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I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

blog.danpetrolito.xyz

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Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#81

Post by LtWorf »

1980phipsi wrote: post #47
shark1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory: what was scarce once, is not anymore. Social networks make people tired/satisfied/overwhelmed of "interacting online", and in the worst possible way: passively, not producing anything and just consuming it. It sucks.

Also that a bunch of the time you're contacted by a random online it eventually leads to them trying to get your credit card info.

Lol, I got contacted by a stranger and even after like a year of occasional contact I was waiting for the scam to trigger :D

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#82

Post by mlok »

There is a very weird display bug on this site : when I access it in lanscape horizontal position, with my iPhone 8 on Brave or Safari : all the text is trembling, unable to settle on a size. Trapped in a resizing loop. If I rotate the phone verically it settles properly and then also horizontally. But if I reload the page (horizontally) it goes nuts again :)

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#83

Post by juliansimioni »

101008 wrote: post #66
donatj wrote: post #20

Mildly reminds me how being online on AIM or ICQ was an actual invitation to chat. I had so many interesting conversations with people I barely knew. There's no source of that signal that someone is open to chitchat these days, and it's in my opinion kind of killed what was once great about online communication.

This is something I've always wanted to write about, and I imagine that someday I'll end up with a long article, but basically, it's the idea that the internet used to be offline by default, and now it's online by default. People used to be offline by default. You had to “connect to the internet.” Open MSN, go into forums and check the latest unread messages, come back from a concert and manually upload the photos to…

It's wild, and absolutely worth writing about, that at some point in recent years, the concept of "AFK" basically ceased to exist.

Yes, we aren't technically near a keyboard most of the time today, but we are never AFK in a conceptual sense. Even when sleeping.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#84

Post by ryandrake »

nottorp wrote: post #62
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem with phone apps. They either spam you with notifications or you forget to open them. Desktop IRC clients were more available for passive checking whenever you glanced at the window, but out of the way otherwise.

You can treat whatsapp as an irc client, it's all in your head :) I have multiple friend groups on whatsapp - i just check them once in a while to see if anything interesting was posted. All the chat apps I'm on are muted and the mute is muted again to make sure.

Yes, If you purposely turn off all notifications on your phone, and/or live on DND mode 24/7, you quickly learn to adapt to this world where using the internet is a deliberate action. Sanity sets in: you are deciding when to use your phone or computer, not an algorithm, or other people. You’re back in the driver’s seat, like it’s 2002 again! It’s very freeing.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#85

Post by joules77 »

101008 wrote: post #66
donatj wrote: post #20

Mildly reminds me how being online on AIM or ICQ was an actual invitation to chat. I had so many interesting conversations with people I barely knew. There's no source of that signal that someone is open to chitchat these days, and it's in my opinion kind of killed what was once great about online communication.

This is something I've always wanted to write about, and I imagine that someday I'll end up with a long article, but basically, it's the idea that the internet used to be offline by default, and now it's online by default. People used to be offline by default. You had to “connect to the internet.” Open MSN, go into forums and check the latest unread messages, come back from a concert and manually upload the photos to…

Back then Broadcast/Multicast (1 to all/1 to many) was expensive. It quite often resulted in routers and switches catching fire. The chips were too slow.

A side effect was we didn't have to deal with what Claude Shannon told us happens if everyone is broadcasting - noise increases - no one is really heard - people speak louder - people repeat messages - everyone is getting their energy drained.

Today Broadcast is free. And thats what we see happening.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#86

Post by LtWorf »

sgarland wrote: post #70
DrillShopper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner is disabled, and my home office is far enough from the bedroom/her work desk that I sometimes can't hear her when she could use, wants, or needs help. These very different priorities make messaging me difficult for her sometimes, not to mention that I can't know what the urgency is if she messages me over SMS/Signal/etc. As a result, we were looking into a very similar system where we each have an LED sign…

That’s a great idea! I remember on an Android phone - maybe Galaxy Nexus, or the original Pixel - you could blink an LED with different colors for different app notifications. I had blue, yellow, red, and green for various apps, and so without ever having the screen turn on or the device make sounds, I could tell if I should bother to check. To me, not having any sensory disabilities, that’s a lower cognitive load th…

I had a samsung with this over 10 years ago.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#87

Post by ryandrake »

1980phipsi wrote: post #47
shark1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory: what was scarce once, is not anymore. Social networks make people tired/satisfied/overwhelmed of "interacting online", and in the worst possible way: passively, not producing anything and just consuming it. It sucks.

Also that a bunch of the time you're contacted by a random online it eventually leads to them trying to get your credit card info.

True in real life, too. Whenever someone random comes up to me and tries to engage in a conversation, my guard goes up because 9 times out of 10, they are trying to sell me something or scam me. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a woman, where your “safety” alarms are also sounding.

Spontaneous, innocent chit chat is dead, both online and offline because everyone’s hustling now.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#88

Post by Arainach »

jedimastert wrote: post #60
Arainach wrote: post #54

I didn't see this in the article, but why not just organize the games in a Discord text channel? Discord has very granular notifications that seem the perfect solution here, so folks can see there are unread messages in #games, and the folks gaming are already on the server. One big noisy chat for everything is an antipattern, as any group of sufficient size eventually learns.

The discord of '22 was, iirc, very different from now, or at least the culture around it. It looks like they just only used it for a single voice chat lobby

The Discord of 2020 and before absolutely supported text channels, voice channels, multiple of the above, customizable notifications, and everything required here. Like OP and many others I found myself on a number of Discord servers during the pandemic for voice/video chat, gaming together, etc. and that app was the straightforward solution both for organizing and the actual event for groups of any size from 4-20.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#89

Post by DrillShopper »

sgarland wrote: post #70
DrillShopper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner is disabled, and my home office is far enough from the bedroom/her work desk that I sometimes can't hear her when she could use, wants, or needs help. These very different priorities make messaging me difficult for her sometimes, not to mention that I can't know what the urgency is if she messages me over SMS/Signal/etc. As a result, we were looking into a very similar system where we each have an LED sign…

That’s a great idea! I remember on an Android phone - maybe Galaxy Nexus, or the original Pixel - you could blink an LED with different colors for different app notifications. I had blue, yellow, red, and green for various apps, and so without ever having the screen turn on or the device make sounds, I could tell if I should bother to check. To me, not having any sensory disabilities, that’s a lower cognitive load th…

The first Android phone I owned also had this feature, and it was super helpful.

It's a shame that our phones are becoming more and more voracious surveillance devices without the common courtesy of doing things that are helpful for the user.

Re: I built something that changed my friend group's social fabric

#90

Post by deltarholamda »

codingdave wrote: post #78
Aachen wrote: post #18

s/something/a Discord bot/ to unclickbait the title..

I completely disagree. The point is the impact it has on lives, not the tools used to build it. I would enjoy it if more people focused their writing on the impact their work has on people, and less on the tools and processes used. Or at the very least, clearly delineate the build from the impact.

I see where you're coming from, but I like the way the story is formatted.

There's plenty to doom and gloom about with the state of tech right now, but this is a good reminder that sometimes even Big Internet tools, with a little ingenuity, can sometimes be repurposed to serve the users and not some corporation's bottom line.

It's kind of a throwback to the olden days where you might stand up an IRC server or something similar just for your friend group. I like seeing people returning to the small internet where it serves as a substrate for real people doing real things.

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