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“User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

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Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#271

Post by nerdponx »

mdoms wrote: post #210
toto444 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have moved from using reddit to frequenting a traditional forum where the content is ordered chronologically and that makes an insane difference to the quality of the conversation. You go from the most outrageous at the top to the most discussed at the top. All content gets a chance to be read. Even if it the first user find it uninteresting. On reddit, if what you post gets a downvote very quickly, you're basicall…

It's such a shame that most hobby-related content has moved to Reddit. Because of the way the algorithms work there are no long-running threads and recent content is heavily favoured. This is terrible for hobby boards because it means that content from long-timers gets drowned out by newbies asking the same questions over and over. In my experience hobby subreddits are completely dominated by inexperienced newbies gi…

Reddit has "1 account for everything", Markdown editing, collapsible threaded conversation, and limited or no on profile pictures and signatures (much like HN). All of this amounts to a more seamless user flow that lets you quickly skim large amounts of conversation quickly.

People switching to Reddit has less to do with "it's Reddit" and more to do with the UX of Reddit being better for what people tend to want to do on a forum. Discourse is OK and comes close in some places (has great Markdown editing for example), but "1 account for everything" alone is somewhat of a killer feature.

It's a shame that Stackexchange didn't get OpenID to catch on anywhere other than Stackexchange. Could have been a big help in driving more attention to independent (and maybe even federated) platforms.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#272

Post by gverrilla »

so many misconceptions on this text. this author knows very little about mental health and is just repeating this narrative these recent documentaries have been spreading - which was created, by the way, by those same fellas who created those systems and feel guilty now. Also, as an UX designer, he's pretty much getting money to apply the same stuff to his own projects, most probably.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#273

Post by PoignardAzur »

cannabis_sam wrote: post #132
minikites wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?

Most people in democracies are entrenched into two blocks (even in European multiparty systems), and AI/ML/statistical methods/mathematical optimization allows interested groups to target the people inbetween the blocks. And based on their personality profile you can goad them to one side or the other with targeted advertising. (I’m not making any claims about where or how or how much these things are happening.)

I'm French and this comment really doesn't reflect our political landscape.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#274

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #51
luplex wrote: post #41

I did an internship with a very profitable Swedish mobile game before the pandemic, and it was really interesting to see the doublethink: everyone knew we were making a drug, but people avoided speaking of it in that way. It was always "our most engaged players readily spend on in-game items", and never "the most addicted users spend money so they can continue playing" It was a great workplace, but I don't think it w…

F2P-with-purchases games should (a) require disclaimers, (b) be illegal and stiffly penalized for allowing minors to play, & (c) have their algorithms open to a gaming regulator (in the same way Las Vegas does).

I don't have a problem with "F2P-with-purchases" as long as the "purchases" aren't random lootboxes and aren't gating progression or buying power.

For example, I always felt that League of Legends had a good F2P-with-purchases model. There are a lot of characters you can play as, but you have to either unlock them by playing or pay a couple dollars to unlock one. But the more expensive characters aren't necessarily more powerful, they're typically just newer, and it doesn't take much play to unlock a character.

Once a character is unlocked, there are skins you can purchases with money, but they're purely cosmetic.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#275

Post by bustin »

flavius29663 wrote: post #238
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #18

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…

to be honest, AOC doesn't seem very knowledgeable in general, IMO she's just a trump (a less successful one), but on the left.

Trump was a beast for the ages.

AOC is closer to a regular ol' populist. Note how she and Cruz were the first to join the ranks of angry people online in lambasting Robinhood before they could explain themselves in the GME debacle.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#276

Post by tomc1985 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #253
tomc1985 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the content that inevitably ends up in kids autoplay video feeds? Weird doesn't even begin to describe it. Some of it would give HBO pause.

Almost every Disney movie have the childrens parents being killed, the Swedish childrens author Astrid Lindgren (very popular in Europe, I don’t know about the US) wrote a story called The Brothers Lionheart where the young brother is dying from an incurable respiratory disease and (spoilers) his brother dies saving him from a house fire. The he dies from the respiratory disease. My point is that children are being t…

You're missing my point. There are people sneaking downright weird shit into kids' feeds on Youtube.

https://www.theverge.com/culture/2017/11/21/16685874/kids-yo...

The difference between brothers Grimm or old Disney films and this is coherence, and possibly motive. At the very least they are trying to tell a story of some kind. But this stuff is closer to porn (except its surreal? instead of titillating), and the motive is unknown.

It's totally different and a new thing compared to the 60s/70s/80s kids argument.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#277

Post by tamrix »

s_dev wrote: post #44
maest wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it's the reddit admins It's actually the mods. A select small number of people are mods on the top 50 or so subreddits by size. They can control what gets posted, what gets upvoted and what gets silently censored. It's also an (unpaid) full time job, it's naive to think they're not monetising their power in any way.

>It's actually the mods. Mod means nothing -- I'm a reddit mod. Admin is paid employee of reddit with completely different access level. A planted story by a mod is still within the grounds of "astroturfing" accusing reddit admins is another order of magnitude of corruption higher. Like I said I don't think reddit admins are doing it but the author does seem to imply it.

You can buy and sell subreddits. Just as you can buy and sell mod powers in popular subreddits.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#278

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #189
RandallBrown wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't... I don't think any of the ideas in this article have any evil intent, even if they have evil results. 1. Relative timestamps are just a more useful way of telling people when something happened. It's how most humans communicate time to each other. 2. Infinite scrolling is just what happens when you're not constrained by physical pages. The only reason we used to see paged content was because it was tech…

The medium is the message. We've been talking about this for decades - the structure of the thing you are interacting with determines how you interact with it. Substantive debate is difficult in 140 characters, so substantive debate does not often happen on Twitter. Infinite scroll and auto-play video eliminates the "decision points" where people would otherwise reconsider if they want to continue, so people spend mo…

> Substantive debate is difficult in 140 characters, so substantive debate does not often happen on Twitter.

When it comes to politics, Twitter is the absolute worst. When you have only 140 characters, there's no room for nuance or actual discussion, so arguments get boiled down to short 1-sentence zingers that are often nothing more than really bad straw men.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#279

Post by rowanG077 »

dleslie wrote: post #195
jsmith45 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least fornite cosmetics have limited gameplay impact (although not zero impact). It is quite possible to be a relatively competitive player without spending a single cent (and without needing excessive grinding to do so, or at least, no more grinding than a paying player). This is a lot better than most mobile games (pay more or wait # hours to continue), or games with lootboxes whose results give serious competit…

Ah, but it's a social experience. The primary capital isn't one's competitive standing, it's the uniqueness of your gear. Fortnite's store UI is designed around limited time access panic sales.

This can be easily managed without microttansaction. Simply award in game point that allows a player to buy cosmetics. Do not create any way for players to trade money for in game points.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#280

Post by soledades »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #98
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this that much different to similar "concerns" about kids watching to much tv back in the 60's 70's etc.

You scoff, but would you honestly say those concerns were entirely unfounded? Habits we develop as children tend to persist through our lives. People who grew up very active tend to stay at least a little active, people who grew up eating healthy diets will tend to continue to eat well. The opposite also tends to be true. We have record levels of obesity in many developed nations now. There's a lot to blame for that,…

>In 2017, an average U.S. consumer spent 238 minutes (3h 58min) daily watching TV.

...more or less a humanitarian catastrophe

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