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I have to admit, sometimes I worry about the ethics of capturing peoples attention given all we know about psychology now, whether it's through social media or

I have to admit, sometimes I worry about the ethics of capturing peoples attention given all we know about psychology now, whether it's through social media or video games or other things where optimizing for people's attention is important. I work in video games, and on the one hand I'm pretty proud of the work I do, but on the other hand you see people get a little bit over-invested in these things and it's easy to wonder if it's totally a good thing to be able to push people's buttons like that. Once you're past the naivety of like "is this fun", and you start thinking in terms of like intermittent reward schedules and ways to monetize players it starts feeling... weird? I don't know what you can do about it though. I can't imagine any company willingly dumbing down engagement with their product for the common good. I'm guessing that as all these psychological techniques become more prevalent, cultural norms will probably shift to counter.

ravenstine 9y ago
Social climate is really the most reliable way to temper the effect of social media. If the mainstream media wasn't paid for years to repeat the words "Facebook" and "Twitter", it's possible our present would be significantly different. People should not feel as if they must be on some company's advertising platform in order to maintain friendships with people. It's pretty sick that a lot of people feel this way. Messages about the damaging effects of social media need to be promoted in society, just as we hammered home the cancer-causing effects of tobacco. In fact, it would be great if there was a counter-advertising campaign against social networks that told people how they worsen depression, how many hours/days/years you're wasting on Facebook, and that you can put down your phone and actually do things with your friends. If Facebook has any real value, it can fight negative press. But they won't because they have very little value; just with big tobacco, they'd spend a bunch of money on misinformation and slander, which would come out and make them look worse than when they started.

ravenstine 9y ago

Social climate is really the most reliable way to temper the effect of social media. If the mainstream media wasn't paid for years to repeat the words "Facebook" and "Twitter", it's possible our present would be significantly different. People should not feel as if they must be on some company's advertising platform in order to maintain friendships with people. It's pretty sick that a lot of people feel this way. Messages about the damaging effects of social media need to be promoted in society, just as we hammered home the cancer-causing effects of tobacco. In fact, it would be great if there was a counter-advertising campaign against social networks that told people how they worsen depression, how many hours/days/years you're wasting on Facebook, and that you can put down your phone and actually do things with your friends. If Facebook has any real value, it can fight negative press. But they won't because they have very little value; just with big tobacco, they'd spend a bunch of money on misinformation and slander, which would come out and make them look worse than when they started.