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Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

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Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#51

Post by thaumasiotes »

ericmay wrote: post #42
keyraycheck wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While number of active users still grows, one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.

“Who is left on Facebook besides dopamine junkies and bots?” “I only use it in this limited circumstance” You are on Facebook. That’s who. It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while. Sure you’re not an addict (probably) but you still drink.

> It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/20110...

> Take a 2002 Times/CNN poll on the eating habits of 10,000 Americans. Six percent of the individuals surveyed said they considered themselves vegetarian. But when asked by the pollsters what they had eaten in the last 24 hours, 60% of the self-described "vegetarians" admitted that [they] had consumed red meat, poultry, or fish the previous day.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#53

Post by grishka »

wussboy wrote: post #39
grishka wrote: post #32

I myself started making the same distinction when I talk about these things in English, except it's "social media " vs "social networks ". Though I have no idea how to make that distinction in Russian, social "media" never caught on as a term there. An extra annoying problem about social media for me is that while I can make most of the platforms give me a chronological feed of content authored only by people I follo…

Sure you can. You can not post political things on social networks. They're not doing any good anyway. They're not changing anyone's mind. They're not providing depth or width to the discussion. I don't say this to be insulting, but rather a realist.

My point is that I just want to be able to discuss any topic with my followers without self-policing lest a bunch of anonymous accounts butts into the conversation and completely derails it.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#54

Post by steveBK123 »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #2

"Over time, my timeline contained fewer and fewer posts from friends and more and more content from random strangers. " It still baffles me that Facebook fills up my feed with random garbage I have no interest in. I barely use it now because their generated content gets in the way of the reason why I opened facebook to begin with. These algorithmic feeds clearly work for someone but its not what I am looking for, I w…

Instagram followed a similar trajectory for me. For a while, as a photography hobbyist, it was a far more "active" social community for photography enthusiasts than whatever came before (Flickr, Smugmug, photo.net, various niche forums). I made photography friends thru it that I met in person even when traveling overseas. This lasted maybe 2 years.

Then all the "normies" got on it and my feed started to just be casual snaps by people I knew in real life... which rapidly lead to its final form.

It is now fully an influencer economy of people making a full-time job out of posting thirst traps / status envy / travelp*rn / whatever you wanna call it. It is a complete inundation of spend spend spend.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#55

Post by procaryote »

asim wrote: post #22

Mastodon really isn't the answer. You frequent enough servers and you realise social media has taught people bad habits..not everything needs to be expressed online. Genuinely I think people need something else. The format fails. What's the alternative? I don't know. But I'm trying to figure it out. Why? Because walking away from it all isn't the right answer. Why? Because we leave behind all those people addicted to…

> Because walking away from it all isn't the right answer. Why? Because we leave behind all those people addicted to it.

Don't start drinking or smoking, because with this logic you'll have a really hard time quitting

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#56

Post by ericmay »

theodric wrote: post #47
ericmay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Who is left on Facebook besides dopamine junkies and bots?” “I only use it in this limited circumstance” You are on Facebook. That’s who. It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while. Sure you’re not an addict (probably) but you still drink.

I'm happy they've been able to build a $1,660,000,000,000 company on the back of me logging in once every two months, scrolling 3 posts, getting disgusted with slop, and closing the tab. Gives me hope that my harebrained ventures may also succeed!

I don't buy it. You use it more than that - otherwise you'd just delete your account.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#57

Post by gradus_ad »

I will admit, one thing the crowd attention model does exceptionally well is surface the best comments on content. Whether it's HN, Instagram, YouTube, etc... the top comments are usually the "best", depending on how best is defined in the given context. On the silly Instagram meme videos my algo serves up, the top comments are invariably hilarious, often funnier than the actual content, and as you scroll it's impressive how the ordering by like count matches hilarity quite well.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#59

Post by bananaflag »

gradus_ad wrote: post #57

I will admit, one thing the crowd attention model does exceptionally well is surface the best comments on content. Whether it's HN, Instagram, YouTube, etc... the top comments are usually the "best", depending on how best is defined in the given context. On the silly Instagram meme videos my algo serves up, the top comments are invariably hilarious, often funnier than the actual content, and as you scroll it's impres…

This works on platforms like HN, Less Wrong or niche subreddits, which

i) work on the reddit model (submissions + tree of comments on them) ii) are heavily moderated (e.g. no memes but also specific restrictions like on a book series subreddit to not discuss the movie adaptations)

Then this vote-based ranking makes cream rise to the top, I agree.

In general, your "depending on how best is defined in the given context" does a lot of heavy lifting.

Re: Attention Media ≠ Social Networks

#60

Post by ceayo »

black_puppydog wrote: post #7

I still think it's worth reflecting which of the toxic patterns we want to, or don't want to reproduce on non-commercial networks like mastodon. Infinite scroll, quote reply, the like button... all these aren't neutral, and discussions were rightly heated about introducing them.

You're so right... Some of these patterns are, to their very core, parts of what make these social media bad.
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