271–280 of 516 posts
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Stack Overflow, hast thou forsaken me?
I wouldn’t characterize stack overflow as a delivery mechanism for ads in the same way that, say, YouTube is. Content creators on stack overflow aren’t there to make money by driving page views. (Rather, the mechanism driving page views is more utility than sensation)
The same people that buy organic peas also have a paranoia about screens. How unsurprising. The article doesn't say there has been any peer-reviewed research to show a little screen time is harmful. It just says, oh, check it out, here is a grab bag of assholes, we picked out of a population of like 1 Million engineers, and THEY DONT LET THEIR KIDS USE SCREENS. Well guess what. I was a video game engineer for 10 year…
You can't go from complaining about lack of research and then using your single data point, incorrectly.
Anyway, the article may not say it but there is research in the field, and it concludes that screen time is harmful at young ages. I don't believe any research has followed kids for say 20 years (and i mean, we haven't had tiny addictive screens and apps that long anyway) to see if they "recover" or catch up or even surpass their peers when they get older.
Lastly, if you literally only allow her to use the screen once/week for a couple of hours, you are not near the realm where they are finding screens to be harmful. I'm sure you've been out at literally any restaurant and half the toddlers are glued to the screen, as a first resort.
Calling it "screen time" is missing the elephant in the room. The largest part of the problem is that the software we're directly interacting with has been designed by companies with interests directly contrary to ours! Social interaction will inherently set off more chemical rewards, but it is the tuning of the feedback loop (optimizing for micro-interactions) that keeps us glued. Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi…
> Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi have not been adversarily tuned to fire off the reward centers of our brains Indeed, some of those could desperately use a little polish to stop firing off the pain centers of our brains. :\
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Maybe someday FOSS "veganism" will catch on.
With that analogy, I guess web browsers are cheese. I don't think FOSS is even necessary for what I'm talking about (although it seems to be sufficient). Non-networked binary distribution of yore was also (mostly) aligned with the interests of its users.
It's much more related to who is paying the bills. Technical concerns do make some difference, but are eclipsed by the money question.
Our current problem is that people mostly don't pay for software anymore. So we are left with FOSS and anti-user software.
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One good way to distinguish the two is whether or not it's pure consumption/entertainment or production/learning? I realize at times it may not be easy to do (e.g. watching cartoons or playing games that teach children something).
I mentioned kodi for a reason. I've definitely binged on seasons of shows using kodi (or mplayer), but it feels relatively deliberate. I don't support Netflix et al, so I don't know specifically how many dark patterns they've implemented to "increase engagement" or w/e, but I do know the setup is there. And obviously if you're using Youtube for "TV time", then game over.
YouTube used to be a lot more dangerous with their sidebar recommendations years ago but they changed the algorithm at some point and ever since it’s become very rare that I click on anything there.
The same people that buy organic peas also have a paranoia about screens. How unsurprising. The article doesn't say there has been any peer-reviewed research to show a little screen time is harmful. It just says, oh, check it out, here is a grab bag of assholes, we picked out of a population of like 1 Million engineers, and THEY DONT LET THEIR KIDS USE SCREENS. Well guess what. I was a video game engineer for 10 year…
She'll be way, way ahead of all those kids whose parents decided to not let them use iPads and screens, that's for sure. That's regardless of what she chooses to pursue in life, but especially if she wants to go into technology.
Calling it "screen time" is missing the elephant in the room. The largest part of the problem is that the software we're directly interacting with has been designed by companies with interests directly contrary to ours! Social interaction will inherently set off more chemical rewards, but it is the tuning of the feedback loop (optimizing for micro-interactions) that keeps us glued. Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi…
This is the conclusion that a lot of people on HN seem to be reaching. Now how do we go about filtering out the 'bad screen' while allowing the 'good screen?'
The good screen is the one at a desk that you sit at to do work with conscious intention.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stack Overflow, hast thou forsaken me?
I wouldn’t characterize stack overflow as a delivery mechanism for ads in the same way that, say, YouTube is. Content creators on stack overflow aren’t there to make money by driving page views. (Rather, the mechanism driving page views is more utility than sensation)
Ok, come on. There is way too much "back in my day games weren't that bad" in this thread. Do you guys remember WoW? And Diablo?!?! Talk about a game designed to target addiction centers. The issue is not games like Fortnite. The issue (as you said) is people letting their kids spend all their time playing Fortnite.
WoW was less of an explicit slot machine than a lot of mobile games. While things like item drops had a random element, it wasn't a "pay once per chance" sort of deal like loot boxes. You just kept killing mobs, and when you got a drop it was great. The impact wasn't all that good anyway, since even the best item would be obsolete in 4-5 levels.