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Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

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Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#31

Post by rconti »

My question is, what happens to social media when it stops being social? I _liked_ the fact that everyone I knew in college was on Facebook, and _disliked_ having to remember what silly username my friend was using on Twitter this week, or how I knew this Joe Blow person I followed at some point for some reason.

I _like_ seeing my friends' vacation photos and other friends commenting on them.

I _hate_ how reels and stories move from social to broadcast. Why can't my friend group comment on an IG story and have a discussion? Why does it have to be in DMs? (Unless we do that stupid thing where you share out a scene from a story (ugh, yes, I realize how old it makes me that i don't even know what to call it) and tag everyone involved)

The less a platform has the _kinds of content_ that drives the network effect, the less reason for there to be a network at all. It just becomes TV. And I use that comparison purposefully; television is extremely popular, I watch plenty of it myself. But without the active network effects of social media, what drives user-to-user engagement? How do you get new people to sign up, beyond "hey, look at this tiktok I saw"? Or is that enough?

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#32

Post by slowmovintarget »

The Three Trends (according to the article):

1. Medium: text -> images -> video -> 3D graphics -> VR

2. AI: time -> rank -> recommend -> generate

3. UI: click -> scroll -> tap -> swipe -> autoplay

By this definition, the end of the line is a totally passive consumption of endorphin-inducing pablum that blots out the real world. (I may be exaggerating a touch.) It might stop short of a wire into the pleasure centers of the brain... but not by much.

Makes me wonder if there's a market for the equivalent of health food where we go back to social media and deliberately avoid "recommendation media" (which may be the most important two words in the entire post).

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#33

Post by thebradbain »

pixl97 wrote: post #30

>The payoff, though, will not be “power” for these small creators: the implication of entertainment being dictated by recommendations and AI instead of reputation and ranking is that all of the power accrues to the platform doing the recommending. This is what these companies want. Take the power away from a few ultra powerful users (Kardashians for example), and retain that power for themselves.

And yet... by doing this they're trying to socially engineer away something fundamental to all societies throughout humankind: people have been worshipping their influencers, celebrities, figureheads, idols, deities, demigods, and Gods their entire history.

Even TikTok has its stars (and they're huge now).

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#34

Post by froidpink »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #32

The Three Trends (according to the article): 1. Medium: text -> images -> video -> 3D graphics -> VR 2. AI: time -> rank -> recommend -> generate 3. UI: click -> scroll -> tap -> swipe -> autoplay By this definition, the end of the line is a totally passive consumption of endorphin-inducing pablum that blots out the real world. (I may be exaggerating a touch.) It might stop short of a wire into the pleasure centers o…

BeReal's growth is probably a good example of this kind of "organic" and "healthy" social media

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#35

Post by Invictus0 »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #32

The Three Trends (according to the article): 1. Medium: text -> images -> video -> 3D graphics -> VR 2. AI: time -> rank -> recommend -> generate 3. UI: click -> scroll -> tap -> swipe -> autoplay By this definition, the end of the line is a totally passive consumption of endorphin-inducing pablum that blots out the real world. (I may be exaggerating a touch.) It might stop short of a wire into the pleasure centers o…

David Foster Wallace predicted it all in the 90s

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#37

Post by strogonoff »

cloutchaser wrote: post #26
strogonoff wrote: post #15

> That’s because the company correctly intuited a significant gap between its users stated preference — no News Feed — and their revealed preference, which was that they liked News Feed quite a bit. The next fifteen years would prove the company right. Stop right there. What you mean is that their corporate wallets like it. These companies delude themselves if they consider “spend more time in the app” as an indicato…

This is a really silly point frankly, and can be applied to any product people have ever gravitated towards. You might claim to not like tv but it still became the most used entertainment product for decades. Same goes for the newsfeed. Any social network or product with a newsfeed will easily beat one without for users using it. Whether utopians like yourself think people like it or not is irrelevant. It’s about sur…

What are those alternatives that you are comparing TV and newsfeed-powered social to? Point to a single product without newsfeed that lost to a product with newsfeed because of refusing to implement this feature.

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#38

Post by ssalazar »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #32

The Three Trends (according to the article): 1. Medium: text -> images -> video -> 3D graphics -> VR 2. AI: time -> rank -> recommend -> generate 3. UI: click -> scroll -> tap -> swipe -> autoplay By this definition, the end of the line is a totally passive consumption of endorphin-inducing pablum that blots out the real world. (I may be exaggerating a touch.) It might stop short of a wire into the pleasure centers o…

> By this definition, the end of the line is a totally passive consumption of endorphin-inducing pablum that blots out the real world.

Doesn't seem all that different from 99% of media consumption thats existed in my lifetime.

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#39

Post by dzuc »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #32

The Three Trends (according to the article): 1. Medium: text -> images -> video -> 3D graphics -> VR 2. AI: time -> rank -> recommend -> generate 3. UI: click -> scroll -> tap -> swipe -> autoplay By this definition, the end of the line is a totally passive consumption of endorphin-inducing pablum that blots out the real world. (I may be exaggerating a touch.) It might stop short of a wire into the pleasure centers o…

> Makes me wonder if there's a market for the equivalent of health food where we go back to social media and deliberately avoid "recommendation media"

See: https://www.are.na/

Re: Instagram, TikTok, and the Three Trends

#40

Post by arwineap »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #5
upupandup wrote: post #4

im afraid this short attention optimized dopamine manipulation system is going to be deterimental for our collective mental and cognitive capacity, especially with covid. in particular im fearful of the impact on young developing minds, this is literally setting them up for failure or maybe this is the end goal?

I am on a crusade to regulate my wife's instagram usage and will pretty much ban social media for my children (or at-least heavily regulate it). My wife agrees that she is much happier on the aggregate when she uses instagram less. Having worked in industries close to social media, the people here have no qualms about doing anything possible to increase revenue, whats worse is how smart some of the people are.

> whats worse is how smart some of the people are

Smart people can use instagram, I'm not sure what you're getting at.

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