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There's a lot of head-in-the-sand, kneejerk appeals to individual responsibility here, which is understandable on a forum populated by the people who are perpet

There's a lot of head-in-the-sand, kneejerk appeals to individual responsibility here, which is understandable on a forum populated by the people who are perpetuating the most egregious examples of the behaviour the author is lamenting. This ignores the author's point, which I'm assuming is the point of these responses. Instead of just making some abstract appeal to 'individual authority', how about actually engaging with what they're saying? "A handful of corporations determine the basic shape of the web that most of us use every day. Many of those companies make money by capturing users’ attention, and turning it into pageviews and clicks. They’ve staked their futures on methods to cultivate habits in users, in order to win as much of that attention as possible." This seems like a salient point that is worthy of proper discussion and analysis. I've recent been reading a great book [1] about it, that is forcing me to reconsider a lot of positions I took for granted, as one of those building the web, complicit in a whole bunch of this madness. I highly recommend looking into this more, as, in my opinion, we're becoming victims of our medium in the most McLuhan-esque sense. [1] The World Beyond Your Head - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-World-Beyond-Your-Head/dp/0374292981 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-World-Beyond-Your-Head/dp/037429...

teekert 11y ago
Have to admit, I am one of the kneejerkers but I come here for comments like yours ;)
karmacondon 11y ago
Ok, let's discuss the ideas presented in the article. The two forms main forms of regulation suggested near the end of the piece seem to be letting users control the amount of content/notifications that they consume, and flagging users who seem like they are exhibiting signs of addiction. Most sites do offer options to control the number of notifications, etc, but most people just stick with the defaults anyway. Even if there were an option for "Disable infinite scroll for me because I can't control my procrastination", how many people do you really think would use it? Likewise, if Zynga et al did implement some kind of flag for users who play too much, do you think it would make a difference? If someone is willing to invest 5 hours clicking a Farmville button, then a popup that says "We noticed that you spent the whole day clicking a button, don't you have something better to do?" probably isn't going to be epiphanic for them. Casinos and some gambling websites are required to do this now, and it hasn't cured gambling addiction yet. Just like adding a perfunctory "Please drink responsibly" to the end of beer commercials has had a small effect. What could work? In some parts of Asia, security officers will forcibly remove people from cybercafes if they're showing signs of addiction. But most people in the west use home internet, which would make physical enforcement cost prohibitive. Laws could be passed that outright ban certain types of games. But a politician would look pretty silly taking a stand against Mafia Wars on the floor of a legislative body, especially given recent world events. There might be a great solution, maybe offered in your book recommendation (thanks for that, btw). But it's hard to see what can practically be done about this problem, other than people exerting more self control in a changing world.
- te_chris 11y ago
  For me, the question is bigger than just harm reduction and efforts at it, in fact, in the book a whole chapter is made around the example of slot machines, and the concept of 'autism as a design principle'. It's about the design decisions made and the way that we accept design which is clearly optimised to exploit human weakness. I guess, more broadly, it's about the ethical framework that one choses to make their decisions and broader policy within - which is really the whole point of the book I went against, and which your comment reinforces - But a politician would look pretty silly taking a stand against Mafia Wars on the floor of a legislative body. That statement is only true within our current mode of thinking about these things, this book and all the other writing on the economics of attention is showing me that there's another way to think about this, and just because the standards we currently accept are normative, doesn't mean that they're exhaustive - and certainly not perpetual.
fche 11y ago
"This seems like a salient point that is worthy of proper discussion and analysis." It may be salient but is also rather pedestrian. Yes, companies vie for attention and favourable habits. See also the whole non-online world: branding, advertisement, episodic entertainment, subscription services, etc. etc. etc.

teekert 11y ago

Have to admit, I am one of the kneejerkers but I come here for comments like yours ;)

karmacondon 11y ago

Ok, let's discuss the ideas presented in the article. The two forms main forms of regulation suggested near the end of the piece seem to be letting users control the amount of content/notifications that they consume, and flagging users who seem like they are exhibiting signs of addiction. Most sites do offer options to control the number of notifications, etc, but most people just stick with the defaults anyway. Even if there were an option for "Disable infinite scroll for me because I can't control my procrastination", how many people do you really think would use it? Likewise, if Zynga et al did implement some kind of flag for users who play too much, do you think it would make a difference? If someone is willing to invest 5 hours clicking a Farmville button, then a popup that says "We noticed that you spent the whole day clicking a button, don't you have something better to do?" probably isn't going to be epiphanic for them. Casinos and some gambling websites are required to do this now, and it hasn't cured gambling addiction yet. Just like adding a perfunctory "Please drink responsibly" to the end of beer commercials has had a small effect. What could work? In some parts of Asia, security officers will forcibly remove people from cybercafes if they're showing signs of addiction. But most people in the west use home internet, which would make physical enforcement cost prohibitive. Laws could be passed that outright ban certain types of games. But a politician would look pretty silly taking a stand against Mafia Wars on the floor of a legislative body, especially given recent world events. There might be a great solution, maybe offered in your book recommendation (thanks for that, btw). But it's hard to see what can practically be done about this problem, other than people exerting more self control in a changing world.

te_chris 11y ago
For me, the question is bigger than just harm reduction and efforts at it, in fact, in the book a whole chapter is made around the example of slot machines, and the concept of 'autism as a design principle'. It's about the design decisions made and the way that we accept design which is clearly optimised to exploit human weakness. I guess, more broadly, it's about the ethical framework that one choses to make their decisions and broader policy within - which is really the whole point of the book I went against, and which your comment reinforces - But a politician would look pretty silly taking a stand against Mafia Wars on the floor of a legislative body. That statement is only true within our current mode of thinking about these things, this book and all the other writing on the economics of attention is showing me that there's another way to think about this, and just because the standards we currently accept are normative, doesn't mean that they're exhaustive - and certainly not perpetual.

fche 11y ago

"This seems like a salient point that is worthy of proper discussion and analysis." It may be salient but is also rather pedestrian. Yes, companies vie for attention and favourable habits. See also the whole non-online world: branding, advertisement, episodic entertainment, subscription services, etc. etc. etc.