71–80 of 263 posts
I'd like to see similar study about the original gateway drug: "24-hour News Channels", which was followed by "24-hour Outrage-News Channels". Seems like we've been building toward this, the interactivity of the internet was the paradigm shift (to use a 90's term). EDIT: I realize it isn't news messing with youths' self-esteem (well, in some cases it is), but it is related in that the media is custom-made to drive en…
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Right, engagement at all cost it is, but there is a fundamental difference. Television required professionals where even wrestling and reality TV is scripted: it requires some sort of willful ignorance from the viewer to engage with it. Social media pushes the illusion that you are not engaging with professionals but peers, and the dominant signals (how many views, likes, comments, etc.) of this day and age were not…
> it requires some sort of willful ignorance from the viewer to engage with it. > Show a kid a celebrity pushing something and they can tell it's fake This does not explain the Alex Jones show.
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Did you know you can look at profiles, not just the feed?
True, I do use Facebook profiles to remember the names of the children of my friends/family. But I can't remember the last "wall" I saw that had anything from this year on it.
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Um... I installed Instagram recently for the first time. Every 5th post or so is an ad. That you have no choice over... And there are a lot of suggested content posts which you have no control over. It's like the same as channel flipping and getting ads blasted at you but now the ads are smarter/more targeted.
Yeah, the ads are actually relevant sometimes and they don't demand 30 seconds of my life, so massive improvements all around. I don't see much suggested content unless I scroll too long, at which point I probably do need some more content.
This occurred to me because I more and more think of social media use in terms of addiction. For more typical addictive behavior with drugs, we are more likely to think people who are depressed are more likely to develop addictive relationship to alcohol (or other drugs), than we are to think using alcohol (or other drugs) too much will makes you depressed. Although I suppose it can be somewhat circular and complex.
I wonder how people continue to work at Facebook. I know they tend to have the highest salaries from the FAANG groups, but still. We, as engineers and builders, have the responsibility to think critically about how the things we are working on will be used.
- they're going to do their evil thing anyway, may as well show up and intentionally do it marginally worse
- they're going to pay someone large sums of money, may as well be me
- I increasingly believe this whole industry is net evil overall, and large sums of money mean I can leave it sooner
- also, it was their VR thing, and if it was a VR thing at literally any other company I would be excited about that because VR is at least conceptually cool
These are not particularly good arguments, and that's why I don't work there now. But statistically, I can imagine a few people who we would otherwise categorize as non-evil actually convince themselves with arguments like these, and when you're casting as wide a net as Facebook does, a few is all you need.
I wonder how people continue to work at Facebook. I know they tend to have the highest salaries from the FAANG groups, but still. We, as engineers and builders, have the responsibility to think critically about how the things we are working on will be used.
Earlier this year, I had a recruiter invite me to interview there, and I made an attempt at convincing myself with reasoning like: - they're going to do their evil thing anyway, may as well show up and intentionally do it marginally worse - they're going to pay someone large sums of money, may as well be me - I increasingly believe this whole industry is net evil overall, and large sums of money mean I can leave it s…