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“User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

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Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#91

Post by TeMPOraL »

Kaze404 wrote: post #59
ethbr0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F2P-with-purchases games should (a) require disclaimers, (b) be illegal and stiffly penalized for allowing minors to play, & (c) have their algorithms open to a gaming regulator (in the same way Las Vegas does).

I play a lot of Apex Legends and recently I found out that when you go purchase a loot box it explicitly tells you the chance of each item's rarity. My initial thought was that it's a step in the right direction (of banning loot boxes entirely), but it also made me wonder how anyone can be sure those numbers are actually true in their backend.

It is also pretty useless. Normal people can't parse probabilities - otherwise nobody would play in the lottery. If you have a list of 20 items with non-uniform chances, can you tell how long you need to play before it's likely you'll get an item you want? You and me can, by doing little math in head; most people can't (and it's another question whether one has the willpower to do such math and follow it through while tired, unwindng in front of a casual game).

What would be more useful if they listed the expected number of loot boxes you need to buy to get an item. "2% chance" reads differently than "you'll need to buy about 50 loot boxes, on average, to get that item".

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#92

Post by Tyr42 »

zigzag312 wrote: post #66
ethbr0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F2P-with-purchases games should (a) require disclaimers, (b) be illegal and stiffly penalized for allowing minors to play, & (c) have their algorithms open to a gaming regulator (in the same way Las Vegas does).

They should also disclose a spending ceiling. How much do you need to / can you spend to gain access to all the content. Do I need to spend $60, $600, $6000, $60,000 or is there no limit?

Interestingly enough, the Pokemon Picross game on the 3DS had a fixed spend limit of $50, after which you could just top up your in game currency for free.

So either you did f2p, or you paid $50 and got a full game, or some linear combination of both.

I liked that game and paid $50 for it.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#93

Post by thecupisblue »

Kaze404 wrote: post #10

I still haven't fully grasped that we reached this point of perversiveness online. We have brilliant minds and a ridiculous amount of money working on making Alabama's soccer moms click more ads, and we have reached the point of making people addicted to websites to reach that goal. Obviously this is nothing new, and the cigarette industry has been profitting off addiction for decades, but I never expected the same t…

Fixing bullshit left by others, refactoring parts of the machine, copying other apps, working on pointless panels and ideas that will be killed in a hot minute or forgotten about, working on internal tools or mostly - fighting internal political battles to get a promotion/more money/authority/status. Most of the people are not there to innovate but to earn money and status for themselves by working at the big F***K

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#94

Post by zests »

WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #46
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this that much different to similar "concerns" about kids watching to much tv back in the 60's 70's etc.

You make a great and difficult point. I’ll try to answer as best I can at least how I see it. Big TV’s goal is to broadcast as engaging as possible material to a general audience. This is broad and therefore not very addictive / effective. Big Tech’s goal is to broadcast as engaging as possible material to an individual. This is specific and therefore very addictive / effective. Regardless that the goal is the same,…

Here is a rough ranking of information sources by amount of "user engagement".

Books The rankings are potentially different per individual and each information source effects people in different ways. This is my mental model of different user engagement sources. The hard part is where to draw the line and the inevitable fact that pandora is already out of the box.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#95

Post by xwolfi »

joshspankit wrote: post #53
montenegrohugo wrote: post #8

I'd add that algorithmic feeds are another part of the triad (quartet?), and probably the worst offender. Personalized addictive content is on the rise (tiktok, YouTube, even Facebook and Twitter curate your newsfeed "for you" ), and these ml-determined feeds drive engagement to the highest possible levels, leading to an incredible waste of time, a distorted world view (mostly the posts with the highest engagement wi…

The other component is that algorithmic feeds encourage echo chambers. People engage with outrage most when they are on the “same side” of it.

But what of trolling then, a sort of counter reaction to the echo chamber where large outliers enter the room and disturb the equilibrium?

For my part I think it's asynchronous written debates that are the source of these problems, so even earlier than facebook.

On a large massive forums, people write for themselves, not the others, and barely read the discussion. Oral debates or written rendering of them, had the advantage to be slow, less variate, and adaptative to a single argumentative line.

Nowadays when you discuss an issue online, everyone starts new train of thought to escape adaptation, and care little about an audience they d need to seduce or convince.

I suppose I just did the same anyway, you can reply but I wont read :)

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#96

Post by tpxl »

throwaway556179 wrote: post #4

I recently saw an FB "data engineer" talking about "experiment review sessions", where the - presumably engagement related - results of interface changes are discussed (he also expressed hope that all companies work that way). It's very rational. The user needs a good user interface, the best that can be built. What is the best? The one the user likes to use, day in day out. Is that a problem? Obviously not for the p…

> What is the best? The one the user likes to use, day in day out.

No.

The road is most used when there's a traffic jam.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#97

Post by toto444 »

montenegrohugo wrote: post #8

I'd add that algorithmic feeds are another part of the triad (quartet?), and probably the worst offender. Personalized addictive content is on the rise (tiktok, YouTube, even Facebook and Twitter curate your newsfeed "for you" ), and these ml-determined feeds drive engagement to the highest possible levels, leading to an incredible waste of time, a distorted world view (mostly the posts with the highest engagement wi…

I have moved from using reddit to frequenting a traditional forum where the content is ordered chronologically and that makes an insane difference to the quality of the conversation.

You go from the most outrageous at the top to the most discussed at the top. All content gets a chance to be read. Even if it the first user find it uninteresting. On reddit, if what you post gets a downvote very quickly, you're basically done.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#98

Post by bluefirebrand »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #30
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #18

I always thought it was pretty obvious when YouTube rolled out screen time reminders. It had nothing to do with anything but minimizing liability in case the general public ever catches on to what they are doing to kids mental health. What’s hilarious is they probably have some “data retention policy” and will get away with it. I guess it’s why SV engineers want to care about social issues so much. When you’re up in…

How is this that much different to similar "concerns" about kids watching to much tv back in the 60's 70's etc.

You scoff, but would you honestly say those concerns were entirely unfounded?

Habits we develop as children tend to persist through our lives. People who grew up very active tend to stay at least a little active, people who grew up eating healthy diets will tend to continue to eat well. The opposite also tends to be true.

We have record levels of obesity in many developed nations now. There's a lot to blame for that, but surely our sedentary lifestyles is a factor. That includes watching too much TV.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#99

Post by lordnacho »

luplex wrote: post #41

I did an internship with a very profitable Swedish mobile game before the pandemic, and it was really interesting to see the doublethink: everyone knew we were making a drug, but people avoided speaking of it in that way. It was always "our most engaged players readily spend on in-game items", and never "the most addicted users spend money so they can continue playing" It was a great workplace, but I don't think it w…

Plausible deniability is such a wonderful idea.

There's a lot of things that fall on a spectrum, and this fact can be used to pretend that motivations are different to what they really are.

For instance, where is the line between investing and gambling? A friend of mine was looking into setting up a spreadbetting firm once, so he went talking to insiders. It turns out 90% of people lose 90% of their money in 90 days, and that's what several firms told him. But of course they don't lead with this fact, they say they're offering training videos the teach you how to invest in the market, just like proper investors. And it's not even a lie, a lot of the content makes perfect sense and would be found in any "proper" investment house. The real deal is of course that they offer a buzz from massive leverage, and everything about the UI is to make you blow yourself up.

The same story applies for social media. A place to keep in touch with your old friends is a great thing, but realistically, how often are you going to write to your classmates on a classmates-only forum? And how is classmatesforum going to make any money doing that? So we get the ML-powered feed of news/funnies/cutesies reactions that seems to be the modern social web.

Re: “User Engagement” Is Code for “Addiction”

#100

Post by loveistheanswer »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #30
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #18

I always thought it was pretty obvious when YouTube rolled out screen time reminders. It had nothing to do with anything but minimizing liability in case the general public ever catches on to what they are doing to kids mental health. What’s hilarious is they probably have some “data retention policy” and will get away with it. I guess it’s why SV engineers want to care about social issues so much. When you’re up in…

How is this that much different to similar "concerns" about kids watching to much tv back in the 60's 70's etc.

We know that both of those things can have negative effects when taken to the extreme. Anything people find addicting can be harmful.

For instance, television screen time is correlated with increased obesity.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4555288/

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