I've never used facebook/AOL, never plan to. I use the Internet.
How Facebook makes us dumber
51–60 of 124 posts
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#52I'm generally curious whether or not most people on HN still actively use their Facebook account.
Make a poll?
I use mine actively, but from the discussions here it sems I'm in the minority.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#53For all its faults, old fashioned broadcast media was better in a way. It spread information to you whether you agreed with it or not. Having a strong opinion on anything was rare, because for all you knew you where alone with your views. You where not exposed to as many like-minded people. There wasn't this feedback loop where you decided what information to spread on to that group of people, and they decided what to spread back to you.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#54I guess it's also amplified by the fact that people tend to accept things as true by default, until it's proven otherwise. In other words, insertion of data is the way cheaper then its invalidation and probably happen much more frequently thanks to social media.
Agree- I think an anonymous dislike button might help catch some of the bs posts- I know I would certainly use it a lot on my feed!
At the very least, it would make the poster consider what they have posted in some cases and realise that people do not agree with or trust the content within that post.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#55What I don't get is dumb companies who post a link to their FB(or some other social media) page on their site: 1. You're advertising another company for free. Is Facebook paying you to put their logo on your site? No. 2. When people like/follow your page, they are trapped by FB(or some other social media) and you can only reach them there. If you're banned or they pull bait-and-switch on you, like Facebook did, you'v…
People are much less likely to enter in their email address and join a mailing list about dishsoap, than they are to click a "like" button next to an advertisement for dishsoap. That you can pay Facebook to reach those people again has value, that's why people do it.
They do both, but Facebook version is more appealing with the added drama to it because of comments. People, especially those with narcissistic tendencies are attracted to drama. FB (and other social networks) evolved this to new extremes.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#56I'm generally curious whether or not most people on HN still actively use their Facebook account.
I use it for events.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#57Yes, everybody has always been like this, but tech has changed the social nature of interaction. It's not just Facebook. Any online community (including HN) has a desire to limit conflict -- you want people enjoying themselves and contributing. That means "Don't show me stuff that I disagree with" There's a natural conflict of interest. In the real world, we are forced to live with and confront those of widely varyin…
Call me biased, but pretty much every on-line community I've seen in the past 15 years had no desire to limit disagreements. All they wanted is to get rid of assholes.
It's the same on HN and on your Facebook feed, as it was on the old topical boards and mailing lists. You can argue for any controversial position you like as long as you do this in a civil and substantial way. What ends up happening is people getting split into two camps - those who can discuss things in a detached way and learn from them, and assholes who just want to call people names. Or, in terms of pg's hierarchy of disagreement[0], groups tend to split somewhere around DH3-DH4 level.
Which is totally fine, IMO. Unfortunately most Internet denizens seem to be in the "DH3 and below" group. What we need to figure out is how to make them abandon their ways and join the civilized world.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
At one point people estimated that a Facebook like was worth quite a lot of money. I am quite sure that now the value has greatly diminished, nevertheless I do think that it is better than having an e-mail. There are several reasons for that: - First (at least for me), an unsolicited e-mail goes directly into trash and I seek the unsubscribe button. Under no circumstances I am interested in additional stuff somebody…
"At one point people estimated that a Facebook like was worth quite a lot of money. I am quite sure that now the value has greatly diminished" Have you looked at a stock chart of Facebook recently? All time high basically and worth $220b. Or did you mean the value the company brings to the user?
You misread what was said I think. It's about a facebook like, not about facebook itself.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh. I do the opposite. I might sign up for direct emails about dishsoap, but I'd be too embarrassed to let facebook spam all my friends that I like melonball cotton candy dishsoap, so I'll NEVER publicly "like" it. I'm really meticulous about only liking things that I don't mind if people know I support the company/product. So, basically I like my coffeehouse and my dive bar and that's about it.
Note: Facebook is quite inconspicuous about displaying fanpage likes; i.e. your friends will probably miss the information that you've liked some fanpage. Each of your friends most likely has hundreds of books, movies and commercial venues liked (you can check that in their profile), and you probably haven't seen a single one of them popping up on your timeline.
Really? Interesting, because I get spammed pretty constantly that my friends "liked" Barkbox or whatever stupid MLM pyramid scheme is the current fad in my newsfeed pretty constantly. In fact, the Barkbox one shows up almost every few days. Is that just because Barkbox is advertising on facebook? I always thought if I liked anything it would reciprocatively show up in their newsfeeds.
Re: How Facebook makes us dumber
#60Reddit too. I just wrote 500 words without using any logical fallacies backing up my assertions with scientific studies from trusted sources, why does my comment have -12 points without a single person taking the time to refute my position in a comment? I believe managed, licenced hunting in Africa supports conservation efforts, there is no reason ever to spank or hit a child, all children should be vaccinated, and p…
It's charitable to assume, like other commenters did, that your comment was totally fine, but I have to ask - what was the tone of it? And how did it happen that people actually unfriended you on Facebook?
The other potential reason is that you posted it to the wrong community. There are, unfortunately, groups of people who get the more angry the more you try to back up your point with science. Best to avoid those. They can be convinced, but it requires a lot of work and careful dancing around their egos.
> The African hunting topic ended with someone threatening my little sister.
What the hell. Who are these people? :o. I'm sorry this happened to you and I totally support staying away from such groups.