Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

If we're going to be totally honest, then first, let's call social media primarily talking to your friends and family. Which is one of the most deeply and fundamentally human things you can do. And it is also critical to doing anything together with other people. The Internet has lifted constraints of time and geography from communication - which is why you see people on IM in situations where, without the phone, the time would be wasted. They're making more efficient use of their time.

As for shopping, I don't see anything wrong with acquiring resources needed for various things in your life.

View on HN

Social media is primarily intended for talking to friends and family. As others have pointed out in this thread, the reality for most people is closer to mindless browsing and addiction. That's because the systems are designed to 'hook' people that way. I'm not suggesting in any way that social media, shopping etc are bad (I use them all the time) but as the Internet is literally at our fingertips now, I do think that we need to be more cautious of unintended consequences, for individuals (particularly vulnerable ones like children) and for society as a whole. We're already seeing some of them today.

So the question to ask now is, regardless if you're solutionist/ Luddite/ neutral/ etc, how do we tackle this? Do we need to tone down some of the 'hook' features? Do we need to totally discourage unethical tactics like dark patterns? What can we do to educate/push people towards a healthier Internet diet, to have enough will to protect themselves from being psychologically hacked? This is an entirely new design philosophy, maybe not so good for big tech corps, but can potentially push the Internet to the next level.

Edit: language

That's because the systems are designed to 'hook' people that way

No they aren't. Nobody sat down and said "how do we design Instagram to be maximally addictive". They just said, hey, look, I made some neat photo filters and someone else said, hey, love the filters, it'd be neat if I could share these photos with my friends. Badaboom, a social network.

The fact that so many people spend so many hours on Instagram is nothing to do with the software itself and everything to do with how people use it. To be brutally honest here, in my experience it's 90% girls who obsess over Instagram. I know very few men who use Instagram at all, let alone post regularly. Women use it so much because the posts they configure the app to show them consist mostly of girls boosting each others self confidence by telling each other how beautiful or successful they look in each photo. Equally important - what's not there: no politics, re-sharing of links that someone might expect you to read or care about, and in general nothing that would require any mental effort at all.

Nobody designed Instagram to be full of trivial ego pumping, it's a neutral photo sharing tool. There are no dark patterns, whatever they're meant to be, unless you believe that the absence of a "share this link" feature is a dark pattern. It just so happens that this is how many people choose to use the tool.

In the same vein, nobody designed Twitter to be mentally less taxing than other social media sites, it was just that due to technical limits SMS restricted your character count, and Twitter inherited that limit, and limiting the size of a post sets a very low but very consistent quality bar on tweets, such that people who would have been intimidated by blogging full sized articles can now engage in online discussion without feeling out-competed.

And why not? The attitude you display here shows a great feeling of superiority: people don't like Twitter or Instagram because they like the culture on these networks, instead it's because they've been "addicted" by "dark patterns" beyond their comprehension of control, in some sort of vast Silicon Valley conspiracy that is mysteriously unsupported by any sort of paper trail or emails showing discussion of these malign intentions.

Please, grow up and just let people enjoy communicating in whatever way makes them feel good.

This is categorically Untrue.

The article itself lists people directly who have worked on items and code meant to addict and make sites “sticky”.

If that’s not enough - go look at gamification.

Back when WoW launched I was impressed. They distilled the then amorphous knowledge of UI and game psych and upped the ante.

At that time friends and i imagined what maximally addictive games would be. How we would use more malicious techniques from behavioral science and habit formation to keep people in game for longed.

Then came TF and the hats/freemium model (Korea/SEA/China ).

And from there to now, the worst of those ideas have been applied and evolved.

Sites very definitely design themselves to trigger and keep people on site.

Sorry, this is a strawman response. I was pretty clear about my concern for unfortunate unintended consequences; nobody is saying that there's a Silicon Valley conspiracy in action! Incidentally, I agree with your points on the benefits of social media. And it's awesome that we have so much engaging content today, but please explain if it's really OK for kids to get hooked on YouTube etc five hours a day. The solution is not to ban or demonise, but how we can educate people to have more control in their use of technology. Even Nir Eyal recognises this and implements tech restrictions in his own household. It's like gambling - sure we have self control, but let's be honest, gambling companies work very hard to make it addictive (I specifically used the term "psychologically hacked" earlier).

That's a natural response to be expected from companies, user engagement is tied to company health/profitability/etc so it makes sense to maximise it as much as possible. But earlier when I called for a new design philosophy, I am hoping that tech companies can be better than that. Because you are right, nearly all of them start with a genuine belief that their tool can help people, or at the very least, it's cool and yo let's spread the word. The tools still work, like Facebook still functions as a platform to connect relatives and old classmates, but it has also become so much more than that: it's a news platform, it's a media engine, it's a publisher, it's an ad-clicking farm and so on. The tools have evolved into systems, which other forces (commercial companies, political groups etc) have learnt to leverage for their own benefit. They have become complex and life-evading enough that they can't be called neutral anymore, despite the company's best intentions. And I'll go as far as to say that these companies have some accountability.

As a daily Instagram user, I do take offence with your comment regarding Instagram and girls - you are caricaturing a lot. It's not just high-fiving about body confidence and taking random selfies...

I was pretty clear about my concern for unfortunate unintended consequences

The part of your post I quoted literally says "the systems are designed to hook people". It also says "Do we need to totally discourage unethical tactics like dark patterns".

Don't try to wriggle out of it. The words "design" and "tactics" mean deliberate intended action, agency. My post is not a strawman: it responds to exactly what you were saying. Perhaps on reflection you think that position was too extreme: OK then.

please explain if it's really OK for kids to get hooked on YouTube etc five hours a day

Sure. They're kids. What would you rather they do? Play football for five hours a day, like my grandparent's generation did? Read story books - the ultimate form of passive media consumption? At least on YouTube they might be learning something more useful than how to kick a ball around, and who knows, might even be inspired to create something themselves.

I think a lot of the complaints about social media and YouTube overlook that point. It's easy to complain. What's your proposed better alternative?

As a daily Instagram user, I do take offence with your comment regarding Instagram and girls

Alright, be offended, my lived experience does not care. All the girls I know use Instagram all the time. None of the guys do. I realise there are exceptions, it's a huge network. But I know from discussions with other men that they've had the same observation as me. If you find that fact offensive, too bad!

> "Nobody sat down and said "how do we design Instagram to be maximally addictive"."

The evidence points to the contrary. Why would you not want to make, as another commenter put it, a social network site as 'sticky' as possible? You have to understand how sites like Instagram make money, using methods which rely on keeping engagement high. It's the so-called 'Attention Economy'.

Here's one article describing how Instagram's approach to generating revenue has evolved over time:

https://www.feedough.com/how-does-instagram-make-money-insta...

Here's the Wikipedia article about the ideas behind the attention economy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy

What evidence?

The article you link to just says they make money through advertising. Yes, and?

Your argument is 'their business relies on their users being happy and using their service a lot' which is an empty statement: it's true of all businesses. It's not a sign of addictiveness or anything like that.

You're missing the key part of my argument. There are businesses built around offering products and services that have no need to maintain your attention, for example I'll go to the supermarket when I'm hungry, and I'll go to the barbers when I need a haircut. The difference with the players in the attention economy (including social media sites, news sites, basically almost any site where the main form of income is advertising) is that they rely on getting and keeping your attention on their site. If you can't see the gamification aspects of sites like Instagram as examples of that, I don't know what else I can say that will help you see it.

You could argue that theatre, cinema and opera also rely on getting and keeping your attention. Nobody says they're addictive or "gamified".

The reason I have trouble seeing the "gamification" aspects of Instagram is that there are none. This idea that a photo sharing site is designed to be like a drug exists in your head - every argument you make easily applies to many other kinds of business that nobody considers addictive.

> "You could argue that theatre, cinema and opera also rely on getting and keeping your attention. Nobody says they're addictive or "gamified"."

Theatre, cinema and opera are experiences that are best appreciated in small doses. Television, on the other hand, is something I'd class as addictive. Wouldn't you?

> "The reason I have trouble seeing the "gamification" aspects of Instagram is that there are none. This idea that a photo sharing site is designed to be like a drug exists in your head - every argument you make easily applies to many other kinds of business that nobody considers addictive."

You have to separate the intention from the result. Did the creators of Instagram intend to create, as you put it, "a drug"? No. However, they did intend to make it a popular platform for advertisers, and advertisers are clearly interested in getting as many eyeballs on their products as they can, and the more the creators of Instagram can do to make their site sticky and drive engagement, the more their company will grow. Whilst their users are of strategic importance, their most important customers are advertisers. Increasing the userbase only makes sense if there's a corresponding increase in advertising revenue, they can't run on good will.

To give an example of a feature that increases the stickiness of Instagram (note that I didn't use "drug", that was your term), I'd suggest Instagram Stories (a feature inspired by Snapchat).

http://blog.instagram.com/post/148348940287/160802-stories

The idea being, you have to use the app every day otherwise you might miss something. Previously, you could dip in and out of Instagram and not miss anything. With Stories, that's no longer the case. Also, as well as viewing the stories of others, creating your own 24 hour story also encourages much more use of the service. What's opera's equivalent of Instagram Stories?

Let's move away from Instagram for a second to consider other players in the attention economy. News organisations are most definitely in this space as well. The rise of sensationalist, clickbait news articles, even by news institutions that were previously above such behaviour, is a clear indication that we're in an era where attention is something that's harder to earn. Have you noticed this trend or would you like some examples?

Television, on the other hand, is something I'd class as addictive. Wouldn't you?

This is clearly where we differ. No, I wouldn't. The word addiction has specific meaning. The fact that lots of people enjoy something a lot does not make that thing addictive. I am surrounded by people who have TV sets and who do not spend much time watching TV at all. I myself have a TV set and feel no particular cravings to watch it, ever. When I choose to, an hour or so is sufficient and then I may well not watch any for weeks. I consider this normal behaviour.

I think you're far too liberal with the use of the word addiction.

What's opera's equivalent of Instagram Stories?

Heh, how about the fact that it's very expensive and only occurs at specific times of day, meaning you have to structure your entire day around getting to it by the start? You've never seen someone literally running down the street because they're late for the opera or theatre? Running to the dealers for their fix!

No no, that's a very forced analogy. Opera isn't addictive even though some people can spend hours on what seems to me a very pointless activity. Instagram Stories is a great example of why Instagram is not designed to be addictive - it's simply a reaction to the success of Snapchat, i.e. a very strong message from users that they value transiency and don't actually always want their photos to go into a never ending history accessible to all, for ogling and possible exploitation years later.

Given the highly transient nature of photos usually posted to Instagram feeds, the desire for them to disappear after a while makes perfect sense from the perspective of the uploader. The fact that this gives downloaders limited time is - once more - not a deliberate attempt to addict people to anything but rather a natural consequence of the users own requirements.

> "The word addiction has specific meaning."

What's a definition of addiction you would agree with? Is it linked to changes in body chemistry? To obsessive behaviour?

Addiction is usually linked to substance abuse or similar.

Other forms of "addiction" are difficult to cleanly disentangle from people simply liking things for their own reasons, acting on their own free will. That's how you get things like TV being described as "addictive" though I never heard of anyone going into prostitution so they could afford their cable bill. Perhaps there are stories of it happening somewhere, but such a story would be rare and shocking, whereas prostitution for feeding a drug habit is unremarkable.

But let me turn it around. How do you define it? Above I've seen people claim that anything that has advertising in it must by nature be "addictive" but that would cover 20th century newspapers, and again, I never heard anyone describe them as addictive or display uncontrollable cravings for newspapers.

> "Addiction is usually linked to substance abuse or similar."

Okay, but what makes those substances addictive?

>No they aren't. Nobody sat down and said "how do we design Instagram to be maximally addictive".

you have no idea what you are talking about and everything you're saying is invalid. The companies noted in your post are run by and dependent on advertising. The number of users on the platform, their ability to lure users back to the platform and the amount of time spent within the platform is kkey to making money and is essential to keeping their stock price up.

Snapchat is literally designed to be maximally addictive. You know this, right?

> If we're going to be totally honest, then first, let's call social media primarily talking to your friends and family. Which is one of the most deeply and fundamentally human things you can do.

I disagree. Pre-social media, people would talk with friends and family using e-mail and programs like AIM, and there would actually be deep and meaningful conversations. This has been supplanted by social media, which is often simple banal comments on an article/rant that someone threw up for everyone to see.

If someone told you 15 years ago that people would stop having conversations by e-mail and communicate by LiveJournal posts/comments instead, it would have seemed like a hilariously terrible idea, but that's more or less where we are.

> I disagree. Pre-social media, people would talk with friends and family using e-mail and programs like AIM, and there would actually be deep and meaningful conversations.

This seems hilariously false.

Of course I can only speak from personal experience. But in my experience, long personal e-mail (several paragraphs) from friends to catch up used to be relatively common, and now they've all but disappeared (I don't think I've gotten any in the past couple of years). Likewise, long chats of the old AIM/MSN variety - spend an hour or two chatting with a friend sharing ideas and news with them - seems much rarer than before (where it wasn't uncommon to have them every few days).

This is true for me too. It's funny that we can now literally connect to thousands of people in social media, but through likes and short comments. Sometimes I get the impression that long threads of discussion is not encouraged, that it's polite to just keep it short and sweet (example, when Instagram introduced the "like comment" button, I sometimes find myself using it rather than thanking directly.)

So our connecting is more like lines crossing over briefly, but never more than that. Sometimes this is fun - because where else can you encounter other people different from you - and sometimes it's just a little sad.

Where as we have F=m•a in physical reality, in hyperreality it seems as though the rule is inverted, F=m÷a.

It seems the less "mass" a message contains the more "force" it seems to exert. A long response is ignored and carries with it very little persuasive power compared to the pithy response of a mere binary form of approval.

Yes it is false.

But the op is oriented correctly.

The issue isn’t the depth of conversations- the issue is the availability of addictive alternatives.

I’m on a phone surrounded by family - who I will see only a few more times in my life.

And that’s entirely because of my choices.

But by that criteria being in bad relations, junk food, bingeing, gambling addictions are all “choice”.

They are not.

These tools are designed to be as addictive possible within the confines of law - laws made to prevent even worse excesses.

If you have Joe Schmoe, vs me and my ability to data mine their lives, to put reminders that “hey you are on your streak! Log on again!” While they are on the pot, to “leverage” their network to get more people onto the game and then put them on leader boards “to catch those people with competitive impulses”; to gamify their life and to put triggers to run dopamine and seratonin triggers - then joe schmoe doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell.

Social media is both 'talking to friends and family', and 'posturing in front of near-strangers'. The latter might also be a latent human thing, but overall I don't it contributes as much to wellbeing as the first.

Is an ad-subsidized and for-profit business deeply and fundamentally required to talk to your friends and family?

If interacting with friends and family is what is important, is Facebook the best way to do so?

It's not, but it's what we have. Phones are controlled by private for-profit companies too (with different business, though). And the post is funded by taxes.

Point being, the business models are not inherent to communication mediums, but due to history, those mediums are provided through the particular business models we have.

It is not what we have. We have many other options beyond even the other technologies you've listed. Businesses and products are not prerequisite for interacting with friends and family.

What about simply having a conversation in person, mediated only by spoken language? What if you never moved away from your family and could stop by for dinner a few times a week?

There are many possibilities beyond just accepting the dictations of a few product managers in Silicon Valley!

> let's call social media primarily talking to your friends and family

Let's call it what it actually is, instead:

Talking to your friends and family while a stalker sits in the corner recording and taking notes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com