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Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

I have read most of Cal's books and they are good. His fight against social media is... I don't know, extreme. The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control.

Cal crusades against social media, but I don't see him crusade against video games, or watching TV for example. I think a good/better metric is total screen time.

My children are given an allowance in the form of screen time. I kind of do the same for myself and I have decent self-control. That is the key, I think... limits and control by taking responsibility for yourself and those you are charged to raise.

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The real problem is self-discipline/control

The problem is that these things are what are being directly undermined. As humans we have for example a built in fear of what is now called FOMO; if the tribe was doing something and you weren't, your survivability was directly threatened. That's why it feels bad to be lonely, and good to be part of a mob. Facebook has weaponised human urges that operate below the level of rational thought. It's targeting the Intel Management Engine of our brains.

> The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control.

I'd agree with you if it was firmly established that all people have full, conscious agency. But the very existence of compulsive behavior personalities and addiction demonstrates that agency is unequally distributed.

While person A may easily be able to walk away from the dopamine bar by sheer force of will, person B may not. Person A's problem is surely with self-discipline, but person B's problem is with the dopamine bar.

You are 100% right, of course. I guess we still need more evolution.

>The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control.

I think we need to have the self-awareness to acknowledge that humans are falliable, chemical creatures and that companies like Facebook are exploiting that in ways that are unethical and beyond most people's ability to adequately deal with. Let's not blame the victim here.

TV shows, specially Netflix have this sense of clifhangers and addiction. But one you are out of the house or at work, you just don't watch it :) You watch one episode, maybe another and then you are on the go to do stuff.

Social media with their superduper optimized notifications and timelines are especially designed to pull you out of work and focus to let a little more of that "oh new gif baby falling over" or "Oh another person liked photo of baguette I had for lunch, that makes 2, sweet" high. And it is east to just switch tab and write Face+Enter...

I think the difference is it's a little easier to control other forms of "screen time". That other stuff is pure entertainment and they don't have the addictive aspect of a feed.

I dunno man, some games are really fucking addictive these days. Especially with some of the abusive gambling mechanics.

I would argue staunchly, that Fortnite (PS4 online version) is every bit as "addictive" as a FB feed. Ultimately, all they provide are shots of dopamine.

I think maybe it's because you can't win at Facebook. All the other forms of entertainment give you a sense of satisfaction on completion. Facebook is the complete opposite. It doesn't end and you can't really win at it. That's great from a commercial perspective but utterly unfulfilling for the user.

I try to give my kids alternatives, or get them interested in other things. It bothers me when I've seen parents get angry because their kid is gaming constantly, especially when they are sitting there looking at their phone all night long. If that's all that they ever do, it's probably because they've watched you waste time every night.

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