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What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

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Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#41

Post by thinkloop »

Ma8ee wrote: post #21
ALittleLight wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Influence your behavior" seems like an over dramatic description of "show me ads".

Why is it over dramatic? They are trying to make you buy something, sign up for something, or vote for someone.

Take "make you buy" - are they "making" you do it, or are you in the market for a camera and they're providing you with a really nice choice of one that will likely suit your needs?

The answer of course is somewhere in between depending on context. People don't have zero agency, but they also don't have 100% agency.

Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#42

Post by martingordon »

Aunche wrote: post #20
martingordon wrote: post #9

"Wow! 50M hours a day of time saved seems like a lot. How could they be evil if they're getting people to spend less time on FB?" 50M hours / 1.5B DAU is about .03 hours, or about <2 minutes per person. The average person spends 1h15m on FB, this is less than a 3% drop in overall time, but likely a larger proportion of that time is spent scrolling and seeing more ads than it is fixed on a single video.

> The average person spends 1h15m on FB Source? That sounds very high. Regardless, it's definitely a silly statistic. It could be that people just lost interest in Facebook.

Source is here: https://www.emarketer.com/content/average-social-media-time-...

Not sure how they collected the data though.

Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#44

Post by Aunche »

martingordon wrote: post #42
Aunche wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average person spends 1h15m on FB Source? That sounds very high. Regardless, it's definitely a silly statistic. It could be that people just lost interest in Facebook.

Source is here: https://www.emarketer.com/content/average-social-media-time-... Not sure how they collected the data though.

That's total time spent on social media. According to the source, Facebook's usage is 38 minutes a day. I suppose this also counts people who don't use Facebook though.

Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#46

Post by dgellow »

wilkowskidom wrote: post #43

Stop upvoting this hot mess of Facebook marketing propaganda. There is more nuanced ways to discuss the impact and more importantly the societal cause of the cancer that is Facebook but it’s definitely not a PDF from their marketing team.

People may upvote the submission because they care about the discussion, not because they think Facebook response is good (I didn’t upvote myself, but that what I would do).

Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#48

Post by Thorrez »

Aunche wrote: post #44
martingordon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source is here: https://www.emarketer.com/content/average-social-media-time-... Not sure how they collected the data though.

That's total time spent on social media. According to the source, Facebook's usage is 38 minutes a day. I suppose this also counts people who don't use Facebook though.

I wonder if Hacker News counts as social media.

Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#49

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

ALittleLight wrote: post #8
joshribakoff wrote: post #6

The film explains that when they say “you are the product” they mean Facebook is selling a chance to influence your behavior. It’s an interesting perspective, but this PR piece from Facebook seems to willingly misinterpret this

"Influence your behavior" seems like an over dramatic description of "show me ads".

I didn't realize how much these platforms police our thoughts until I started diggin around for stock footage on wikimedia commons. It only took a few hours before I was watching air strikes on iraqi communities, nuclear tests, people jumping to their deaths during 9/11. This stuff gets buried on social media, and it doesn't even appear on TV, yet I think it's important for all modern Americans to view it, because I believe most people would think differently and make different decisions if they saw such things.

Re: What “The Social Dilemma” Gets Wrong [pdf]

#50

Post by jtwaleson »

Yesterday I watched The Social Dilemma, and I just wanted to share some of my experiences: I quit FB as a user in 2011. In 2013, when I was 25, I received a high paying job offer to work at FB. Going to SV was a long-time dream, but in the end I took the hard decision not to take the offer. Ultimately I really don't like what FB does. The perks and salary don't compensate for that.

I'm still on HN, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. Every time I open LinkedIn I'm shocked at how addictive the feed is. I go there to message someone and before you know it 10 minutes have gone by and I forgot what I went to do in the first place. WhatsApp is really great, except that is owned by FB and they still extract value from me.

In 2015 I turned off all notifications on my phone. Quiting FB and no notifications have really improved my state of mind.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how I use social media, but I'm very worried about how my kids will be able to handle it in their teens.

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