He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product"
That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.
It’s something I would have likely never met in my my career, but there is an amazing amount of social engineering going on a these places. 20 years ago if you got the odd group of students who did anything gaming related, it would typically be very nerdy, terribly executed and often a very socially awkward exam even for CS standards. These days it feels like I’m very likely examining a group of people out of which two or three are likely to be my executives in a decade if they chose to pursue a career in the public sector.
It’s really interesting how the humanities have crept in and in some way taken over, isn’t it? And all because we didn’t want to pay a coffees worth of money to have the online yellow pages. It’ll be even more interesting to see what happens to this sale of social engineering once legislation eventually catches on.
What we need is precisely the thing so many of us do not want: we need subscriptions. Subscriptions provide a buffer. They give a publisher room to breathe: he can predict what his next month will look like; he can model what his next year will look like; and he can allocate his resources appropriately. The problem is that subscriptions are high-friction, and cannot compete with ad-driven ‘free’ content and services.
The sort of ads that make the big bucks for companies like Google and even Facebook are niche or local firms buying very simple ads that let people know they exist. Brand advertising on publisher websites is not the biggest source of value, and these tech firms started out by trying to get rid of it entirely. AdSense's entire reason for existence was to chip away at the terrible brand ads that littered the web beforehand, and of course, those are the only kind of ads that you get on other media so they above all others have done more to rid the world of that kind of thing.
Publishers can use subscriptions today if they want to. That's no solution to psychological manipulation. Look at how many cable or satellite TV news channels there are which spend all day trying to create as much outrage and hate as possible, all paid for by subscription.
I haven't watched it but the documentary is probably junk. Seeing the Sundance Festival logo and reading the blurb is enough to get the gist of what it'll be like - a bunch of social activists who want you to feel weak, useless, sheep-like and filled with hate towards people who dare to make and give you useful services. No thanks.
Watch the film. The speakers are mostly ex-employees of the big tech firms.
Your take is completely incorrect, unsurprisingly, given you haven’t even seen it.
I have a strong bias against any sort of automatically recurring charge. In some ways I'm very illogical about it--yearly subscriptions like Amazon Prime or my VPN aren't too bad because I can see the cost and not worry about it for a while. But I've just been trained through experience to see anything monthly (or less) as a way to disguise the real cost through stretching it out (even if I can easily do the arithmetic and see the annual cost.
Regardless, knowing about the potential for abusing the data compiled on my behavior is enough to make me feel a bit "icky" or mildly uneasy. It's enough to make me avoid using anything from Facebook, for example. But it's not enough to keep me from checking my subs on YouTube or using Google navigation when I drive somewhere new.
If it was as simple as paying $100/year to use Google services without data collection it would be easy, but then what stuff would stop working? A good bit of the usefulness of Google nav or whatever comes from how it collects usage data or ties in with my calendar to remind me when I need to leave to make it to an appointment on time.
And then what about all of the other things I interact with that collect data? Do I need to figure out what they all are and pay them a yearly fee as well? What about the ones who decide it's still easier and more profitable to skip the whole thing and keep making their money by profiling my behavior?
Instead, I end up avoiding Facebook properties, blocking ads, never using rewards cards, trying to ignore the OG offenders (credit card companies), and still feeling uneasy about all the info being analyzed about me daily.
God, this is when the lawyers get involved! YUCK!
Simple economics tells you that this will never happen. Companies simply have much more money to spend than consumers do.
Indeed, if you ban “ads”, companies will simply invest in “non-ads” to influence your behaviour - fake news, real news (more-or-less thinly veiled PR disguised as news, a la Paul Graham’s “submarine”) or buying whole news outfits (hint hint Bezos).
The only way to stop competition in marketing is to (re-)start competition in product / technology - but that seems a very difficult problem (we’re in the midst of a physics/tech stagnation).
Isn't this the definition (or goal) of all advertising? I don't see the connection to the first half of the statement tying it to free products and services.
There are plenty of paid services that are riddled with ads as well. Movies, Cable TV, airline flights, etc. The fact is that people and organizations are _constantly_ trying to influence your behavior. It's not obvious that's only a bad thing.
They want you perpetually in the state of looking into a rabbit hole rather than feeling that you are satisfied with your knowledge of something and ready to move on with your life.
The fact that we bring our phone everywhere, that there are push notifications, and that we interact with other people (often friends) makes it fundamentally different from a TV or a magazine.
How is this different than any other kind of media like TV, magazines, newspapers, etc.? All of them are trying to make their product engaging so that you consume more of their media and more of their ads. Just because those services also charge a subscription fee, doesn't change the dynamics of what they're trying to do. Social media has maybe just been more successful in doing so, partially because
> The fact that we bring our phone everywhere, that there are push notifications
So the dynamics have always existed in previous platforms, it's just been ratcheted up to a higher level with social media.
Imagine two villages. In one of them, it is customary to drink a glass of wine with dinner. On holidays, two.
The other village has a habit of drinking themselves stupid every single evening with gin.
Now: this is really only a difference in quantity. Both are consuming alcohol for pleasure. But the first village will probably be OK; there are tons of such villages in France, Spain and Greece, where people live to be 90.
The second village has a huge, deadly problem.
And things change a lot with scale. Even if the intent or the principle is the same, dynamics are different if it is in a scale orders of magnitude larger.
I don’t think we should be dismissing new understandings of how social media affect our lives on the grounds that other media in the past tried to do the same.
With broadcast media, you can turn off the TV, radio, or put down the magazine. The social punishment cost of this is limited - If someone asked you about current affairs or the latest show etc, you might have to deal with being out of the loop.
But with smartphones and social media, everyone's a content publisher and it's all intertwined. Stepping back/checking out has a much higher social cost as you're not reachable and you're gonna miss those life updates from friends and family if you're not sitting on the same communication channels as them.
I remember a friend saying the "optimization is killing us". The whole economy is getting better at what it does and as it happens there are many side effects.
Those with no ethics will manage to harvest the social media technology for their profit and not for society. It applies also to taxes where companies are getting master at dodging them. Liers are getting masters at lying and we have to fight to rebuke the lies (the documentary has a quote about how much more effort is required to fight disinformation than to create it)
He also argues that optimization is poison to yourself ! But that's off subject.
So most companies aren't optimizing for a goal of "maximize our pockets AND maximize world happiness AND maximize the value our users get from us" with a proviso to not optimize too hard, so that unknown but desirable values that aren't expressed in the goal function don't get optimized away. No, they just optimize for "maximize our pockets", and do it hard. And when they do it like this, any sense of ethics or dignity is one of the first to fly out of the window.
Similarly, the optimization being "poison to yourself" is not as much a danger of optimization per se - wanting to improve yourself is a useful and noble desire! The problems usually start when you focus on a narrow goal too hard, to the exclusion of everything else in your life.
As for the market and how things are: my belief is that we're in a tipping point where the market, as an optimizer, is getting out of control and needs to be reined in. It's worth remembering that the main force behind market optimization is competition - I'll find a new trick to undercut you, you'll find a new trick to undercut me further, etc. until we reach diminishing returns, and the price of goods/services settles at barely above costs. Here are things I strongly believe to be true (and rather self-evident) about competition:
1) In a competitive environment, once one party figures out a trick that gives them advantage, everyone else has to do the same or risk getting outcompeted.
2) You don't have to compete only on production efficiency - you can also compete on quality (in the direction of getting away with lower quality for the same, or slightly lower, price), on business models, on ethics (any ethical principle you can skirt will open up new avenues for free profit), on advertising, on adherence to laws, etc.
So over the past centuries, the market had a lot of low-hanging fruits to pick. New materials, new processes, economies of scale, innovations in transport - all allowed to provide better goods for less. But now, I believe, we've run out of these easy wins - most competition happens on the grounds of lowering quality, business models (Everything as a Service, DRM, razor-and-blades, etc.), ethics (see e.g. social media companies), advertising (better RoI than making marginally better product), legality (Ubers and AirBnBs of the world running on a "break laws, and use VC money to keep regulators at bay until the market is cornered and competitors are destroyed").
The market is no longer optimizing us for giving us best possible goods at lowest possible price. Instead, it gives us worst sellable crap at highest possible price, by tacking on hidden and indirect costs.
That's why I'm increasingly in favor of regulating some business models out of existence - particularly the ad-subsidized everything, razor-and-blades everything, and "move fast and break laws" ones. The market's role in society is to make our lives better. The market has optimized past that. So the easy and socially destructive tricks need to be cut off, so that the market can return to optimizing for betterment of consumers.
That's not the case.
Consider the purest examples: Google routinely incorporates factors beyond short term profit into their ranking functions. For instance they ranked SSL using websites higher than non-SSL using websites, to encourage use of encryption. The ads "quality score" system penalises advertisers whose ads appear to be low quality, defined by users not finding them useful. The constant shovelling of social justice themes into the search engine homepage.
The biggest problem these firms have is that they are not focused exclusively on maximising profit. Profit is an excellent metric! It is the sum of all the happiness and utility you are creating across all your customer and userbase, minus effort expended, in a single quantifiable number. Think of all the happiness created by Apple, Amazon, Google and yes even Facebook and Twitter. Hundreds of millions of people use the services of these firms, often for free, and they use it because they like it.
The problem big tech firms have is they explicitly got on board with "let's maximize world happiness" as a goal. Dumb dumb dumb. Nobody agrees what world happiness is, but there sure are a lot of activists who will always be convinced you're not doing enough about it. Once you go down that path you'll never stop walking, and the further you walk, the more abusive the activists get. It's so subjective and unquantifiable you can never tell if you've done enough.
my belief is that we're in a tipping point where the market, as an optimizer, is getting out of control and needs to be reined in
Isn't that just a classical Marxist or Malthusian collapse proposal? People have been predicting that capitalism will somehow collapse in on itself for hundreds of years, it never has because it's a fundamentally natural, evolved and stable system. The alternatives, not so much.
I think this trivializes the problem. The issue isn't that these things have existed for ages and are simply getting better, the problem is that we have gone from mass-marketing designed to appeal to a broad audience to personalized marketing designed to appeal to just you. With that in place, the more data that gets collected about you, the more precise the message delivery can be. The more sophisticated the algorithms that input all that data get, the more susceptible you'll be to their messaging because they are designed to capitalize on human psychological weaknesses.
In many countries, TV is highly regulated: can't advertise for alcohol or cigarettes, political speech time is measured to make sure each "camp" get the same exposure, etc.
There's no such thing on social media.
Same goes for Uber, Airbnb & co, by the way, although this is easier to regulate.
> Isn't this the definition (or goal) of all advertising? I don't see the connection to the first half of the statement tying it to free products and services.
I believe it was "the product is the 'ability' to change your behavior"
So the difference here is that not only the sell it but it actually works because it can adapt to the people in realtime. This is probable what is scary..
Standard advertisement is already manipulation but it's more easy to know when it is advertisement (though it's arguable that there are also tricks to get around this for TV).
In my view it is indeed the advertisement industry going too far and being allowed anything. Social Media just build a product for its client and none of them have any doubt and limits when it comes to choosing between profits and ethics.
Advertisement is ok when it is honest and not manipulative.
In addition the product is sold for politics which is even more scary.
There are regulation in many countries about what's allowed or not in advertisement. In some cases it's not allowed to blatantly lie. Or it is not allowed to hide advertisement as content, etc...
It is possible to forbid micro-targetting and manipulative AI algorithms or other methods. Users & Regulators need to understand what is being done, and how the effects are harmful to society.
https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/history
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
There is a difference between someone telling you Band A is good, and someone hooking you on drugs and promising more drugs if you buy Band B.
- This is human to human communication, not an optimised algorithm.
- People here are not sending you 10 comments and looking at the one which you engaged the most time, because they don't have the metrics. Social media knows how many seconds you looked at a post and classify it with AI, they can make a profile of your current sentiment.
- The poster probably didn't analyse your whole past discussion history with algorithms before answering in a way that would be best calibrated for your way of thinking.
Interactions, discussions between people, even conflictual (not violent), are fine. Communication is fine. Mass communication is mostly fine (traditional advertising, broadcast...). What's not fine is manipulating people by mass-communicating while adjusting the message given metadata that those people are not even aware about.
I think for Facebook to be more effective than humans at influencing behavior, they have to implement theory of mind, which might require AGI.
That's the scary thing. Facebook is good enough at influencing someone, but they do it for half the population of the world simultaneously.
- I can suggest you're biased
- I can try to change the subject
- I can decide you're a bad person for holding the "wrong" views
- I can directly argue against your point
- I can attack the structure of your argument
- I can make an emotional appeal regarding why I must hold my point of view
- etc ....
In these and other ways, I can push back and modify how much I'm influenced by a one-to-one argument. I won't always be successful, for sure. But sometimes as well the persuasion go will go the other way, and I will influence you.
This is not true on social media because another power is dictating which one-to-one conversations may happen in the first place, and then loading the deck with idea before those one-to-one conversations even happen. Further, social media changes the scale of communications. If we worked together, and saw each other regularly, we could mediate each other's influence, place boundaries, etc. With social media, there is always a crowd of strangers: too many people converse with, know, and set boundaries with.
There are obviously other distinctions between one-to-one conversation and social media, but I particularly wanted to talk about the key differences here: lack of real back and forth, and scale.
As a person, you can get better at convincing people of course, and masses of people even - humanity has gone through that with ups and downs. Now we have a system that's working totally differently. From example, I remind reading that many conspiracists build distance with their friends and family as they close themselves to in-person discussion or any argumentation not fitting their views.
Also, what about books? Ideas? Film.
IMHO people are too complicated, and situations too situation specific to be able to generalize about how someone is influenced.
Sometimes people ignore the advice of those close to them, sometimes they don't, and, it probably depends on the subject being discussed, the particular relationship between the people, the state of mind of the person in question, and so on.
Put another way: if your friend came to you and started manipulating and pressuring you the way ads do, for the reason ads do, they'd very quickly stop being your friend.
Apple trying to sell me an iPhone claiming it's more secure and more privacy respecting might be true so if buy one it's a win-win if (a) it is true and (b) I actually wanted those features.
> Advertising beyond the point of informing that a product exists is exploitative
Okay, so, Apple showing silhouettes dancing was exploitative? The should only say "we made a device, it plays music, it's this size, the batteries last this long"?
Was the 1984 ad exploitive? I'm just trying to think of famous ads. Is the Ikea add "Time To Leave Home" ad exploitive?
I guess I don't see them as win-lose.
Sure, it's a win-win if the features match your needs. And a win-win would be Apple making the claim, listing the privacy features of their new iPhone, along with honest arguments why these features protect your privacy better than competition. I absolutely do not mind things like that - it's the socially-useful purpose of advertising: informing people about products and their features, so that individuals can pick the best solution to their problems.
It's only when advertising tries to override individual's agency when I consider them bad. And note that purposefully and covertly overriding someone's decision making capability is a malicious behavior, and very rarely justifiable.
> The should only say "we made a device, it plays music, it's this size, the batteries last this long"?
Would it be bad if they did only that?
> Was the 1984 ad exploitive?
Of course. While it's nothing compared to today's ads, it still tried to sell you a computer by tricking your mind with completely irrelevant references to 1984 and the feelings it evoked. It tried to override your capability for thinking, by sneaking in an emotional payload.
> Is the Ikea add "Time To Leave Home" ad exploitive?
It's a fun comedy sketch, but again: it tries to use an emotional payload to get you into the market for furniture and think of IKEA in particular (and make it a first association in your mind, over competitors).
Look at it from this point of view: imagine you live in a small town, and there are two small-time shops building and selling farming widgets. Would you want them to spend all their energy and innovation capacity one-upping each other in comedy stand-ups on the storefront, or would you prefer them to focus on designing better farming widgets?
c) you need a phone in the first palce d) you need a USD1200 phone in the first place
Context and details matter. As does intent. Saying that all discussion is really "influencing", isn't useful, imho.
In the context of our discussion about Facebook, IMHO these are the defining qualities specific to Facebook:
1. Massive, global scale and scope - behavior via Facebook can influence culture, politics, etc.
2. An algorithm driving the bus, as opposed to people (albeit people choose what the algorithm does or doesn't do).
3. Facebook's primary motivation in influencing is to profit via increased user engagement - they currently have no financial incentive to care about the particular nature of said engagement.
4. Facebook's poor track record when it comes to acknowledging critique or concerns around the power its platform has, and Facebook's denial that it should exercise a degree of responsiblity (or be legally held accountable in some way) for said power.
5. The somewhat covert nature of how Facebook functions; as this documentary shows, while how Facebook functions may have been "in the open", it's not something most non-tech folk are aware of, and it's not something Facebook has been, in good faith, forthright and transparent about.
6. The particular power and impact of computers/the internet as a medium of mass communication, which we are still learning about.
6.5 As a subsection of item 6, the viral nature of the internet/social media which means stuff spreads very quickly, unlike other modes or media of human communication.
So sure, a parent "influences" their child, a teacher influences a student, newspapers influence people, and so do Coca-Cola commercials, but not the same way that Facebook has "influence", which I've attempted to describe above.
But to compare it to what has been proven to be possible via social media is absurd.
Now when tech similar to GPT-3 gets out there it’s going to be like hunting rifle vs atomic weapons. Pretty soon we will have what I am calling “mechanized con artistry.” We are almost literally inventing the medieval demon whispering into everyone’s ear. Mass surveillance plus big data plus generative AI will be like the hydrogen bomb of propaganda.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-3
Unsettling indeed.
Even with my parents, we always arrange a time via messaging first.
I don't have social media, barely text (my plan has 100 texts per month), and hardly talk by phone (100 minutes per month). However, I have multiple friends and family that can claim that I'm the only one to have ever come to visit them at their house. This is either so strange or such a positive impact on them that I somehow hear it from other friends/family even though I'm surrounded by ether. The moral of the story, the ether isn't as thick as you think and the vast majority of people's "social interactions" are so shallow that showing up to a friend's door to drop off a bottle of wine will be a highlight of their year.
Probably not uncommon as Whatsapp was at first widely used outside the US or for folks living in the US to be in touch with family abroad.
Very often one person is not able to change an entire family dynamic. Sure, they could not use WhatsApp, but then they’d rarely talk with their family!
Point being, we don’t know the poster’s specific circumstances enough to offer any sort of informed critique.
That said, the question of generalizing from the poster’s experience is, imho, a valid one.
If we want to get all analytical about it, that’s my two cents ;).
Which is to say, my opinion is barely worth the paper it’s written on.
And since this is all on a screen ... ;)
These days, in many worlds countries, especially in Asia. In those places, WhatsApp is also a primary venue for business communication and vital human interaction like setting up job interviews, doctors' appointments and pretty much any other communication with other humans.
Sorry, but your point comes across as horribly oblivious - criticizing usage of WhatsApp is one thing, but acting like it hasn't become a critical part of society structure just shows a major failure of looking outside your bubble.
I live pretty well without any personal social media. I call friends and family often, while being mindful of their time. Voice calls are wonderful.
I use email and messages as well, but the voice call is the big component. Generation-wise, it is from 7yrs old (nieces) to 90yrs old (no surprise there; oldies love to chat).
This is a very real behavioral mechanism which was essential to human survival as early as the paleolithicum and the emergence of the first hominid species. Not belonging to a tribe meant being exposed to hardships that you might not survive.
Feeling lonely is part of that mechanism. That's your subconscious kicking you into high gear and go seek companionship in order to ensure your chances to survive as an individual.
Kurz Gesagt explains this dynamic in more detail. [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Xv_g3g-mA
Modern technology, industrialisation and social advancements in healthcare, politics, law enforcement and agriculture have created circumstances in which you don't need to physically belong to a tribe 24/7 in order to survive. You can perfectly live alone and have your basic needs covered.
However, that drive for social connection is still there. That's hard wired into us. And that's what social media companies are exploiting.
Fear of missing out is exactly that. You don't want to be "out of the loop", you don't want to miss out on what's going on, you don't want to find yourself "outside" of a group. Think about how it was when you were in school, and you found out your friends had a get-together over the weekend and you weren't invited: it totally sucked. Well, that's basically that primitive part of your brain kicking into high gear, warning you that your survival may be at stake.
12 years ago, few people were on social media. And the vast majority of your friends contacted each other via cell phones, e-mail or MSN and such. You were less likely to miss out because you knew that the available channels didn't cater to 24/7 real time action with video and audio, plugging you in the middle of the action remotely.
Today, that's totally different. Modern communication is literally that: 24/7 high intense social contacts with video/photo/audio fragmented across dozens of group chats, group calls,.. and dozens of channels to keep track off.
Net result? Studies indicate an increased prevalence in anxiety, depression, loneliness, suicide, self harm and so on. There's a clear correlation between the two. As is shown in the documentary.
The trade off of weaning off from all of that, for many, is having to battle with and against those engrained behavioural changes that make one grasp for their smartphone every other minute. And that's, basically, the very definition of addiction.
Moreover, unlike other addictions, there's a very real chance that if you don't look at your smartphone for a day that, yes, you will miss out on information the in-crowd - peers at school, friends, co-workers with watercooler talk,... - deems important to know.
But if so, being enlightened about the failures and limits of human psychology certainly would constitute a tribe of its own, no? Because it seems to be en vogue to have simple explanations. FOMO is more connected to the fear of the unknown and fear of loss in my opinion. A "tribe" would shield you of course, but it is mostly a sign of other needs not being met. Advertisers use it to their advantage for decades. Some appeal to their audiences to be the source of other peoples FOMOs. "think different" instead of "stay connected".
There are less suicides than in the 90s. That there is a suicide epidemic is a media scare. The main factor reducing the numbers seem to be economic perspectives, not some facebook group where taste was made illegal.
A much worse effect is that social media seems to push questionable characters in focus. Naive viewers and exploitative "influencers" can do quite some damage.
It's difficult to compare suicide over time because the method of counting changes, sometimes drastically.
Well, kurzgesagt back their statements with references to academic research:
https://sites.google.com/view/sourcesloneliness/startseite
They also vet their videos with experts and are transparent in their methodology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtUAAXe_0VI&vl=ar
> Yes, there are factors or mechanisms that drive your desire for belonging, but it is a pretty unconvincing observation. It doesn't have to be tribalism to prefer being around people you trust.
Why would you assume that I didn't consider other explanations?
> FOMO is more connected to the fear of the unknown and fear of loss in my opinion.
In what way wouldn't "the fear of the unkown" or "the fear of loss" be less connected with the fear of likely missing crucial parts of the conversations your social network is having?
e.g. you might miss out hearing about a party, where someone makes an personal announcement (e.g. getting married, moving to another country,...). So, now your friends have a shared experience of having heard the news first hand that you aren't part of.
> A "tribe" would shield you of course, but it is mostly a sign of other needs not being met. Advertisers use it to their advantage for decades. Some appeal to their audiences to be the source of other peoples FOMOs. "think different" instead of "stay connected".
What "other needs" are these?
> There are less suicides than in the 90s.
How is the number of suicides 30 years ago relevant to a dynamic observed over the course of the past 15 years?
> That there is a suicide epidemic is a media scare.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db362.htm [2] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml [3] https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/
The exaggerating wording you're using here hints towards minimizing the issue, rather then a willingness on your part to acknowledge that social media usage and mental health are a public health concern.
> The main factor reducing the numbers seem to be economic perspectives, not some facebook group where taste was made illegal.
... but also seems to correlate with social media usage. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Look, we both know that establishing definitive observations on something as sensitive as suicide is hard. It's widely understood that suicide is underreported, and in many cases it's quite hard to establish exactly what compelled individuals to commit suicide.
The documentary equally stated that there's a correlation between increased social media usage after 2007 and an increase in suicide rate. But that's as far as it goes. In and of itself, I think that's compelling enough to warrant paying attention to.
Finally, this is touching upon a serious mental health issue, there was absolutely no need to make your comment sound as dismissive as it did.
https://ourworldindata.org/suicide
I didn't say social media usage isn't a public health concern, there are many things that drive addiction. Social media use is convenient and it doesn't expose you to risks. Perfect for any form of escapism.
I doubt suicide is underreported. There are certainly cases misattributed, cases of attempts are excluded perhaps, but concluding something on that assumption seems premature.
I still remain convinced that a lack of perspectives in life is probably a main cause. Maybe social media paints a wrong or a more realistic light, but it is probably not the source of increased suicide.
I specifically criticized the explanation about tribalism. It seems wrong and isn't underlined anywhere.
> In what way wouldn't "the fear of the unkown" or "the fear of loss" [...]
People have the fear that people are bonding while they are absent. Mostly the same sources that are the foundations of envy.
> What "other needs" are these?
Fulfilling companionship or friendship for example.
I think this is a case where the conclusion "social media sucks" was determined before the analysis of issues.
> How is the number of suicides 30 years ago relevant to a dynamic observed over the course of the past 15 years?
To have a reference. Especially if we only have social media for 15 years, it is self evident to lock back a few more years.
This is not a credible source for suicide data.
> I doubt suicide is underreported. There are certainly cases misattributed, cases of attempts are excluded perhaps, but concluding something on that assumption seems premature.
There are lots of complicated reasons why suicide may be under-reported.
In the US the work to get standard definitions, in the NVDRS, to be used across the country is relatively recent. This document is from 2011.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Self-Directed-Vio...
> Despite the large volume of data on certain types of SDV, the utility and reproducibility of the resulting information is sometimes questionable. Mortality data are problematic for several reasons: geographical differences in the definition of suicide and how equivocal cases are classified; jurisdictional differences in the requirements for the office of coroner or medical examiner affecting the standard of proof required to classify a death as a suicide; and differences in terms of the extent to which potential suicides are investigated to accurately determine cause of death.18 The quality of the data on nonfatal suicidal behavior is even more problematic than that of suicides. The concerns about discrepancies in nomenclature19-23 and accurate reporting11,24 apply here even more than with suicides. Also, except for rare exceptions there is neither systematic nor mandatory reporting of nonfatal suicidal behavior in the United States at the state or local level, nor is there routine systematic collection of non-suicidal intentional self harm data.
> These “system” problems with data collection have been discussed for more than a generation. Over 35 years ago, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) convened a conference on suicide prevention at which a committee was charged with recommending a system for defining and communicating about suicidal behaviors.25 More recently, two scientific reviews that addressed the state of suicide-related research also remarked on the need for consistent definitions. The Institute of Medicine issued a report entitled Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative.4 This report states ”Research on suicide is plagued by many methodological problems... definitions lack uniformity,...reporting of suicide is inaccurate.” “There is a need for researchers and clinicians in suicidology to use a common language or set of terms in describing suicidal phenomena.” The World Health Organization issued the World Report on Violence and Health.2 In the chapter addressing self-directed violence the authors note “Data on suicide and attempted suicide should be valid and up to date. There should be a set of uniform criteria and definitions and – once established – these should be consistently applied and continually reviewed.”
"It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.”
So all it really does is sell the promise.
They’re services, and, even more so, should be a service bound by a medical code of ethics, which, since the healing professions go way back, imho makes therapy and counseling distinct from many other services.
:)
At least in Portuguese and Spanish, both advertisement and propaganda are simply "propaganda".
I once read an original edition of Bernays' Propaganda (1928) with its title in a jaunty typeface on the cover, before the word had a negative connotation.
Pic of its cover here: https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/edward--bernays/p...
In sum, the "users" are the ones paying for the costs of this particular advertising vector (the internet and web).
1. In most cases. There are exceptions where original authors can get a cut of Google/Facebook's take.
"that we are the product being sold to advertisers is too simplistic. It is the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behaviour and perception that is the product."
Yes manipulation is also the goal of all advertising, however the power to manipulate is not mostly in the hands of advertisers. The platform owners wield tremendous power and can decide what gets shown when and what gets priority over what. It means their political leanings influence people whether or not those advertise on the platform. We've never had this kind of concentration of power over the collective mind I think.
Yes its benign taken out of that context.
In the context of social media and tech, this is no longer the case, or it is the case that people are not comfortable with its untrammeled evolution and utilization.
http://www.jaronlanier.com/ if you're interested in more. He was an early pioneer in VR tech, and is a person with generally interesting ideas. He is more known today for his critiques of the tech industry and Silicon Valley culture.
Mine was seeing the AI / algorithm visualized as 3 humans trying to figure out what the best plan of action was to make you engage.
That really made me think about how it's another group of humans out there trying to take time away from me for the sole purpose of making their company more money. That's a much stronger mental image than a vague algorithm that we all knew existed.
That concept of the documentary alone made it worth watching.
- startup founders, that could apply to YC
- investors, that could invest in YC companies
- potential customers for YC companies
- potential employees for YC companies
HN brings all of these people into a YC controlled community, and gets them thinking about YC frequently. It’s outstanding marketing, and like all great content marketing, it also provides value to the people being marketed to.
> In any case, the basic dynamic is interesting: the less you pay for things directly, the more power you give up to those who do. The abstraction is largely symbolic for ads (consumers pay advertisers in higher product costs), but apparently where and when money exchanges hands matters to who ultimately has influence.
Perhaps in the US time zone :). I read and comment mostly when EU is awake, and I assure you, I haven't seen a place more deeply cynical and reserved about tech startups than HN (and having the reasons and reasoning to back the cynicism up) :).
I wonder if anyone did an analysis of how HN sentiments change during the day, as people from different parts of the world are participating?
An apartment building I once lived in had free candy in the lobby sometimes. I rather doubt it was driven by any measurable profits for them by doing it.
That's true of all media. Doesn't matter if you pay for it or not. Even netflix. Even this post.
What is the "documentary" trying to achieve? Change behavior.
Who is behind the social media campaign?
"Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24468533
> That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.
Just as insidious are "documentaries". They are just as sneaky and agenda driven as facebook algorithms.
What is Instagram? Is it a tool for sharing photos, or is a social engineering experiment intended to increase competitive anxiety and narcissism?
What is Facebook? Is it a way to stay in touch with friends and family, or is it a social engineering experiment designed to promote "engagement" through ever-increasing political and emotional extremism?
If I want to make a documentary I can use the camera in my cellphone and maybe a cheap lapel microphone, buy some cheap studio lights, and edit it with cheap software. The research would be harder to buy, but still not impossible for someone with good basic journalism skills.
If it's not defamatory I can post it on YouTube. If it's solid journalism with an original and interesting angle there's even a fair chance I'll be able to sell it a media network.
If I want to create my own global social network - that's a slightly more challenging project.
Except that the masses believe "documentaries" = truth. I know I did when I was younger. No documentary claims to be "agenda ridden 'movie' from biased individuals funded by even more biased individuals".
> If it's not defamatory I can post it on YouTube. If it's solid journalism with an original and interesting angle there's even a fair chance I'll be able to sell it a media network.
Except that you still depend on social media. You depend on youtube or netflix to give you preferential treatment.
> If I want to create my own global social network - that's a slightly more challenging project.
It's also challenging to get the money, not only produce the film, but get netflix to it special treatment and of course buy the "ad" push we see on social media ( ironically enough ).
"The Social Dilemma" isn't just a "documentary". It's a part of a well funded propaganda campaign. There is obviously political and financial backing for this behind the scenes. Not that I'm against the sentiment because social media monopolies or any monopolies are a threat to society. And I also include netflix as a monopoly threat.
But you could describe this as propaganda with anti social media agenda. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but this argument can easily be flipped and feels a bit like going no true Scotsman [0] since there very much are documentations (as listed) with doubtful or undefined intent.
But will the filmmakers profit if they succeed? They don't make any money by successfully changing your mind.
> there are pork chops futures, oil futures, and now human futures.
This is so full of sense in all degrees.
To be honest, "Even if you're paying you are the product too".[0,1]
[0] https://time.com/5596033/lawsuit-apple-selling-itunes-listen...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/28/its-mid...
Is there an industry anywhere that is not in the business of influencing behavior or actions? Why do you think that doesn't apply to news, education, healthcare, whatever?
When I go to the doctor I understand the scope and goals of my healthcare provider. I'm not surprised when my behaviors are changed to enhance my health.
When the average person uses social media to connect with friends they aren't informed on the scope or goals of the social media provider. When I RSVP to a birthday party I only expect that my response will be sent -- I don't expect that I'll have birthday gifts suggested to me or have my relationships tracked by surveillance organizations.
Are you sure about that? The fact that I have to sometimes argue for a test, and their counter argument isn't "the test isn't useful or even worse", but rather "the test is expensive" makes me wonder what their goal is. I'm paying for the test (or my insurance is), aren't I? It seems they're trying to optimize for something, but I'm not sure if its my health.
From an evidence-based medicine standpoint, how likely are those tests to actually optimize your health?
Many people struggle to make ends meet, so it makes sense to avoid superfluous medical costs. If you tell your healthcare provider that money is no object I'd imagine that they'd be able to weigh the financial aspect more accurately.
Customers of social media are showing up for pictures of grandkids and are receiving disinformation & outrage, because that content hacks the brain & will ensure the eyeballs come back more reliably, and for longer.
We tend to underestimate the influence advertising (and media, etc.) have on us, but are relatively objective in observing the effects of advertising on other people, society, and such. Being influenced by advertising reads as being duped to most people, and we resist this conclusion.
This is a little different to many subjects, where we tend to empathize more with examples that have us as the object.
I feel like it seems worthwhile to have an angle that doesn't dichotomize your actions into product/non-product ones; maybe you just act in a space orthogonal to it and/or use your understanding of it to inform yourself but aren't driven by needing to be product or non-product. Capitalizing on that last desire is I think how the language ends up becoming too much ends and not means.
This may or may not be related, because I'm finding it difficult to parse your comment.
Why can't we just have a frank discussion about advertising and privacy without this kind of manipulative language?
This sounds like fluff: appreciating the art, style, aesthetic of the work/entity we are talking to should be #1 goal.
Engaging in the appreciation of art is to jettison our judgement of the subject to focus on the choices “why” and “how.”
I don’t know if this groks with anyone else....that’s kinda part of it too.
The prospect of work being judged by peers negatively is the pain amplifier on all our hands.
There are some of us out there - good people that are just broken.
Their path has made them feel it as if it’s on all the time, and they are as unstable and judgemental as they arw talented.
I have no idea how to fix the broken - I am just trying to paint myself whole again, one human interaction at a time.
The key difference between network TV in the 80s and social media now is the former had content to offer. As such, you could call the ads supplemental. TV also has dual income streams: subscriptions and advertising.
A social media platform has no content to offer, except the content provided by its users. If you provide content for free and the company benefits through increased eyeballs and therefore ad revenue, in a sense you're an unpaid employee. That makes you the product as shorthand for you providing the product.
Based on main revenue streams, network TV is either in the entertainment or advertising sector (I haven't looked up the numbers), but social media are squarely in the advertising sector. That makes the user's data the product, and "you are the product" a totum pro parte.
I'm not sure why saying to people that their attention and subsequent changes in behaviours were the fundamental parts of entire markets would be conspiratorial, but I might be misunderstanding you.
1. Nielsen boxes were and are opt-in.
2. You were and are compensated for keeping one.
2. You are compensated by accessing an incredibly complex system and network for free where otherwise you would have to maintain or pay for some kind of infrastructure.
(I am playing the devil's advocate here because it is interesting to me to understand in what way other than granularity this would be any different from the way the media has been communicated to us for a long time)
I do question whether it's a problem. No one likes the idea of being manipulated, but... Aren't we being influenced by others all the time? What is really genuine and what is external influence?
Well worth reading stuff he wrote, of recordings of his past speeches, if you haven't done so already.
The doc was not awful, it's good to get people talking, but it was more one-sided than a facebook feed, which I found very ironic. Every well lit talking head had the same point of view, they presented their mic drop line and then there was no discussion, no counterpoint, no follow up.