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Comment by workthrowaway27 | Hacker News Reader

This is an absurd argument. Humans are social. Take two activities at random, one social and one not, and you'll probably find people feel better on average after doing the social one. (Obviously, there are counterexamples, but I'm talking about averages here).

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I think that's false. Humans are social, but that means social activity is rewarding. You can build a Skinner box out of "social" rewards just like you can build one out of money rewards (e.g. slot machines).

Success for a social network is not "people feeling better on average" it's people coming back more often on average. Their actual level of enjoyment or well-being is irrelevant to the platform.

I would argue that feelings of well-being are not just irrelevant, they are actually directly contrary to the goals of our current advertising-driven social networks. Happy contented people aren't as influenced by advertising intended to capitalize on insecurities, which is really most of it.

A social network's ideal audience would be a group of people who are relatively discontent with their lives and provide a series of small improvements to that state of being, but ones that quickly fade, and then encourage them to repeat that cycle as often as possible. That way the susceptibility to advertising remains high and boosts advertiser ROI, which raises the social network's value as a platform.

Come to think of it, that sounds pretty familiar.

> Come to think of it, that sounds pretty familiar.

I've never used Instagram much, but that sounds like one aspect of that network I've read about. Everyone curates their profile to make their lives seem more fun and more interesting than they really are, often with a materialist angle. The real you looks inadequate compared to these false lives, leaving many feeling insecure about themselves. Then you have professional "influencers" with hyper-curated profiles that depict a fantastically fun and fashionable life. They make money by shilling products that subtly promise to let you join in on that lifestyle, if you only buy.

Insecurity has always been a strong undercurrent in advertising. Anytime you see a picture of someone looking happy or having fun with a product, that's a tiny dig at your insecurities that maybe you aren't having as much fun as you could with that product.

Its just that, Instagram especially because of the power of an image, its like not only did they set out to create a platform to maximize your insecurity, they recruited thousands of people and gave them a special title ("influencer") and pay them to amplify that message as loudly as possible, then bake in the same addictive interactions as Facebook, and then monetized the whole thing.

Its not to say that its always bad and should be shut down, just be aware of the effects it can have and be honest about how you react to them.

I dunno. I get where your coming from but this seems completely different. If you take two activities at random, one social and one not, I would not expect the people organizing either of those activities being super incentivized to get you addicted to them and to do more and more of it as often as possible. That's more of a drug dealer thing.

I mean they might really want you to, but they don't put apps on your phone and reset your privacy settings to let them reach out to you and spam you with notifications through multiple channels (email/text/sms) multiple times per day trying to get you to engage that are endlessly optimized by very smart people to trigger that engagement, not a lot, but just a hit to get you coming back for more.

And then grow into one of the largest companies in America lead by one of richest men in America by leveraging the addicting and repetitive nature of that activity to literally and intentionally monetize _their_ influence how _you_ think (advertising).

Sorry, but what is going on right now @ Facebook can't be hand waved away by saying that humans are social animals.

I mostly agree with you. Although, social media has some benefits. I used to not use it very frequently and had thought about deactivating FB for a while, but then I moved to a new city and found it useful for both showing my old friends what I was doing on the weekends and for finding fun things to do like mountain biking and rock climbing through various groups.

But I see your point in that FB's management isn't really pushing to make those sort of interactions happen more frequently, they're just trying to get people to spend as much time on it as possible to extract ad money from them.

Hey, I'll be the first one to acknowledge that social media can be totally fine, even have positive effects, in moderation and when used responsibly. I would say that about most drugs, for that matter. (maybe not meth: you don't hear about many responsible meth users).

You seem to be using it in a responsible way, don't let anyone judge you for that.

Just be aware of the forces arrayed against you and be honest about how it effects you. If you find yourself not enjoying it or see it have a negative effect on your loved ones, try to cut back. If you have no problem doing so, then there's nothing to worry about, but if you do find it difficult then you know you may have a problem.

Honestly, I expect within the year we'll see the first nationwide support groups for social media addiction a.l.a Alcoholics Anonymous. If no one has done a startup yet for an app that is designed to help, that would be a great opportunity.

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