6 ms·

I always wonder if programmers have a different experience on Facebook than other folks. I deactivated my account this year and a lot of it was because I could

I always wonder if programmers have a different experience on Facebook than other folks. I deactivated my account this year and a lot of it was because I could identify the patterns of content that I was being fed by the algorithms and didn't care for it. On top of that after I had the same political conversation with the same person for about the 5th time I just decided it wasn't worth the time anymore. Do nonprogrammers not pick up on those patterns?

aphextron 9y ago
>Do nonprogrammers not pick up on those patterns? I really think they don't. Thats a big part of the problem. Lay people are being tricked into thinking that their Facebook feed is a reflection of reality rather than a highly curated set of articles designed to appeal to their specific sensibilities. They have no concept of what goes into the platform behind the scenes. They have no concept of the fact that there is a building in California full of thousands of world class scientists whose sole purpose in life is to get them to check that notification on their phone. They have the illusion of choice when it is pure psychological manipulation
slim 9y ago
I quit Facebook in 2008 and restarted using it last year. I use it defensively more or less once a week. I must say it's fun to play with it's patterns and rewarding when he welcomes you with "good morning" when it's night :) But you realise how much he knows about you and how much discipline you need to escape it's algorithms. For example I click on random profiles and wait for them to request my friendship (supposedly because fb suggested me to them for friendship). But sometimes I must resist clicking on really interesting people because I'm afraid fb would know too much about me. It's even more difficult when scrolling. If I stop scrolling on something it thinks I'm interested in the same kind of content. Sometimes I slip. Fortunately I'm "friend" with very few real friends. Most of my "friends" are random people. So my timeline consists of random things that are more or less interesting depending on my mood.
orbitur 9y ago
Facebook is just dumb fun for me, a time waster when I'm waiting in line, and I like seeing the pics my friends put up. Some of my friends are pretty good at aggregating funny memes. Am I not a programmer now?
nbanks 9y ago
I set a few groups to "see first" which helps prune down the number of useless things in my newsfeed. Occasionally I'll click an ad or mark it as unwanted to try to train the FB algorithms. The most useful things on FB are events, practicing people's names, and messenger. It's handy to try to go through the list of people who are about to go to a party so it's easier to remember them in person. Even though it is sometimes useful, it can easily take too much time.

aphextron 9y ago

>Do nonprogrammers not pick up on those patterns? I really think they don't. Thats a big part of the problem. Lay people are being tricked into thinking that their Facebook feed is a reflection of reality rather than a highly curated set of articles designed to appeal to their specific sensibilities. They have no concept of what goes into the platform behind the scenes. They have no concept of the fact that there is a building in California full of thousands of world class scientists whose sole purpose in life is to get them to check that notification on their phone. They have the illusion of choice when it is pure psychological manipulation

slim 9y ago

I quit Facebook in 2008 and restarted using it last year. I use it defensively more or less once a week. I must say it's fun to play with it's patterns and rewarding when he welcomes you with "good morning" when it's night :) But you realise how much he knows about you and how much discipline you need to escape it's algorithms. For example I click on random profiles and wait for them to request my friendship (supposedly because fb suggested me to them for friendship). But sometimes I must resist clicking on really interesting people because I'm afraid fb would know too much about me. It's even more difficult when scrolling. If I stop scrolling on something it thinks I'm interested in the same kind of content. Sometimes I slip. Fortunately I'm "friend" with very few real friends. Most of my "friends" are random people. So my timeline consists of random things that are more or less interesting depending on my mood.

orbitur 9y ago

Facebook is just dumb fun for me, a time waster when I'm waiting in line, and I like seeing the pics my friends put up. Some of my friends are pretty good at aggregating funny memes. Am I not a programmer now?

nbanks 9y ago

I set a few groups to "see first" which helps prune down the number of useless things in my newsfeed. Occasionally I'll click an ad or mark it as unwanted to try to train the FB algorithms. The most useful things on FB are events, practicing people's names, and messenger. It's handy to try to go through the list of people who are about to go to a party so it's easier to remember them in person. Even though it is sometimes useful, it can easily take too much time.