'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#401

Post by ZenoArrow » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

peoplewindow wrote: post #394

ZenoArrow wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You could argue that theatre, cinema and opera also rely on getting and keeping your attention. Nobody says they're addictive or "gamified"." Theatre, cinema and opera are experiences that are best appreciated in small doses. Television, on the other hand, is something I'd class as addictive. Wouldn't you? > "The reason I have trouble seeing the "gamification" aspects of Instagram is that there are none. This idea…

Television, on the other hand, is something I'd class as addictive. Wouldn't you? This is clearly where we differ. No, I wouldn't. The word addiction has specific meaning. The fact that lots of people enjoy something a lot does not make that thing addictive. I am surrounded by people who have TV sets and who do not spend much time watching TV at all. I myself have a TV set and feel no particular cravings to watch it,…

> "The word addiction has specific meaning."

What's a definition of addiction you would agree with? Is it linked to changes in body chemistry? To obsessive behaviour?

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#402

Post by freshhawk » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #353

freshhawk wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the choice of "engagement" as the success metric directly stems from the advertising revenue model. That's why it is chosen as the definition of success. Because it triggers ad payments. All the "customer value", "customer happiness" and all the rest is inward facing PR. Creative people need a better motivation to build these attention traps than "suck em in so they watch ads" so it has to be phrased differently…

I think it was chosen as definition of success because it is _easy to measure_. From the beginning of the Web onwards, you had very little idea of what people actually did on your site, but the fact that they visited was an easily counted line in a plain text log file. The moment something else was available (e.g. actual clicks on an ad, or conversion rate), that was used.

Yes, the tendency of focus on easy to measure metrics instead of what you actual care about is a whole other discussion of interesting craziness.

But isn't that orthogonal to this discussion? There are better metrics, but they still have the same large scale attention economy, filter bubble, junk food media effects as "engagement" does. "actual clicks on ads" is conversion rate x ad views and ad views is a function of engagement.

I don't see how more accurate measurements would positively affect the way content is written, presented and optimized. If anything wouldn't it just get worse?

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#403

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 10:21 AM UTC

folksinger wrote: post #372

TeMPOraL wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? No, I don't work for Facebook, nor am I affiliated with them in any way.

The reason I asked is because it seems like you might have a lot of your identity and self-worth dependent on a moral acceptance of social media. It seems like you might be subconsciously denying the negative impact that these technologies have on both individuals and society at large. Or not! Maybe you are fully accepting and fully aware and it is I who is missing the extra pieces to the puzzle!

Nah, my identity isn't particularly tied to social media. I just feel those problems are blown hugely out of proportion and/or just non-issues[0].

But maybe both of us are right, just right about different population groups? Maybe I happen to mostly see the use of social media I'd consider reasonable, and this biases my perception? Bubbles are strong in physical world too.

--

[0] - The kind of "smartphones make us antisocial on trains", except they don't, because before smartphones it was walkmans, and before walkmans it was newspapers.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#404

Post by ben_w » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 10:34 AM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #380

ben_w wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actively seeking ways to block those sites, precisely in order to take responsibility. Also, the population is higher now than ever before, as is the literacy rate. Both of these independently increase production of books.

> I’m actively seeking ways to block those sites, precisely in order to take responsibility. Umm - don't go to them? Or - if you need to get rid of the app (and you can't because provider-ware) - root the phone, and then delete it. If your phone is close-to-near impossible to root, get a different phone. Get a phone for phone use only, and drop everything else. Seriously - the only thing holding you back is you. I do…

“don’t go to them” would only work if they weren’t problematically addictive in the first place.

I am using all the easy technological tricks I know, at least the ones that don’t actively prevent me getting a job (found a better iOS content blocker since last message): After this novel is done, my intention is to go back to being an iOS developer, so I need to rearrange my brain to not care about the social sacharin soda that is every comment section with a voting mechanism and many without — cold turkey in my position would be like giving a minor drug addict (dopamine is totally a drug) a job finding drug dealers, with no oversight.

What I need, and have no idea how to achieve, is to stop caring what text on the internet says. If I could do that, I wouldn’t even feel a need to respond to you, I certainly wouldn’t feel this strange and unhelpful “arg, why don’t they understand!” anger-lite that tells me to not even try to be better by deleting this reply.

Now, if you have any suggestions based on psychology, I’m interested. I know too little about psychology to rewrite my mind to be the person I want to be.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#405

Post by walterstucco » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #345

walterstucco wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point: if you get bored by a book, you stop reading the book, if you get bored by infinite scrollable content, you keep scrolling looking for less boring content, that never shows up. It's the same effect that gambling has on the brain. You keep playing, even though you keep losing. That's the danger and that's why books, the TV, movies, radios (music in general) and other form of entertainment are not equ…

I disagree about categorizing TV as "the safer half" of the comparison, in the same section as books or movies. If anything, TV is an earlier iteration of the same stuff. Flipping through the circular loop of cable TV channels predates scrolling and refreshing webpages, but people exhibited the same addictive novelty-seeking. It was so common it became a cliche to say things like "N channels and nothing [good] on." I…

I think I may need to explain: TV is passive, you either watch it or not

The engagement in social networks comes from being actively participating

"Your opinion matters" they say

No, they don't

But the fact that you can argue with someone on the internet believing someone is finally listening to all the important things you have to say, keeps you there refreshing over and over

it's "someone is wrong on the internet" [1]

And it's highly addictive, especially for those people who feel powerless

[1] https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#406

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 8:34 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #392

gnaritas wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure these are quite the same things. People who enjoy bland things always say this. :) Those words mean the same thing "to me", does mean it does to you, wasn't an insult, subtle just isn't a word I use for food. I like what I like and I've tasted things people use that word for, I call them bland.

Eh, language is defined by usage and the usage of "bland" is pretty inseparable from its negative connotation. Hell, even all the dictionary definitions you'll find include negative connotations.

Um, yea, and usage deviates precisely because people adopt different meanings to words over time until a new meaning becomes the norm; thus definitions are descriptive, not prescriptive, so don't tell me how to use words. And yes, I'm adding the negative connotation on purpose, that's rather the point now isn't it?

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#407

Post by ikurei » Wed, Oct 11, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #342

KirinDave wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As noted multiple times in the article, the unethical design we’re seeing in popular apps and services today is largely a result of the widespread use of advertising as a revenue model. Advertisement as a revenue model exacerbates this problem, but I submit the problem stems from how we define success for mobile apps and websites. We directly designate "engagement" as success, rather than customer value provided or…

Part of the reason Google's initial launch was so ballsy and great (which they've lost over the years) was a strong focus on getting the user off the search results page as fast as possible. It was a decision informed by their technical limits at the time, but it was a fantastic value to the user. Once they had the results they needed (very quickly) they were gone, off to do whatever it was they had asked Google for…

> Part of the reason Google's initial launch was so ballsy and great (which they've lost over the years) was a strong focus on getting the user off the search results page as fast as possible.

That's an interesting example, because it contains also why Google changed. There is little business to be had in just being a place where users spend as little time as possible.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#408

Post by OtterCoder » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 5:33 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #382

OtterCoder wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true of advertisement as well.

Can you flesh out the analogy? I don't understand what you're saying

Sorry, I mean that ad revenue is only valid if it has a sufficient payout per visitor. Both crypto currency and ad revenue tend to be a race to the bottom.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#409

Post by peoplewindow » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 7:52 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #401

peoplewindow wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Television, on the other hand, is something I'd class as addictive. Wouldn't you? This is clearly where we differ. No, I wouldn't. The word addiction has specific meaning. The fact that lots of people enjoy something a lot does not make that thing addictive. I am surrounded by people who have TV sets and who do not spend much time watching TV at all. I myself have a TV set and feel no particular cravings to watch it,…

> "The word addiction has specific meaning." What's a definition of addiction you would agree with? Is it linked to changes in body chemistry? To obsessive behaviour?

Addiction is usually linked to substance abuse or similar.

Other forms of "addiction" are difficult to cleanly disentangle from people simply liking things for their own reasons, acting on their own free will. That's how you get things like TV being described as "addictive" though I never heard of anyone going into prostitution so they could afford their cable bill. Perhaps there are stories of it happening somewhere, but such a story would be rare and shocking, whereas prostitution for feeding a drug habit is unremarkable.

But let me turn it around. How do you define it? Above I've seen people claim that anything that has advertising in it must by nature be "addictive" but that would cover 20th century newspapers, and again, I never heard anyone describe them as addictive or display uncontrollable cravings for newspapers.

Re: 'Our minds can be hijacked': tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

#410

Post by folksinger » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #403

folksinger wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I asked is because it seems like you might have a lot of your identity and self-worth dependent on a moral acceptance of social media. It seems like you might be subconsciously denying the negative impact that these technologies have on both individuals and society at large. Or not! Maybe you are fully accepting and fully aware and it is I who is missing the extra pieces to the puzzle!

Nah, my identity isn't particularly tied to social media. I just feel those problems are blown hugely out of proportion and/or just non-issues[0]. But maybe both of us are right, just right about different population groups? Maybe I happen to mostly see the use of social media I'd consider reasonable, and this biases my perception? Bubbles are strong in physical world too. -- [0] - The kind of "smartphones make us an…

You make a good point about Walkmans and newspapers... As McLuhan would point out, the Narcissus trance is present in all media technologies! That doesn't meet we should give in to the alluring trance of the Siren.

It is true that newspapermen created the Spanish-American war out of thin air as well, but we learned our lessons about the unethical use of mass print media. Irony of ironies in the name Pulitzer Prize!

I just want to make sure we're not blind to the downsides of this new "liberating" technology. It has had plenty of defenders and has swept up billions of people in its grasp.

Perhaps feeling depressed by staged photos of a friend on vacation posted to Facebook is one thing but threats of nuclear war on Twitter are a much more serious matter!