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Comment by thierrydamiba | Hacker News Reader

What’s the difference between social media and books?

Or is your point that all entertainment is harmful to individuals and society?

Taking your questions at face value, the difference is incentives and feedback loops.

Books are static. They do not watch you, adapt to you in real time, or optimize themselves to keep you reading at any cost. Social media does. It measures behavior, runs constant experiments, and tunes feeds to maximize engagement, often by amplifying outrage, fear, or tribalism.

You are comparing apple to oranges. Social media posts are static, don’t watch you etc. But the distribution platform does all these things.

In books it’s exactly the same thing: do not believe for one second that the publishing industry does not watch engagement metrics (aka: sales) and does not adapt to the taste of the market. It’s also tuned to maximize outrage; see how popular unauthorized biographies of polarizing figures have become - who is next on Walter Isaacson list ? I am betting Trump must be somewhere there and it’s gonna be a banger.

Anybody who has meaningfully engaged with short-form dynamically adapted video content and read a book can EASILY tell the difference. It is Morphine vs Fentanyl

>What’s the difference between social media and books?

I am struggling to believe that this was asked in good faith.

Well, it’s a good example of social media’s negative externalities.

If we just take this idea in good faith one could make the point that social media and books are more similiar than they appear. They both end up in escapism. They both can teach or entertain. They both are mostly anti-social.

The difference in form increases effectiveness but in the end they are a tool that is designed to escape reality.

>... in the end they are a tool that is designed to escape reality.

Non-fiction books would strongly beg to differ.

Books are a medium that encourages literacy and helps understand others. Social media, in its current iteration, discourages curiosity and heightens conflict with others.

Books aren't harassing kids!

or using kids attention as a tradable product.

things I like are good. things I don't like are bad.

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