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Media with an ad-based business model inherently incentives maximizing engagement in both time and intensity. The time incentive leads to addiction. The intensi

Media with an ad-based business model inherently incentives maximizing engagement in both time and intensity. The time incentive leads to addiction. The intensity incentive leads to promoting hyperbolic content. (The latter almost always leads to divisive, angry content.) Breaking that incentive structure is tough. It would mean substantially re-building the company(ies), perhaps down to its business model, corporate organization and management. Fixed a couple typos. To be literal though, I agree with your point but I find a massive irony in News having the same inherent flaws as social media while also leading the charge against Facebook etc. It's all rotten.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> I find a massive irony in News having the same inherent flaws as social media News is broadcast, i.e. few to many. If the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or RT say something insidious, everyone has a chance to call them out on it. Social media is closer to P2P. Content is selectively targeted over the social graph. Platforms' ad models further microtarget along ideological lines. This makes it difficult or even impossible to know what someone in another domain is seeing, which makes responding in a timely manner practically impossible. (Also, mass media is nowhere close to social media when it comes to the prevalence and intensity of addiction.) TL; DR The problems mass media has with addictiveness and hyperbole are amplified on ad-driven social media platforms.