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Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

bbc.com

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Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#61

Post by munificent »

sidibe wrote: post #31
the_snooze wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media feeds are designed to be slot machines. Each scroll is a pull. You may or may not get something you actually want. You can't predict what's coming up next, so you just keep mindlessly scrolling.

It's not just the scrolling, the posting side too. They all randomly boost one of your posts so suddenly tons of feedback (especially noticable when I tried threads) and then you try to get that back again. The uncertainty keeps you at it

Related: TikTok has a "heating" feature that can make a video radically more popular: https://archive.is/8YYcH

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#62

Post by bigDinosaur »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #39
mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

I absolutely do not know they're addictive. I've lived through this entire story before in the video game wars. People said exactly the same things with exactly the same urgency about Mortal Kombat - what kind of sick society do we live in, where greedy corporations sell you the experience of shooting people and ripping their heads off? Perhaps we have to let adults buy these "murder simulators", but only a disturbed…

I'm genuinely curious how one can look at someone using an app like TikTok and conclude that's not addictive. It's optimised in every way to engage people in behaviours that look like outright addiction.

Anyway, sometimes 'panic' is justified. Sports betting has been a total disaster, for example.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#63

Post by hattmall »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #9
mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

But so is cable television designed to be addictive. So are most restaurants and ice cream parlors and grocery stores designed to get you to spend more. Most loyalty programs are designed to be addictive to get you to come back, etc. etc. I just worry we left no levers for the public to regulate these entities and this is the worst option of very few options. Who isn't liable under this kind of logic?

Ice cream isn't engineered to be addictive. Ice cream is, for most people, actually enjoyable and costs money. If ice cream were free but you only got a small amount on random visits to the ice cream parlor then it would be engineered to be addictive.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#64

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

I have no love for social media, but I also really don't like the idea of the government regulating how apps are designed, or trying to circumnavigate online privacy to "protect children" which where I see this whole thing going.

On another note, personally I'm not sure I buy the "addictive" argument with social media, maybe its just me but I find social media pretty boring, but I think for a lot of younger people it is something that fills a need for meaning and connection to the world that has been diminished due to a loss of community in our society (which does predate social media).

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#65

Post by munificent »

wincy wrote: post #53
georgemcbay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. And society as a whole. Even if you don't participate you don't escape the blast radius of the harm they've caused over the past 10-15 years.

My wife and I parental lock each other’s iPhones. I have social media but have to go to my PC to check it. This friction makes a world of difference. I was astounded hanging out with my friends in person last weekend how every one of them at some point pulled out their phone mid conversation to watch TikTok, or Wordle, or whatever. They thought I was the weird one when I mentioned all social media sites and apps are…

> I was astounded hanging out with my friends in person last weekend how every one of them at some point pulled out their phone mid conversation to watch TikTok, or Wordle, or whatever.

To kill time, sometimes I watch those random "America's Funniest Videos" type videos where it's some random family at home and something funny/weird/etc. happens. I've started noticing that in almost all of them now, everyone is just sitting around staring at a phone. Sometimes an entire family will be in the living room, three on a couch, each in their own little world.

Even my family does the same. It's a very very hard habit to break. Like smoking, except anti-social where smoking was at least social.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#66

Post by bsder »

operatingthetan wrote: post #6

>The verdict has forced those inside the companies to grapple with the fact that many outsiders do not view them as favourably as they have come to view themselves. I'm not sure this rings true to me. Meta has to know that millenials and younger are giving up on their platforms, they have endless internal data showing it, right? If anything they are just afraid of endless litigation while they are struggling to gain…

> Meta has to know that millenials and younger are giving up on their platforms, they have endless internal data showing it, right?

If that were true, they would be going somewhere and that somewhere would be visible. The last "new" thing that got any traction was TikTok and that is almost 10 years old at this point.

For a while, the Fediverse stuff (specifically Bluesky) seemed to be getting some traction, but apparently the Fediverse wasn't ready for the influx and people have started leaching back.

The social media sites have things pretty well carved up between them. If you want competition that doesn't suck as bad, you have to break them up.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#67

Post by buttersicle »

yabutlivnWoods wrote: post #51
buttersicle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but this is also how these companies make money. You need to actually pass a law that prohibits this before you fine the companies that do it. Letting juries rob them just because the jury doesn't like it is nothing more than fascism.

Lol @ "rob them" The outcome followed laws that enable the jury to conclude as they did! So there you go, laws passed. Is this Zuckerberg's burner account?

No, there is no law banning anything these companies did. You know this; that's why you didn't link to the law in your comment.

There should be a law banning the addictive practices of these apps. Until there is, fining the companies that make these apps is unjust.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#68

Post by hightrix »

superkuh wrote: post #12
mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

What these corporations were trying to do is bad and vaguely feasible to a degree. I think it's bad enough regulation could apply. But there is an additional consideration that's really important in how we as a society deal with this. Screens are not drugs. They are not somehow uniquely and magically addictive (like drugs actually are). The multi-media is not the problem and not the device to be regulated. The corpor…

Screens are drugs. They are uniquely and magically addictive.

Try to take away a kids tablet, a teen's phone, or an adult's phone. They will fight just like an addict.

Re: Fear and denial in Silicon Valley over social media addiction trial

#70

Post by munificent »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #9
mmaunder wrote: post #5

We all know they're addictive, they're designed to be addictive, and they're very, very harmful, to both adults and children. The individuals who are profiting from the harm are clearly identifiable. And that harm directly targets children. That this is allowed to continue is a symptom of a sick society.

But so is cable television designed to be addictive. So are most restaurants and ice cream parlors and grocery stores designed to get you to spend more. Most loyalty programs are designed to be addictive to get you to come back, etc. etc. I just worry we left no levers for the public to regulate these entities and this is the worst option of very few options. Who isn't liable under this kind of logic?

A match is designed to start fires. So is a flamethrower.

That doesn't mean they are equivalent and must regulated the same way. Scale matters.

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