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“User engagement” is code for “addiction”

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Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#241

Post by swiley »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29

I don't like the current trend of social media apps burying users under push notifications, calls to action, and other engagement hooks. However, there's a second, parallel problem adding fuel to the fire: The more we talk about overindulgence in social media (or Netflix, or video games, or fast food) as an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals, the less sense of individual agency we give ou…

Why though? I left facebook and lost nothing. It brought no value to my life and even if it did I'm certain the feed itself wouldn't.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#242

Post by Loughla »

imtringued wrote: post #199
pixelbro wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, it's interesting that you see the design of your product as a counterexample, because to me it looks exactly like what mobile games have been doing as a mechanism for maximizing engagement. You want to stop them from playing through too much of the game's content and burning themselves out on it. So you lock them out with a timer, forcing them to come back later. Then you reward them for coming back every day. Th…

>Looks to me like you've accidentally stumbled onto one of the very tactics games use to turn people into addicts. You're confusing something. It's the exact opposite. "Games accidentally stumbled onto one of the very tactics you use to turn people into addicts." Industries take advantage of human behavior, they don't invent them.

That reads like such a weird take on that statement, that I think I had to have misunderstood what you're saying. Please clarify.

Is your claim that industry isn't at fault for addiction, because people are able to be addicted to things?

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#243

Post by beyondcompute »

That’s a timely article and it has some good points.

I myself would say instead of “you should quit social media”, you should quit particular platforms that have too many toxic users (trolls and just rude people) and you should quit platforms that are run by companies with whose vision you do not agree. I am not saying we should quit Deviant Art or even Twitter, for example.

But yeah, quitting Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp seems like a good idea at the moment. And I did so myself some time ago.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#244

Post by smichel17 »

gnicholas wrote: post #148
misdichotomy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Normal people are seriously outgunned here. This is quite right. PragmaticPulp's phrase "an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals" is a bit of rhetorical jujitsu, creating a strawman to set up a rallying cry "I believe people have agency!" You don't have to assume that individuals are "helpless", as if they are generally helpless and lacking agency, to agree that these corporations are exp…

It’s not just normal people who are outgunned — I am tech-savvy and have had an iPhone since the day they were released. I know how to modify notification settings, but there’s nothing I can do preemptively when can simply Twitter add a new category of notifications, as they did the other day. I had to go into the notification settings within the app and disable this new category, and then do it again for each of the…

You're struggling against the unbalanced power dynamic that proprietary software creates between developers and users.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#246

Post by Loughla »

pixelbro wrote: post #240
cercatrova wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Habits can be good or bad. In this case, one would want the user to be rewarded for coming back every day to learn programming. Habit acclimation is a neutral process, just because the parent uses the same tactics as those who use them for building bad habits does not mean that those processes are bad in and of themselves.

Of course! I'm not ascribing any moral weight to it, just pointing out the similarity in tactics. Engagement can be a good thing if you're using it to improve someone's life rather than simply trying to extract as much time and money from them as possible.

>Engagement can be a good thing if you're using it to improve someone's life

Can we agree that entertainment and being entertained can improve someone's life? If we can agree to that, then we can also agree that games designed to entertain an individual are good for said individual.

It's not a leap from there to say that a game that is engaging and keeps someone playing is good for them, because it's entertaining them, and that, as we've established, is good.

Once you take the step to make a product addicting, as a formal part of your business model, everything after that is just shades of grey, I believe. Morality and justification of your own truth is a fascinating process. Or maybe I'm overthinking this.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#247

Post by Retric »

Loughla wrote: post #246
pixelbro wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! I'm not ascribing any moral weight to it, just pointing out the similarity in tactics. Engagement can be a good thing if you're using it to improve someone's life rather than simply trying to extract as much time and money from them as possible.

>Engagement can be a good thing if you're using it to improve someone's life Can we agree that entertainment and being entertained can improve someone's life? If we can agree to that, then we can also agree that games designed to entertain an individual are good for said individual. It's not a leap from there to say that a game that is engaging and keeps someone playing is good for them, because it's entertaining the…

The issue is these games stop being entertaining. Pulling the lever on a slot machine might be fun the first few pulls, but after that it’s simply waiting for a dopamine rush.

MMO’s basic gameplay without leveling, item drops, or any form of progression have some fun aspects. But, they need to tell players to collect 50 rat tails because otherwise players wouldn’t.

Mobile games have distilled this down even further, with the minimum possible amount of actual gameplay possible.

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#248

Post by dencodev »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #189
pixelbro wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, it's interesting that you see the design of your product as a counterexample, because to me it looks exactly like what mobile games have been doing as a mechanism for maximizing engagement. You want to stop them from playing through too much of the game's content and burning themselves out on it. So you lock them out with a timer, forcing them to come back later. Then you reward them for coming back every day. Th…

Yes... I build iOS apps for learning Japanese ( https://reader.manabi.io https://manabi.io ) and recognized how the same kind of SRS system I was building is both optimal for learning and habit-forming in the same way as game dark patterns. It felt economically and morally fortunate but I recognize it’s not an easy or light responsibility to customers to get it right.

Bummer this isn't available for android

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#249

Post by CivBase »

edmundsauto wrote: post #174
CivBase wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was providing a quick and simple example, not making a generalization about all Facebook users. Just as my anecdotal evidence does not necessarily demonstrate an addiction problem across all Facebook users, your anecdotal evidence does not demonstrate a lack thereof. The point is that there are users whose use of a service is driven by psychological manipulation, not by a value proposition. The relationship between…

There are also users whose use of a service is driven by direct value received (connecting with families, for free). Both can be asserted as true, both carry very little informative value as statements. The strongest statement that this leads to is something like "some users are manipulated, some receive value."

> "some users are manipulated, some receive value."

Sure. That brings us back to my original question. Why invest in "providing value to users" when psychological manipulation is so much cheaper? So long as psychological manipulation has a greater ROI, there's no incentive to invest in providing value. Why pay $200 for a fishing net when a $20 one is easier to use and catches just as many fish?

Re: “User engagement” is code for “addiction”

#250

Post by tootie »

tdaltonc wrote: post #150
roughly wrote: post #81

I feel like there's basically two business models in the world - you can be a baker, in which you try to create a product that customers will want on its merits, and work to make the best possible customer experience, or you can be a crack dealer. I think a lot of people think they're bakers, but you gotta realize, the moment you start sprinkling crack in the cookies, you're not selling cookies anymore.

Baker Crack-dealer is a spectrum. But wherever you are on the spectrum, you always draw the line one step to the right.

I work for a very reputable company who produces high-quality content serving vital public interest. We still use "user engagement" as a metric in a mostly positive way. But we also aim to have content "go viral" and breed daily habits and we promote our content heavily on social media. We still have to pay the bills.
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