Comment by whatever1 11 hours ago
Hackernews is also addictive. Fortnine is addictive. World of Warcraft is addictive. NFL is addictive.
Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the social media.
The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.
HN lets users opt to automatically lock themselves out after a while (noprocrast). Fortnite and WoW do not. Sounds like one knows they have users with problems, no?
I think the term addiction is way overused in this stuff. If a company makes a product you enjoy using that doesn't mean you can just describe it as addictive and get out of jail free. If there's some chemical in it that messes with your brain, fine, otherwise people need to take ownership of their own choices.
I think the disturbing reality is these countries are wanting to control social media to control the population politically. There was even a Labour MP in the UK who admitted it on television. If it weren't the case they'd just tell concerned parents to turn on the parental controls devices already have, problem solved. Instead they pass laws to end internet anonymity, but only on the big networks, which won't do anything for kids but is an excellent way to control political discontent.
> I think the disturbing reality is these countries are wanting to control social media to control the population politically
The current alternative is that unaccountable private interests control this, so some regulation in this regard seems reasonable to me. However, swapping private control for public control is only barely better.
The best solution that I can think of is ending algorithmic feeds, and having subscription feeds, or maybe user curated feeds, only.
An infinite stream of user generated content with direct engagement possibilities is enough to fry our brains
> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.
More specifically: using "engagement" as the metric to optimize.
Users' use of content is measured: how long do they watch it? Do they leave a comment? Do they give a "like"? Based on that, the algorithm finds similar content that will elicit an even stronger response.
Every action you take on modern social media is giving information to your drug dealer so they can make the next hit even better. But not better for you; better for the social media, who make money from ads.
The continuously adaptive nature of the input stream as a basis for keeping users' eyeballs leashed to ads is what separates FB, Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube from the more benign, but still addictive alternatives (HN, Fortnite, WoW, NFL, Reddit).
> Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment.
Sure, but fwiw the HN echo chamber is organic. People choose to interact with people who have similar opinions, as they have since forever.
In contrast, the echo chamber on HN, Tiktok, FB, etc is architected specifically to drive engagement. You are shown more of the content that you react to, so that you won't leave.
actually, much more diverse because everyone is in the same forum rather than being divided into "subreddits"
Nah. Hacker News has a diversity of views! In this very thread, you can see a robust debate between
1) people who want to ban kids from social media, and
2) people who want to ban everyone from social media.
See? HN captures the full range of legitimate perspectives on technology.
> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.
At least you can now choose your bubble and even listen to your own echo. That beats having the government beam their psychosis straight into everybody's brain by TV, radio and newspapers.
That makes the whole society an "echo chamber" of whatever the rulers have on their current agenda. And not just on your devices, but all the people you meet in real life.
Content on social media nowadays isn’t organic. State level resources are being thrown to influence people. So you are being beamed some government propaganda anyway.
I grew up in the forum days and internet discussions were very different back then. Accounts like “Endwokeness” would never work. People will make fun of him for being so obsessed with trans. You can’t just post some low effort political openings and walk away. Your openings need to have substance and you are pressured to engage. Otherwise people will see through your schtick and you get banned.
I don’t have a solution for this, and I think it’s a different problem regarding social media for kids.
HN doesn’t optimize for addictive. Fortnite and wow do. No opinion on NFL, but they probably do at least somewhat.