4 ms·
> Anecdotally, I've never seen one interview with Zuckerberg where a journalist actually calls him out on his "we're just connecting people" poppycock. I have
by jansho 9y ago
> Anecdotally, I've never seen one interview with Zuckerberg where a journalist actually calls him out on his "we're just connecting people" poppycock.
I have no doubt that intentions can be good. But I find it very hard to believe that tech founders never consider both good and bad consequences of a more connected world. Fake news is one, but then there are others like the rapid decrease of our attention span, higher appetite for instant gratification, higher addiction to the net, lower self-esteem (or the opposite!) and so on. All of this has a profound effect on us as individuals and as a society.
I'm glad that we now can have a conversation like this without the risk of being labelled "Luddite". (And yes, HN was also like this a while back.)
- kristianc 9y agoYou'll need citations on those (there is a study for self-esteem, but IIRC it was on quite a small test group.) Attention span (as in the idea we have one, not just Facebook's connection to it), at the very least, is a myth: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/07/25/another-modern-myth-shrinking-attention-spans/ https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/07/25/another-mo...
- jansho 9y agoTechnology is a special case; it's changing so rapidly that there isn't time to academically study its full-scale impact. But the impact of social media on self esteem, especially on vulnerable people, is well-studied. https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=social+media+self+esteem&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwix_Jq_gNvTAhUjJMAKHQU2BJoQgQMIGjAA https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=social+media+self+est... Facebook isn't the only player of course. Regarding attention span - sorry I defined it as the amount of quality attention spent on something - I draw my experiences as an educator.