I highly recommend the book Hooked by Nir Eyal[0]. It is the book that effortlessly detailed how to build short form video networks (as well as other addicting software over the last 10+ years). The people who built this stuff read it and the people who want to stop the addictions should read it.
I apologize for what is doubtless egregious projection on my part.
I am like you in the sense that I seem "immune" to TikTok/Reels, especially relative to my wife, who can definitely get sucked into it for 30-60 minutes. However, I'm easily-snared by things like "the last year of drama in the NixOS community". I can easily spend an hour I don't have reading forum threads in which people are accusing moderators of abusing their position in a forum about a piece of technology I don't use.
So in some sense the tech industry didn't need to "innovate" in order to suck me in. I was getting sucked into reading about web forum drama 20 years ago.
I often spend way more time on those.
Each one 3-5 lines. Hundreds of comments in a near endless list.
I don’t think HN is that different compared to other social media
Of course, long term I know time spent this way is mostly wasted for the value I get out of it.
It’s no different than traditional social media, except in intensity. It’s less intense, because of its text-based format as opposed to video, the clickbait-resistant culture, and the fact that while it’s very large, it’s not infinite. You can consume the top page under half an hour and there are only so many stories posted here a day.
Depending on where you are in the AuDHD spectrum, you can be as addicted to HN as a teenager with 7hrs daily Instagram usage. pg acknowledges this.
This forum is addicting to a lot of people. There are also clickbait titles (though less than elsewhere), heated debates, even flamewars in the comments.
Most of the YouTube and short-form content doesn't inspire anything like that. The "job" is to sit and watch the content for 30 seconds and repeat. Almost every form of "engagement" is to manipulate the audience into "doing the algorithm".
I think they have differences that are significant.
People do project their general behaviour patterns on social media regardless of the form, though some forms are more malleable to that than others.
Well, in that case, I need some sources. For example, I'm not convinced that people project on social media to the extent that you're implying they do. It's a statement that needs support (which you didn't provided).
I am confident that you are able to find those sources, then we'll be able to talk about it on a common ground!
As for evidence for people actually miss old Twitter, sorry I can't prove to you I have friends who mention that multiple times a month. You can take it for what it is (someone sharing their experience) or you can assume that I'm making this up for the sake of a throwaway internet conversation. Your choice.
> People do project their general behaviour patterns on social media regardless of the form
I need sources (not examples!) that demonstrate that people project their general behavioral patterns on social media.
I also need sources (not examples!) that demonstrate that this projection remains the same regardless of the form (video, text, etc).
Your line of reasoning implies that Twitter was one of the means for people to do that, and the reach lost by the dissolution of Twitter communities exemplifies this projection mechanism. It's a fair assumption, but not enough to prove that *general* behavior was present in such interations, nor that it works *regardless of form*. So, there's a lot to prove.
If I were to guess, I would say the case is much more specific, and the generalization does not hold water.
Good luck.
I decided to narrow the discussion to focus on being accurate, as you demanded. It surprises me that now you're not interested in it.
I've been trying to correct the algo but giving a down thumb to videos I don't want to watch but its not learning.