Posted by echollama 3 days ago
Unpopular opinion but I think we need to stop building social networks if we want to bring people together. Let people meet each other in real life. Let the relationships flourish organically. No amount of tech will ever build the trust that face to face interactions can build. When people are in presence of each other they are just not exchanging ideas. There is so much of non verbal exchange through body language, tone of voice, facial expressions. I think all this helps in building trust. Social media on other hand just does the opposite unless the user is very conscious of the effects of social media.
Agreed. Social networks not only didn't bring us together, they've actually done the opposite and made us more tribal. Excellent book on the topic is Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear us Apart by Nicholas Carr.
How do you differentiate between addiction and people really liking something? In my opinion, unless people try to stop doing the thing but they can't will themselves to do that, it isn't an addiction.
It is not OK to dilute terms used to describe serious problems. I am not saying tech addiction can't happen, I just haven't seen any evidence to that effect. Mere dependency or development of a habit isn't addiction. addiction is those things plus inability to quit the habit despite strong and persistent effort.
Perhaps a good litmus test might be a person's ability to go on a week-long vacation without their phones, internet or whatever the supposed addiction might be.
There are addictions like Porn or eating-disorders that can be exasperated by tech, but they're not "technology usage" addictions, they're "addictions that can be enabled by technology".
> I am not saying tech addiction can't happen, I just haven't seen any evidence to that effect
Which planet do you live on? It's hard to read this in good faith.
Nobody has a "technology usage" addiction. The digital dopamine drip-feed in your pocket delivers by design in a way a spoon or double-entry bookkeeping does not, despite the fact that you can use the spoon to get high on a substance you traded for money.
Did you know that even LSD/Acid has no biological/medical addiction property, but caffeine does? Addiction requires a literal rewiring of the brain at a biological level.
And please try to avoid the passive-aggressive "which planet do you live on" tone, it doesn't help with the whole civilized discussion thing on HN :)
But for tech, scrolling tiktok for 5 hours a day, definitely does not have positive outcomes. It's like gambling. It's dopamine hit for dopamine hit's sake, and the delivery system is actively harming you.
Caffeine is a good example you mentioned, it is in fact addictive. It forms a chemical dependency similar to nicotine. Not all addictions are harmful and not all bad habits are addictions. The 'dependency' is what qualifies the habit as an addiction, in other words, you can't function or function well without the habit.
(The moderator(s) are praised endlessly but have done a terrible job of steering the community. They’ve merely shut out voices that were the loudest and most disagreeable, a phyrric victory at best)
Until then, why can't it just be called a habit? addiction very strongly implies inability to quit. Have you seen the 90's congressional testimony of tobacco CEO's all swearing on oath that Nicotine isn't addictive? That's how strong of a case you have to make for an addiction to be established. If you dilute the term and use it anonymously with "habit" then actual addictions can be dismissed or crooked people that facilitate addictions can avoid consequences.
At the very least, there needs to be a pattern of inability to quit the habit. Positive reinforcement signals are not in themselves indicators of addiction (case in point: LSD/Acid -- it isn't considered addictive, neither is good tasting food on its own).
I would not say that person does not have an addiction. They are just as much of an addict as the person who shoots heroin and can't stop despite being broke, arrested for stealing, etc.
Addiction and mental illness tend to be defined by their impacts on people's quality of life and impact on functioning, whether that is just functioning basically, maintaining long-term healthy relationships or just being happy without substances.
Unlike mental illness, addiction is defined by formation of a dependency. sometimes that dependency is at the biological/chemical level, sometimes it is a psychological dependency (can be caused by mental illness), not nevertheless a dependency must exist that prohibits the addict from functioning without the cause of the addiction. Bad habits can cause adverse impacts just as addictions can, and addictions (like coffee - which forms an actual biological rewiring/dependency, people get severe migraines when trying to quit it) can be harmless unless you're trying to quit.
Which is why we need a social medium that is not controlled by anything more centralized than "all the users". Anything else will present high values targets for corruption and is doomed to fail. You're not going to get investors in such a thing, because the lack of chokepoints means you can't really monetize it. But I do think that the existing players will eventually behave badly enough that such a thing will emerge--one volunteer effort at a time.
They sold us a dream of what the internet could be and I don't think we're letting that go--we just have to dispatch with them first.
Right, which is impractical, and after direct democracy comes representational democracy. Eventually you get things like libraries or public parks, public goods managed by government employees. The main difference this time is the need for more transnational cooperation. Other than that, it should be relatively easy and cheap.
I'll concede that there aren't heterarchical solutions to all of our problems, but it does not follow that there isn't a heterarchical solution to this one.
Personal blog can be on blogger if needed. The nature of any blog is non algorithmic.
>The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.”
It's more like limiting themselves to just sharing a single photo per day is limiting to how much value they can provide users and advertisers.
>Apps like TikTok, Instagram, and X aren't neutral tools. They're carefully crafted slot machines engineered to get you hooked. Pull to refresh. Tap to like. Scroll forever. Random rewards. Notifications timed to spike your cortisol. The same behavioral loops that addict gamblers now hook children and adults alike.
This is quite a stretch. Users finding immense value is not the same as addiction.
>Subscription models, cooperatives, or public funding could prioritize user wellbeing over engagement metrics.
Even if YouTube forced people to have premium they would still optimize for engagement. Loading up the home page and getting terrible recommendations is a terrible experience. Finding the best content for user provides the most value.
>Instead of measuring daily active users and time-on-platform, what if platforms were evaluated on user wellbeing, relationship quality, or real-world connections facilitated? What if we measured social platforms like we measure hospitals?
Feel free to use those metrics if you want, but most people will continue to use the apps that provide them the most value.
Agree that blaming VCs for why TikTok has an algorithmic feed and hundreds of millions of users is simplistic. A non-algorithmic TikTok would have no users.
And without a personalized algorithms, the feed ranking would just be showing content from popular accounts, which is a worse experience.
Doing so would clear the undergrowth for the true innovators to take over and we’ll know who they are when people pay for their products, as functioning markets have always intended.
It’s nothing to do with social media, and everything to do with the wrong KPIs.