilemma: is it right to become a low-information voter in order to be happier?

(I am not judging your choices. I honestly don't know the correct answer.)

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#216

Post by suddenclarity »

The study isn't about news but rather clickbait shitposting on Upworthy. I don't refute the claim, partly because positive news are rarely extraordinary, but the paper isn't about news. It does however show that an incorrect headline can go a long way when trying to get attention on social media as long as the claim aligns with the voters.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#217

Post by tasty_freeze »

hot_gril wrote: post #201
bpm140 wrote: post #186

About a year ago, I stopped consuming news cold turkey (save technology and movie news [the former work-necessary and the latter a personal vice]). I took the extra step of banning Twitter and Memeorandum at the router level, so that I couldn't revert easily. I didn't read a single political news story in the ensuing six months. Some of the happiest months of my life. These days I will read the section headlines on M…

I went the other way, expanding the news I read to include more international stuff. Really makes me see the partisan stuff in the US as silly, so I don't get heated about it, just lazily keep up with what's happening. International propaganda is easier to spot cause I'm not living in it, which helps me identify it more at home. Anything I consider real news is still too far away to really upset me but important enou…

> Really makes me see the partisan stuff in the US as silly, so I don't get heated about it,

Some of the partisan issues are not silly if you are affected by it. To pick a left issue, if you are gay and would like to marry your partner and get the benefits of such legal recognition, the differences are very consequential. To pick a right issue, if you think that Democrats are voting illegally by the millions, then addressing such threats to Democracy is incredibly important.

There are many other issues where there is a real difference. As an affluent, well educated, older white guy with job security, I'm well insulated from many of the issues. But I have empathy for the people who can't be so aloof; to say "both sides are equally bad" across the board is lazy enlightened centrism.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#219

Post by hot_gril »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #217
hot_gril wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went the other way, expanding the news I read to include more international stuff. Really makes me see the partisan stuff in the US as silly, so I don't get heated about it, just lazily keep up with what's happening. International propaganda is easier to spot cause I'm not living in it, which helps me identify it more at home. Anything I consider real news is still too far away to really upset me but important enou…

> Really makes me see the partisan stuff in the US as silly, so I don't get heated about it, Some of the partisan issues are not silly if you are affected by it. To pick a left issue, if you are gay and would like to marry your partner and get the benefits of such legal recognition, the differences are very consequential. To pick a right issue, if you think that Democrats are voting illegally by the millions, then ad…

I don't think they're equally bad, only equally silly. They use the same scare tactics every time, and it helps to look past that. Yes I care about the issues.

But how I vote is different: just straight down for whatever is the minority party in my state. Only battleground states get the pandering, and I'll stop doing this if I ever live in a battleground state or they change how voting works. State propositions are a separate thing.

Re: Negativity drives online news consumption

#220

Post by pdimitar »

siva7 wrote: post #193
Dalewyn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common bit of wisdom I've heard from older folks is to ignore the news. Don't read the newspaper, don't watch TV news, don't listen to radio news, etc.; they all say nothing in them is worth our time. It's among the most useful piece of advice I've ever had.

Very true but does HN count? Would you be happier without your daily influx of GPT news and tech layoffs?

Over the course of the last 3 years I found myself clicking on less and less HN stories. This place definitely feels like it lost the inventor spirit and the clever "how to" articles. A lot of stuff is either political or has very close political outcomes, and the rest is blind hype (ChatGPT won't revolutionize almost anything, and I'll stand by my words, bookmark this comment and show it to me in 5 years, I dare you). Let's not forget the yet-another-500-comments thread arguing pointlessly about whether startups are a good format or not. Or office vs. remote. And several others (but they are not many and it does feel like a tool a la ChatGPT could have generated them).

Today I've gotten much bigger value for my time when reading about various CLI tools that process and ingest / export data (recent thread about `miller`) than all of the above, combined.

HN, I feel, became more popular, and that has hurt its quality. So yes, I started reducing my consumption of it as well. I treat it like all other news sites 99% of the time, and I am right to do so at least 90% of them. I barely find 2-3 good articles per week these days.

Soon I might start checking HN biweekly because the value proposition is just not there.

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