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We need to reclaim our attention

theguardian.com

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Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#401

Post by simplestats »

guerrilla wrote: post #399
simplestats wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "randomness" is the general property, but rather unexpectedness. The content-provider may well be following a "formula" like with fiction plots, that give the protagonist setbacks and victories. Facebook uses approaches which try to profit within the constraints of a relatively small group of programmers trying to make money off billions of users. It doesn't mean these approaches are the best overall at…

Dono what's with your strawmen arguments here or what your point is besides being argumentative, but I didn't say anything about best. I'm gonna just assume they all see some value in it and you don't have any inside knowledge.

The point of the thread is that these algorithms are not a special new threat, but it's the availability of content itself, targetted or not.

Since we're analyzing each other's psychology now, I do think that insecure and defensive behavior like your post is a real problem with social media. I am not trying to bully or hurt you personally, but simply share some thoughts on a topic.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#402

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
criley2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would old media publish articles that people don't want to read? No one would read "here are 10 youtube channels that are more in depth than a master program". They would go out of business in a quarter. It's not like old media doesn't publish a variety of content and then evaluate which gets the most views already. They know we don't want to sit through fifty hours of academic lectures instead of reality tv. I a…

The scary thing about that is that if you convince enough people that violence and collapse are imminent it may well become true. Scenes in Amsterdam right now: https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/6176186/noodbevel-museumplein-n...

[deleted]

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#403

Post by shukantpal »

37 wrote: post #209
shukantpal wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Stolen" in the title of the OP is not really an exaggeration. Theft can happen only when it’s involuntary. > the problem is systemic, essentially baked into the business model of advertising/marketing, and it should be addressed That’s not the root cause. It is just a choke point for blame. The root cause is the choice people make, which we’ve established exists. If people want help, there are plenty of mitigation…

>Theft can happen only when it’s involuntary. I suppose I am arguing that it is involuntary. Social media addiction is a real thing. "Stolen attention" seems to fit here. But I guess the line does get blurry. When a true heroin addict shoots up, is that completely voluntary or completely involuntary? Probably neither. >The root cause is the choice people make, which we’ve established exists. If people want help, ther…

> When a true heroin addict shoots up, is that completely voluntary or completely involuntary? Probably neither.

The heroin addict doesn't get to blame someone else for their choices; it's a bit like jumping from a building - it's not voluntary to be falling (i.e. being subject to gravity). You had a choice to not jump from the building.

The mitigation is to turn the parachute on your back on, so _continuing_ to be falling is voluntary.

So, in the moment, it may not be voluntary - but in the long term, it certainly is. And the _responsibility_, that most certainly lies with the user in this case.

> but that doesn't mean these large companies aren't still doing the sneaky things that we know they are

It's not like they're hiding anything from the user so it's not sneaky at all. The effects of social media are pretty public on the Internet.

And what are they doing, exactly? Responding to HTTP requests over the network and serving content as the user requests them via algorithms.

Not much different than any other addictive thing in life. Sure, you can try to compare the addictiveness, but it's still just a spectrum.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#404

Post by culturedsystems »

trwhite wrote: post #109
slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

Video games are immensely addictive. The burst of adrenaline some of the recent online FPS' give me doesn't compare to any other feeling or experience I've had as a human being. They didn't just happen to be this way. They have been designed to be so thrilling that normal life cannot compete.

> Video games are immensely addictive.

No they aren't, and the suggestion that people could be "addicted" to video games makes a mockery of the concept of addiction.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#405

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

I’m pasting the last lines of that exact same paragraph for the people who will not read the article before commenting, as so many have admitted before in other similar discussions about attention:

> If the people warning about the effects on our attention turn out to be wrong, and we still do what they suggest, what will be the cost? We will spend less time being harassed by our bosses, and we’ll be tracked and manipulated less by technology – along with lots of other improvements in our lives that are desirable in any case. But if they turn out to be right, and we don’t do what they say, what’s the cost? We will have – as the former Google engineer Tristan Harris told me – downgraded humanity, stripping us of our attention at the very time when we face big collective crises that require it more than ever.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#406

Post by brbrodude »

bpodgursky wrote: post #17
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #10

The problem isn't as much that social media is addictive. The issue is that people aren't happy with their other options of what to do. If you have a draining job and don't have energy to put into a hobby, or you don't have lots of friends to hang out with, you're much more likely to waste time on something addictive.

The default human condition is to be slightly bored much of the day. This is true now, this was true in hunter-gatherer societies. These kind of traps are addictive to even otherwise happy and well-connected people; there are basically no subcultures on earth that has produced individuals who voluntarily abstain from social media (only cultures where such technology is banned entirely, like the Amish).

I'm never bored when I'm outside and moving and with people, I could spend my whole life this way and get inside just to rest and I'm pretty sure I'd be perfectly fine, I think its so much different to be "bored" in real life than it is to be bored locked to cyberspace and screens. Maybe there's a distinction to be made between boredom and alienation? Because These are two very different things to me. I'm not so sure about your hunter-gatherer societies take really. Man has not been alienated forever, or is by default, or is condemned to being, this just isnt true. A lot of this stuff are modernity issues and modernity could very well have developed differently, even though technology would keep on its course just as it has always done.

Politics itself if implemented well, uncorrupted, could very much take care of it. The problem to me is political institutions and other human institutions became too weak and lost to capitalism so now that money has the final say in everything we became paralyzed because we can't imagine things being an inch different, which to me just doesn't make sense.

I mean why the f*ck would unhealthy stuff be impossible to control? Why can't food be healthier? Tech be healthier? Work be healthier? Why can't ignorance be fought and won? There are fallacies buried deep in the arguments people use defending that this specific configuration of stuff we have now is inevitable. All I know is History is deffo not done yet, things do change, one way or another, sooner or later.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#407

Post by docmars »

jmknoll wrote: post #372
redisman wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheapest by effort plus taste divided by cost maybe. It’s still much cheaper to buy a bag of rice and a bag of beans and some frozen veggies. You can eat sub $1 meals

Thank you! This line about "unhealthy food is the most affordable option" doesn't really hold up in my experience. Some "superfoods," exotic fruits, nice cuts of meat and fish, and certain vegetables are expensive, and that's a problem, but its a problem at the margins. The basic building blocks of a healthy diet are all widely available and affordable. Some quick googling says the avg price for a dozen eggs in the U…

You struck a good balance here -- well put! :)

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#408

Post by docmars »

Mezzie wrote: post #206
philipswood wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the late 18-hundreds Chess was considered a bit of an undesirable epidenic. Check out this gizmodo article: https://gizmodo.com/chess-was-once-deemed-a-menace-to-societ...

Novels and bicycling were as well, particularly with women. People are weird.

God forbid we find pastimes we _like_ and stick with 'em, amiright?

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#409

Post by Warlockcraft »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #223
bnralt wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many of your examples are of times we failed to counter problematic tendencies as a society, gave up, and then even worse (in this case, more addictive time consuming activities) things come along. It's basically the realization of a slippery slope, where failure to stop one problematic trend is used to justify an even worse trend. Society can survive with bad tendencies. Think about 50 years ago when America…

Totally agree. When I hear the argument "People always say this, they said this before with TV and videogames", it just makes me think that people are discounting some of the huge negative impacts these technologies have had (or at least contributed to). Just look at the overall physical fitness of, say, an average 18 year old in 1950 vs today in the US. By loads of measures (obesity, muscle strength, cardiovascular…

The U.S. was economically recovering from World War 2, the Great Depression, and other things. Most working class Americans had a hard time affording food because of that. So, it was not like they could easily get away from being skinny, anorexic, etc. during that time. They were too busy saving or investing money for their bills, children's futures, and careers to improve the U.S. economically before younger generations got spoiled rotten by America's improved economy. Now, the younger generations of America today are barely affording food because of increasing wealth inequality, increasing cost of living, and decaying infrastructure decades ago. So, working class Americans are economically screwed again, but it is to benefit antisocially greedy oligarchs only. So, you better expect skinny people, anorexic people, and starving people to become a bigger population in the U.S. The ruling class in America are kind of doing what Nazis did to Jews in concentration camps by starving them to death. Except America is the concentration camp for working class slaves with the illusion of freedom disguised as the democratic party, republican party, human rights, etc. Overall, the ruling class has exclusively cut-throat power that lets rich men live in luxury during this pandemic while working class Americans suffer more with each new year rather than suffering less with each new year.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#410

Post by Mezzie »

docmars wrote: post #408
Mezzie wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Novels and bicycling were as well, particularly with women. People are weird.

God forbid we find pastimes we _like_ and stick with 'em, amiright?

Novel reading, it was 'the womenfolk are spending their time with ~frivolous~ novels instead of caring for their children and reading the BIBLE as God intended', and bicycling was 'the womenfolk are wearing pants to cycle and traveling without a male escort! I say!'

No liking things. The Protestant work ethic demands no fun. Only anger and work. Play is of SATAN.

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