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Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

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Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#241

Post by ageedizzle »

cloverich wrote: post #193
p_ing wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the top comments are invariably hilarious, Sadly that is all that reddit is, now. Have a serious question? Expect multiple top replies to be some sort of [un]funny joke answer. It's a wasteland and devalues the platform when everyone competes for Internet Points. /r/aviation is just one example of being full of this crap. Oddly enough, I don't see it as much in gaming subreddits, even the more generic ones.

reddit lacks consistent moderation and the worst is location based subreddits, where all dissenting takes are effectively hidden. Yet one can imagine a limited set of filters that could in theory fix this: - eliminate obvious bots - eliminate low content / metoo / naysaying - eliminate memes - detect and promote high quality controversial posts equally to unilaterally upvoted ones And perhaps let subreddits condition…

> still i suspect the largest barrier is merely that all the popular social media sites are actively captured by ad-driven development / leaders. That cant last forever, people are sick of it.

This is why it's a good idea to make the switch to federated alternatives like Lemmy/Piefed. The more people who do this the more people will see it as a viable alternative, making it easier to get away from the ad-driven model of social media.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#244

Post by marcus_holmes »

underlipton wrote: post #168
rsolva wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see social networks that facilitates real life, face-to-face encounters to a much larger extent that the current state of affairs. The Fediverse has the pieces to this puzzle, but I do not know of one project that combines them in the right way yet. We do have Mobilizon for events, we have Mastodon and all the other similar projects for sharing and commenting, but we need something that puts the piece…

VR/Group voice chat/Group messaging is fine too. For centuries, people have created and maintained meaningful relationships while physically and geographically separated. The circumstances of life do not always allow people to meet face-to-face. One of the worst sins of the post-pandemic "return to normalcy" was the wholesale firebombing of remote options for connecting with people. The problem isn't whether the meet…

> facilitates high-fidelity person-to-person and small group communication consistently over time

how have we done that while separated for centuries?

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#245

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

asim wrote: post #22

Mastodon really isn't the answer. You frequent enough servers and you realise social media has taught people bad habits..not everything needs to be expressed online. Genuinely I think people need something else. The format fails. What's the alternative? I don't know. But I'm trying to figure it out. Why? Because walking away from it all isn't the right answer. Why? Because we leave behind all those people addicted to…

I think the problem is that people are lonely in ways that the medium can't address well, but does address to some lesser degree, so it elicits lopsided engagement. You're this whole person but people only ever react to this quirk or that one because those quirks come through better online, and over time those two quirks become a larger share of your personality. We end up with things like looksmaxxing--because pictures go online well, and it happens at the expense of whatever other characteristics of that person don't go online well.

I've been imagining a social medium which finds temporary peers via one of your phone's radios--so it broadcasts and gathers rotating public keys as you ride the same bus with people or share an elevator with them--and then your feed contains whatever they're posting, but only for 48 hours or something (unless you decide to make the connection permanent). That way when you see something cool in your feed, you're well positioned to go be social in meatspace.

Like I get why you don't bring your guitar on the bus, same reason I don't bring my drums on the bus, but if a few hours later I saw a video of you making some music I might be like "hey lets get together and jam" next time I see you.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#246

Post by marcus_holmes »

dgently7 wrote: post #229
naravara wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the challenge is that the addictive formats will naturally outcompete the healthy ones because they’re, well, addicting. They exert a force pulling people into their orbit and starving anything designed for healthier (less frequent) engagement. I don’t think you can do it without pushing people away somehow. It wouldn’t have to be regulatory, but I don’t know how else. Social shame might work if you could con…

id say maybe marketing? make a "healthy" social network and frame the other one as really bad for you? I wonder if there is anything to learn from other additive things? like a niccotine gum mode. a social network that starts you off in addictive mode and tapers you down to something better?

I think we're talking fast food rather than nicotine.

We know that fast food is bad for us. But fast food companies keep putting the things that we like into it. So a lot of people, when tasting actual, real, good-for-you, food decide that they prefer fast food. Other people are aware that fast food is bad for them and prefer real food. It's a choice that we leave up to the individual. Unfortunately we then allow the fast food companies to advertise so they can affect the choice.

We don't really have an answer for this as a culture. We should make the fast food companies responsible for the harms they're causing, but we don't have a mechanism for that. We could stop them advertising, as some countries have done, but that starts a whole process of questions about what the government can and can't do that ends up in bad places.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#247

Post by esafak »

black_puppydog wrote: post #7

I still think it's worth reflecting which of the toxic patterns we want to, or don't want to reproduce on non-commercial networks like mastodon. Infinite scroll, quote reply, the like button... all these aren't neutral, and discussions were rightly heated about introducing them.

https://www.deceptive.design/

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#248

Post by with »

The real social network is the group chat / friend group you already have. Everything else is algorithmic brainrot with some kind of "friends list" for "legitimacy".

The problem isn't the feed, it's that people actually use "social" networks instead of just talking to actual friends. Just close the apps, lol

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#249

Post by pipeline_peak »

Let’s not forgot the emerging deity-esque “content creator” and “influencer”. A far stretch from the humble “vlogger” or “YouTuber”. The latter two sound like a jolly guy with a camcorder and a backpack.

I remember when social networks were at the very least portrayed in the interest of “connecting people from around the world”.

I’ll often hear something along the lines of these services being engineered to pin us all against each other. Jaron Lanier’s “ Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” likes to claim this, but I never see any actual evidence.

Either way, when I visit social media site these days, people are definitely nastier. There’s more snark, a need to ridicule others for not knowing niche little factoids. “You still use tea bags?” something something cast iron pans and dish soap.

There’s a lot more capitalizing through hoarding trivial information. They know something you don’t, and they love it.

It’s like joining an MMORPG and realizing you have to put more time in to reach the same level as everyone else.

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