Claiming our lives back from social media addiction
iafrikan.com
iafrikan.com
It's not just the kids' fault. You taught them to do it by ignoring them when they were little (because they were boring, remember?)
Name checks out.
In all seriousness, though, you're absolutely spot on. My youngest is almost 4 and I caught myself repeating the same mistakes with her that I made with my oldest. I'm much more strict with myself now than before, I aim to protect her from myself. Going back to correct missteps, such as taking my oldest daughter's iPad until she's older, has been very tough.
Without going into too much detail, I'd like to acknowledge the escapism epidemic in the United States.
Thank you for the book recommendation, too!
As far as I'm concerned, all social media knows is how to exploit us. It hones in on what gets us engaged. I think that is far worse than 'knowing us' - I'd actually find that comforting, in some ways.
As an example, I don't think social networks really want to work on ending abusive behavior or harassment because often those behaviors create engagement. People logging on to argue at random people about whether or not you should've voted for $CANDIDATE vehemently all day long are people using the platform and showing up in the numbers. It's good business. Verifying an actual nazi on Twitter? People may have been angry but they expressed it _by using the platform itself_. Whether Twitter was right to verify them is up to you, but the reaction is undeniable.
But honestly, we're all bullshit artists. I would never go liking all of the stuff I like in real life on a Facebook in my name. Do I want all of my friends and future employers to know how obsessed I am with some subculture? Not really. I'd rather like things that make me look normal and fit in.
I haven't been on Facebook in a long time, but the Internet as a whole has felt worse since engaging socially as my real life identity. I felt it was more fun and genuine when it wasn't real life identities, although that ship may have sailed thanks to bots and vandalism.
On the other hand, the knowledge social media has about us goes beyond what we enter in it. They know what we read, often what website we visit, what we click on, what we hover over but don't click on, whose profiles we view, what posts/comments we start to type but then remove, etc. Those can reveal a lot of things we don't know about ourselves.
This also occurs during real life interactions as well. Few are completely genuine even when looking at them directly in the eyes. People omit information, some embellish, and others downright lie to make themselves appear the best possible.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone whom you connect with deeply and for a mere second you can see the true them? You can almost imagine them as a child because their truest essence comes out for a second during a laugh, or a cry. The truest external example of self.
We're a long way from software being able to grasp that level of understanding of a single person. Even if, it would be hard to categorize and sell ads to a person based on that. In other words, I hold out hope for the resurgence of appreciation of the other.
I started doing blackouts on Twitter and Facebook every time some major news event occurs because I just don't want to hear about it. And the one thing that I have noticed is a slow consolidation of my Facebook feed to just a narrow slice of hyper-engaged people who post multiple times a day about whatever the latest outrage is -- the broader spectrum of users haven't deleted their accounts, but most on my "Friends" list haven't posted in years. I suspect a lot of my friends are disengaged from the platform precisely because they have zero interest in fighting their loud, opinionated relatives of opposing political sides.
I miss the days where everyone was just avatars, nick-names, personalities. It still seems odd to me to be expected to mix my virtual and real identities, since the "internet culture" when I got online insisted that you do not share your real-life identity* and Facebook came along and turned that entirely upside down.
*It was common practice on some of the bulletin boards that I frequented in the late nineties for users to maintain multiple accounts under different nicknames and personas, and even have conversations with themselves.
That has been my number one objection to Facebook right from the start. I was long out of school when Facebook was first established, but the second I found out about the "real name" policy I thought to myself, "This can't end well."
Still in the works: an old fashioned wind-up alarm clock, a cassette or tape reel to reel recorder and a polaroid camera.
You can get all of those for pennies or even for free on Ebay or the local equivalent. The kids are absolutely fascinated with all this real world stuff that does only one thing.
And there is no 'app' for the kind of satisfaction you get from receiving a painstakingly type-written letter with a bunch of stuff crossed out or a morse code message just for you. Grandparents will likely much more appreciate one of those too far over and beyond a Facebook message. And what's more magical than to pull some Latin American station out of thin air?
Besides learning a lot about what makes stuff tick they also learn about the evolution of technology and the old stuff is so much more real and easier to relate to that they freely start to figure out how they can do other things in a simpler and low tech way as well.
After that: tools to take things apart and to do some basic repairs on broken stuff that we find.
Of course, that might also be a good way to wind up with the next David Hahn, but...well just keep an eye on them. Maybe set up some ground rules like, 'no hydrogen.'
Pulling the entirety of Wikipedia and Youtube out of thin air?
That being said, I totally agree - I love books, my manual film camera, dream of owning a typewriter (but have no use for it) and love records.
If I think too much about it, I almost can't do anything because that is magic, made real.
Another good way to break yourself is to go into any reasonably sized supermarket and look, really look, at all the different products and where they come from, then imagine the insane amount of work that goes into making that possible.
I mean a typewriter is pretty cool and all, but it doesn't really compare to sending messages through space, at the speed of light.
What I found really interesting is that they have no problem understanding vacuum tubes but fail at understanding transistors which are essentially the same thing only going from a literally transparent glass tube with inner bits that you can see to a little black piece of plastic with three metal legs sticking out.
There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Obviously, I don't know whether you experienced these kinds of things the first time around, or how long you've been experiencing them this time around, but I'm wondering how how much of the satisfaction or magic you're feeling is due to novelty? Will those feelings stick around at that same level of strength?
I didn't experience e-mail till I was 17 (in 1994), and I didn't have a mobile phone (let alone smart phone) until several years later. I remember receiving letters... and certainly the tangibility is cool, but I didn't think it was that great. I don't see why pulling that station out of thin air is any more special than being able to listen to foreign radio stations or podcasts on the internet today.
It's a cliché to say that we as engineers look to solve all problems with more tech, even the problem of too much tech. But in this case I think it's really warranted.
I've had two experiences here in Copenhagen that were interesting to me. Once, I was on a bus that got stuck in a pile of snow. Everybody got out and helped push it. Another time, the ATM's collectively stopped working for a half hour or so. In both instances, people were almost delighted to have a reason to speak to strangers around them. The bus ride turned into a small party, and with the ATM situation I saw a person giving a stranger cash (not a lot, but completely out of the blue). Both times I had the feeling that it was like people were waking up from a zombie-sleep and I wonder if things were more like this in villages in the old days.
Being poor, lacking healthcare, experiencing violence, etc are all terrible things, but overcoming them often strongly informs our identities.
If we manage, through politics and technology, to achieve a safe, post-scarcity society with all basic needs met, will we have to deal with a collective identity crisis (or millions of individual crises) and if so, how do we deal with it?
Found the Orwell quote:
“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flag and loyalty-parades ... Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet”
Another thing that played against socialists in Germany was knowledge of purge in Russia. Germans were scared that something like that will happen there unless there is strongman in lead. And to be fair, communists getting power would likely mean danger and killings.
People also hoped that Hitler in power will cause street violence go down.
People will trade identity and purpose for comfort, but in Germany it did not happened out of comfort. And it happened in violent already militaristic state that valued military a lot long before Hitler.
Hitler promised a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The Nazi party was extremely cynical in its application of promises and even ideology. One of the the most interesting and disturbing pieces of Nazi propaganda was a poster of a banker and a communist holding hands, with the caption, "Marxism is the guardian angel of capitalism."
An absurd and nonsensical statement, it was instead appealing to a particular segment of German society's emotional rejection of both the banks and communist movements.
What Orwell is referring to is not the totality of Nazi appeal, because they positions themselves to have many, often conflicting with each other, but one particular appeal to a certain segment of society.
What I want to say is that the amount of people who were throwing away comfort, safety and short working-hours in exchange of struggle was smaller then the quote implies. Their choice dont speak for humanity. German history does not give us reason to worry that alienation from having too good life leads to such catastrophe.
Struggle seeking segments of society had their own reasons to accept that deal and it was not that their all basic needs were well met. It was not collective identity crisis due to all problems being solved. A lot them were hurt, scared, damaged by WWI experiences, used to violence and inside country that was breaking down. They did not believed the comfort can be gained unless Germany gets to power again and destroys enemies.
And the wish for militaristic values did not came out of nowhere either - the boys were raised to be that way. There was a lot of social status to be gained by being in military plus guaranteed state employment (and whole state institutions being all ex-soldiers).
I don't think there's a simple answer to this. There just needs to be more of an understanding that mobile devices and social media can either enhance or detract from real human interaction, and that using them in ways that detract is rude.
To be concrete, it has less to do with forcing anyone to do anything than with changing the environment such that, across the population, it's harder for those on the margin to interact socially.
They could also try to do better at fostering more-meaningful online interactions.
We will probably look back at this period with the same sense of disgust at ourselves and at companies as we do now when we look back at the tobacco and junk food craze.
It isn't yet an accepted idea that these things are addicting and bad for you, unlike junk food and tobacco.
Though it's good more and more people become conscious about the issues with social networks and addiction / attention loss.
It's a really a form of media control a la the Chomsky model of "allowing lively debate, but only within certain range of discussion." It's becoming tedious and conditioning us to stop considering how to bring our use of it under our control.
What would bring resolution (and great mental health) would be articles that talk more about how to use social media in a healthy ways. These comments are the ones the spring up in forums, including HN, where people have a bit of distance and self-reflection. For example, don't overly fetishize friendships from decades ago. don't give personal details. Don't give overly idealistic presentations of ones' self, etc.
Unfortunately these are the sorts of activities that social media sites encourage. The rush of dopamine from a flood of likes and comments is real and encouraged like a game.
As long as these sites operate as massive companies (selling ads), they'll keep encouraging the things that increase screen time.
> It's a really a form of media control a la the Chomsky model of "allowing lively debate, but only within certain range of discussion."
I do agree with your point about increasing the scope of the conversation, but I'm not convinced that the healthy habits you mentioned are actionable for most users.
More limiting in the sense that I would have fewer options for wasting time, yes. More limiting in that I'd be forced to engage with media I had on-hand, yes. More limiting in the sense that I'd somehow be worse off after, say, a year of that? I very much doubt it, and expect the opposite would be the case. Little of my use of the Internet is productive, what is productive is rarely more so than, say, reading, and mostly it serves to take time from activities that would at least not be any more a waste of time, and may well be more improving (including simply sleep).
> Do you do what you describe?
No. I'd cancel our home Internet today if it wouldn't be incredibly inconvenient for my wife. She's a teacher, and she does and is expected to do way more work stuff online in the evenings and on weekends than I am as a developer, unfortunately.
What all of these authors seem to conveniently ignore is that "social media" is not television, not a single source broadcast, even though social media companies would really want it to be. Just a single chokepoint. Social media has real people on the other end. Mediated by social media companies, sure, but perfectly real otherwise.
Saying that people are addicted to it is largely equivalent to saying that people are addicted to other people.
Think about it this way: a little sugar, salt and fat isn't harmful. In fact you need salt and fat as part of your diet to be healthy, and sugar was a rare treat - that's why they taste good. But if companies start adding more and more of these things to food, such that the consumers start to forget what real food tastes like, and then start making foods that are nearly all sugar and fat, well that is very bad for your health. That's what social media is. It's food without nutrients, and only the most shallow form of human contact.
Most people go on with their life while enjoying social media.
I think this is very well put.
I don't think I've ever really had the desire myself to reactivate it, my fellow students started posting into some shared group there but eventually everyone moved to whatsapp as that was more widely deployed and direct.
FB, for me, has no actual value other than capturing users like a venus flytrap.
Maybe the distinction is worthwhile to make if you try, but in general “I don’t use Facebook, I use [thing that is also Facebook]” is not really a convincing argument.
I do dislike the "status" feature they put in though...
There is also little binding to the service, the entire semester could switch to a new service within a week (we've played out the scenario "what if whatsapp goes belly up" as part of a course)
People love writing angry posts on social media about social media. If you don't like it, don't use it, nobody is stopping you, quit the drama.
e.g: to get into the habit of reading, exercise, etc.
You will naturally end up doing something better than browsing a feed.
The second thing is, that people do talk about the addictiveness and bad effects of games all the time, and have been doing so since games existed.
I know no one who would flunk the school cause he can't glue out of Facebook. I know multiple people who had huge problems in school due to being unable to stop playing or woke up multiple times during night to care about kingdom.
People do get influenced by games and it can lead to problems you have mentioned. However, I do not think that gaming can transform the society as a whole. Social networks have already done it, both in bad and good ways.
Yet they remain afraid, and this fear is what makes social interactions addictive (like gambling; the great the fear the greater the high on the occasions when you don't lose).