Yes, as opposed to those, because it is so much more effective at that, that it becomes its own category, and not just an extension of age old tactics.
> It's ironic that an entity dependent on ad money would create such a title.
Why is that ironic? Getting people to watch ads, is not what this article is describing. It's the way they convince the brain that doing xyz is a sign of success.
Making people watch ads is a problem, but it's a totally different problem.
Can we really assume the social media we know today would exist in it's present state without advertising? I think it would be inconsiderate and wholly unimaginative at best to suggest that it would. I think separating the two is a mistake.
The internet forums I grew up with in the late 90s were, I would argue, nothing but healthy. They exposed me to worlds of encouragement and knowledge. The social media we have now seems to be no comparison.
"Making people watch ads" is not the problem with advertising. The problem is the existence it creates for ourselves. Advertising, at it's current levels in the US, dictates our whole conception of the world we live in. I wonder if many will ever realize this without studying humanities and working in the ad industry; two things that combined have depleted my faith in humanity unless we can reverse this grave mistake. To think this is just an issue of time lost sitting through ads is just a misunderstanding of what advertising in 2018 even is, or of how it defines the world you think you live in.
Yes, advertising is the motivation to do these tactics. But it's not the problem in and of itself. Any other time-based money maker could replace advertising and nothing would change.
That's an indication the problem does not lie there.
But I put that word "time-based" for a reason: If you make money not based on engagement, but at a fixed rate per person, some things would indeed change. But only to a point: After all they need people addicted in order to convince them to stay, and recommend to others.
So I partly agree with you, partly disagree :)
Moreover, the observed behavior is certainly not something new to our present time.
If anecdotal evidences are of any use, then I can relate my own childhood experience. I was truly obsessed with computers in my teens, and avoided talking to my parents. The only difference is that this happened 25 years ago in post-Soviet Russia.
We have burdened young humans, whose mental abilities are not fully developed, with a self-image permanently detached from interpersonal relationships. There is hard data on this[0][1].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcBJ2bQ4HHE [1] www.amazon.com/iGen-Super-Connected-Rebellious-Happy-Adulthood/dp/1501151983
So, advertising and entertainment are separate categories, and it's important to respond to them separately.
Entertainment does not present with ulterior motives in the way advertising does. There are a lot of blurry lines in this discussion, but I think they should be the focus. I think it's the manipulation in blurring the lines that we are really contending with. Entertainment does not generally present with blurry lines, but that's gradually changing, whereas advertising has been blurring the lines for far longer, and tech does so more through utility than anything else.
So, if entertainment is generally what it claims to be, advertising is more shape-shifting. As popular culture has subsumed it, logos have become decoration on clothing, brand names find themselves in pure art forms like musical lyrics, etc. and all the while serving to promote. It's easy to consider these conflations as notable chaos, but as long as it all remains conceivably easy to ignore (something I think Aristotle would readily debate), we consider it excusable.
Tech does not conflate the business intentions of it's product with entertainment like advertising does, but instead with something that is conceivably more difficult to ignore: utility. Social networking tools that the tech industry provide have become critical to a citizen's well-being. Getting a job that pays the bills generally means needing to promote one's self on social media. Even if it doesn't, one can never know if their insecurity is a result of avoiding thus, so they are by all accounts forced to participate. This goes quite a bit deeper than the repercussions of, say, modifications to T-Shirts and music. The utility of technology has a deeper correlation with civic duties and every-day utility. If it didn't, social media would unlikely seem so critical to adults, and teens alike.
It's important to remember how useful electronic communication is when discussing social media. There should be no debate over this. It's amazing.
And, I think it's worth asking if psychological damage of social media (assuming it exists) is exacerbated by advertising. The most obvious exacerbation is in funding through ad sales, and that can hardly be overstated. And such funding strategies probably undermine product design. But I think there's even more to it...
As we know, advertising abstracts our conceptions of who we are through archetypal narratives, and plays to the weaknesses of the self-identity problem. It does so in a purely intentional way. I worked in advertising for years, and this is what it's all about. But, I don't think that's how the tech industry works. It is providing unquestionable utility. But, an increase in communication can exacerbate the issues that undermined self-identity creates. So my point here is that I'm not sure this should all fall on tech, and I can't help but wonder if we need to shift all of the blame to advertising. This would at least give us an idea of where we stand.
> It's ironic that an entity dependent on ad money would create such a title.
No, it's not. As you say, they are dependent on ad money, which should not suggest they choose to be. I would assume quite the opposite. I would assume they would prefer integrity, and are aiming for such the best they know how. Again, it's the advertising.