7 ms·

The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong direction... Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook,

The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong direction... Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook, and Facebook addiction is a pretty obvious consequence of the positive feedback loop that you'd get form using Facebook to feed that part of yourself. Not defending Facebook or any other social network here, I personally think Facebook is likely toxic -- but I think it's pretty hard for a social network to exist without having this flaw.

dekhn 8y ago
in any scientific article, if you reverse the causation in the title and it makes more sense, the author probably made an error. As a wise professor sitting in the audience said to the lecturer: "Normally we put the dependent variable on the Y axis".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- emeraldbird 8y ago
  That is not correct. There are many processes which are self-augmenting. It is scientifically valid that heat causes fire. It is equally valid that fire causes heat. Other examples: A reduced reflection of sunlight on the Earth surface causes the surface to become warmer. In places where the surface is covered with ice, a warming surface reduces the reflection. Climate change is caused by an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Climate change is also very likely causing the amount of carbon dioxide to rise further, by releasing methane from methane hydrate on the seafloor, by releasing methane from the arctic tundra soils, and by causing wildfires. Another example: Poverty causes a lack of access to education. But a reduced access to education also causes poverty. All these are self-augmenting processes. This kind of feedback loop is also something typical for addiction.
anothergoogler 8y ago
I'm not so sure, a Skinner Box is designed to condition its occupants. Facebook cultivates a user's thirst for validation from other users. On a much, much smaller scale, Hacker News does it with the point system. That's not surprising, everybody is going for engagement. I disagree that every obsessed Facebook user is innately hooked on approval from others. Facebook pays the big bucks, has hundreds if not thousands of employees focused on this specific goal.
- s-shellfish 8y ago
  On HN, I really try to ignore the points. I personally know for me, if I simply read a point of view that is valid, that is enough to stick with me such that it continues to be part of my personality, or allows me to draw from my own self in slightly stronger way - the world is accepting of me, tolerant. I don't need to encourage it to be that with points. All I need to do is see 'Is it? Or is it not?'. People are affected and influenced because they accept it as a rule of functioning. They want to influence things in such and such a way therefore they are subject to the same tactics of manipulation. Always depends on the rules you choose to believe in about the mind. Nerves that fire together wire together, and so on.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
florabuzzword 8y ago
What direction do you think “linked” implies? I find no bias in this language. To me, this reads as suggesting mere correlation.
bonniemuffin 8y ago
Actually when I read the title, I assumed it implied the causality going the way that makes sense (e.g. "FB addiction linked to need for social acceptance" = "FB addiction caused by need for social acceptance"). Upon further reflection, for me, I don't think the verb "linked to" implies any particular direction of causality. I would find it reasonable to word a headline as either "diabetes linked to twizzlers" or "twizzlers linked to diabetes", even though the causality clearly can only go in one direction.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
s-shellfish 8y ago
I think the big thing is with the internet, it makes a lot of these things much more discrete, as in, parsing information and evaluating it in chunks, rather than have a sense of continuity. Everything is either on or off, true or false, black or white. Encourages a frame of mind that selectively gathers and redistributes information. It may make sense with present 'state' but it might not make sense with respect to the humanities, respect to art, respect to many of the other sciences, history, etc. Picking up on lots of patterns and applying the data of today to fit the model. Then upvote, downvote, change the world.
code_duck 8y ago
The article states “people who believed they needed to be socially accepted in order to have worth as a person were at higher risk of using Facebook in compulsive and maladaptive way”.
emeraldbird 8y ago
When you say it is a positive feedback loop, you already describe it as a self-augmenting vicious cycle. In such a cycle, the initial cause becomes soon less important. People might start to use a social network because they feel temporarily lonely, perhaps because they moved to another place. But if that social networks leads to people spending more time on the net than with people in real life, it very quickly contributes to that cause. A better question to ask would be whether Facebook increases self-confidence and leads to more self-validating social interaction outside of the Internet. Given what I see and hear, I don't believe this is the case.
dustingetz 8y ago
yes! it is hard for me to imagine a wholesome social network existing. it is the toxicity which is driving the engagement. It would be like selling a drug that isn’t addictive - why on earth would that be a billion dollar product?
- abraham_lincoln 8y ago
  Pain pills versus vitamins? But, we have no social vitamins.
mindgam3 8y ago
Not disagreeing that this predated Facebook. But the problem is that Facebook took this known vulnerability in human psychology and exploited it to the absolute max. The product has been meticulously engineered to push all your social acceptance buttons. It would have been possible to design a product that helped people gain awareness of and transcend the deep underlying insecurities that give rise to addictions of all kinds, including social media. They deliberately chose not to build that product because it would be less lucrative, at least in the short term. Giving Facebook a pass on this is like giving a heroin dealer a pass because opioid addiction predated their business. It’s true but it doesn’t absolve any of the moral responsibility for profiting off a product that causes harm.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  Can Facebook be disrupted by the fentanyl of social networks?
  - mindgam3 8y ago
    Cute, but your analogy is somewhat flawed as fentanyl is like heroin on steroids. (As long as we’re mixing metaphors...) What the world really needs is the naloxone of social networks.
    - MrLeap 8y ago
      You misinterpret me, I'm not asking what the world needs, I'm asking what it's possible to give them for profit. If wondering if we could create a social network that offers 50x the social validation (fentanyl is like 50x the potency of heroin). Maybe machine learning can find the right combination of color flashes to cause people to have a social bliss seizure. Maybe while simultaneously reading their rapid eye movements to extract their credit card information from their short circuiting brains. Catch me at YC2019
      - Cyph0n 8y ago
        If something like this was possible, wouldn't Facebook have already discovered it?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 8y ago
"A linked to B" is a bidirectional relationship that means "B linked to A". Any interpretation of a direction is purely imaginary. Horse linked to carriage. Carriage linked to horse. Use of the word "link" at all is a often big clue which says "we're careful not to assert a causal mechanism".
zebraflask 8y ago
Facebook is categorically toxic at this point.
hw 8y ago
I wonder what happens if you remove the positive feedback loop - allow users to post and share, but remove likes, shares, comments, number of followers/friends and other 'vanity' metrics. Or, allow likes and shares but don't expose the numbers to the OP. Would a person still share or post on social networks as much as they do right now? I think that person's answer to that would suggest whether or not they use Facebook or social networks as a means for self validation.

dekhn 8y ago

in any scientific article, if you reverse the causation in the title and it makes more sense, the author probably made an error. As a wise professor sitting in the audience said to the lecturer: "Normally we put the dependent variable on the Y axis".

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
emeraldbird 8y ago
That is not correct. There are many processes which are self-augmenting. It is scientifically valid that heat causes fire. It is equally valid that fire causes heat. Other examples: A reduced reflection of sunlight on the Earth surface causes the surface to become warmer. In places where the surface is covered with ice, a warming surface reduces the reflection. Climate change is caused by an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Climate change is also very likely causing the amount of carbon dioxide to rise further, by releasing methane from methane hydrate on the seafloor, by releasing methane from the arctic tundra soils, and by causing wildfires. Another example: Poverty causes a lack of access to education. But a reduced access to education also causes poverty. All these are self-augmenting processes. This kind of feedback loop is also something typical for addiction.

anothergoogler 8y ago

I'm not so sure, a Skinner Box is designed to condition its occupants. Facebook cultivates a user's thirst for validation from other users. On a much, much smaller scale, Hacker News does it with the point system. That's not surprising, everybody is going for engagement. I disagree that every obsessed Facebook user is innately hooked on approval from others. Facebook pays the big bucks, has hundreds if not thousands of employees focused on this specific goal.

s-shellfish 8y ago
On HN, I really try to ignore the points. I personally know for me, if I simply read a point of view that is valid, that is enough to stick with me such that it continues to be part of my personality, or allows me to draw from my own self in slightly stronger way - the world is accepting of me, tolerant. I don't need to encourage it to be that with points. All I need to do is see 'Is it? Or is it not?'. People are affected and influenced because they accept it as a rule of functioning. They want to influence things in such and such a way therefore they are subject to the same tactics of manipulation. Always depends on the rules you choose to believe in about the mind. Nerves that fire together wire together, and so on.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

florabuzzword 8y ago

What direction do you think “linked” implies? I find no bias in this language. To me, this reads as suggesting mere correlation.

bonniemuffin 8y ago

Actually when I read the title, I assumed it implied the causality going the way that makes sense (e.g. "FB addiction linked to need for social acceptance" = "FB addiction caused by need for social acceptance"). Upon further reflection, for me, I don't think the verb "linked to" implies any particular direction of causality. I would find it reasonable to word a headline as either "diabetes linked to twizzlers" or "twizzlers linked to diabetes", even though the causality clearly can only go in one direction.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

s-shellfish 8y ago

I think the big thing is with the internet, it makes a lot of these things much more discrete, as in, parsing information and evaluating it in chunks, rather than have a sense of continuity. Everything is either on or off, true or false, black or white. Encourages a frame of mind that selectively gathers and redistributes information. It may make sense with present 'state' but it might not make sense with respect to the humanities, respect to art, respect to many of the other sciences, history, etc. Picking up on lots of patterns and applying the data of today to fit the model. Then upvote, downvote, change the world.

code_duck 8y ago

The article states “people who believed they needed to be socially accepted in order to have worth as a person were at higher risk of using Facebook in compulsive and maladaptive way”.

emeraldbird 8y ago

When you say it is a positive feedback loop, you already describe it as a self-augmenting vicious cycle. In such a cycle, the initial cause becomes soon less important. People might start to use a social network because they feel temporarily lonely, perhaps because they moved to another place. But if that social networks leads to people spending more time on the net than with people in real life, it very quickly contributes to that cause. A better question to ask would be whether Facebook increases self-confidence and leads to more self-validating social interaction outside of the Internet. Given what I see and hear, I don't believe this is the case.

dustingetz 8y ago

yes! it is hard for me to imagine a wholesome social network existing. it is the toxicity which is driving the engagement. It would be like selling a drug that isn’t addictive - why on earth would that be a billion dollar product?

abraham_lincoln 8y ago
Pain pills versus vitamins? But, we have no social vitamins.

mindgam3 8y ago

Not disagreeing that this predated Facebook. But the problem is that Facebook took this known vulnerability in human psychology and exploited it to the absolute max. The product has been meticulously engineered to push all your social acceptance buttons. It would have been possible to design a product that helped people gain awareness of and transcend the deep underlying insecurities that give rise to addictions of all kinds, including social media. They deliberately chose not to build that product because it would be less lucrative, at least in the short term. Giving Facebook a pass on this is like giving a heroin dealer a pass because opioid addiction predated their business. It’s true but it doesn’t absolve any of the moral responsibility for profiting off a product that causes harm.

MrLeap 8y ago
Can Facebook be disrupted by the fentanyl of social networks?
- mindgam3 8y ago
  Cute, but your analogy is somewhat flawed as fentanyl is like heroin on steroids. (As long as we’re mixing metaphors...) What the world really needs is the naloxone of social networks.
  - MrLeap 8y ago
    You misinterpret me, I'm not asking what the world needs, I'm asking what it's possible to give them for profit. If wondering if we could create a social network that offers 50x the social validation (fentanyl is like 50x the potency of heroin). Maybe machine learning can find the right combination of color flashes to cause people to have a social bliss seizure. Maybe while simultaneously reading their rapid eye movements to extract their credit card information from their short circuiting brains. Catch me at YC2019
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      If something like this was possible, wouldn't Facebook have already discovered it?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 8y ago

"A linked to B" is a bidirectional relationship that means "B linked to A". Any interpretation of a direction is purely imaginary. Horse linked to carriage. Carriage linked to horse. Use of the word "link" at all is a often big clue which says "we're careful not to assert a causal mechanism".

zebraflask 8y ago

Facebook is categorically toxic at this point.

hw 8y ago

I wonder what happens if you remove the positive feedback loop - allow users to post and share, but remove likes, shares, comments, number of followers/friends and other 'vanity' metrics. Or, allow likes and shares but don't expose the numbers to the OP. Would a person still share or post on social networks as much as they do right now? I think that person's answer to that would suggest whether or not they use Facebook or social networks as a means for self validation.