12 ms·

The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

242 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

blaser-waffle 7y ago
In other words, stop using abstract digital tools to interact with people, and just interact with people. Presumably the people I'm interacting with now won't be annoyed by my use of digital tools to do so.
- non-entity 7y ago
  The problem is the abstract digital tools allow me to easily find and interact with people I find interesting, share common interest with, etc., often on the other side of the country than myself. Which is something I've found difficult in real life.
  - kkarakk 7y ago
    People find different things interesting, the ideal way to find your tribe is to find where your tribe congregates and move there
    - jonfw 7y ago
      I have a diverse array of interests. In terms of technology interests I would be at home in San Francisco it seems, but I also love off-roading and shooting guns and all of that.
      - seandhi 7y ago
        For what it's worth, you'll find people in San Francisco who like to shoot guns and, presumably, go off-roading. I was surprised to be invited to a gun range last time I was there for work.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Here's the thing: my tribe congregates on the Internet.
aphextim 7y ago
One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make eye contact and turn away. (Maybe I'm just butt ugly I dunno). Kid however all seem to enjoy a quick smile/eye contact.
- hos234 7y ago
  You can also ask for directions, where to buy stuff in the neighborhood, is that take out place good etc. For some mysterious reason, it makes most people feel good, being of use to others.
- rglover 7y ago
  Yes! Kids are great. I always make faces at them or stick my tongue out and put my hands over my head and they always giggle. It's especially fun when the parents don't get it and think you're a weirdo.
- Ascetik 7y ago
  Yes, I have noticed the same. I try to put my phone away when I am in public. Kids really pick up on it if you're ignoring them and they have heightened senses of emotion, so it's important for their psychological well-being to know that not everyone is sucked into the machine and actually cares about them. I've always been friendly to children, but after having a few it really makes you appreciate their innocence that much more.
- dctoedt 7y ago
  That goes for adults (in some settings) too. My wife and I walk our dogs for about two miles in the neighborhood every morning around 5:00 a.m. or thereabouts. Every few minutes we'll encounter someone else running, walking a dog, bicycling, etc. We seldom know the people, but we make it a point to say "[good] morning" to everyone, and we usually get a response. What's especially gratifying is that we've started to see others saying good morning to other people. Of course, on a busy sidewalk downtown, you wouldn't do the same — that'd be just weird. But in the neighborhood when it’s quiet, it's a nice exchange of confirmation signals that while we're strangers, we're not just strangers, we're neighbors.
al_form2000 7y ago
The title giveth, the body takes away. Articles like these have been making the rounds for maybe 6 ears now, and I cannot see how this brings even a moderately non-stale perspective to the fray .I checked the date, it's from today. Must be a slow week at SciAm.
- marmaduke 7y ago
  Doesn't that make it a replication of previous articles? Authenticity doesn't oblige originality You otoh offer nothing of substance
  - vernvandamn 7y ago
    I think stating the article is unoriginal is a valid critique. The article is saying digital distraction is affecting society. We know that. Telling people they shouldn't be so distracted isn't a original thought and therefore reading the article is a waste of time. Despite the authenticity of a publication I wouldn't want to read 10 articles saying the same thing. There is some expectation of originality. Right?
    - wool_gather 7y ago
      Agree, although [there's no telling what's new to someone else][0], so if a message is important enough there can be value in its being repeated in different times and places. Just because I've read a hundred and one articles about e.g., strong passwords, doesn't mean my friends have the first clue. [0]:https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ https://www.xkcd.com/1053/
    - marmaduke 7y ago
      > Despite the authenticity of a publication I wouldn't want to read 10 articles saying the same thing I agree in a mundane sense, repetition is not exciting, but the sorts of large scale messages such as this one, need to be repeated across many sources of information (has Sci Am ever run an article in this before? Not the same as if Huff Post does) before it's taken seriously enough, by enough people, for something to change.
wallflower 7y ago
Distractions are our lives now. You can choose to minimize them. Start by turning off “new email” notifications. You may not miss much by not knowing the moment an email arrives. If something is truly important and urgent, they will usually use multiple means to contact you, like calling you. You can also graduate to removing almost all notifications from your phone. I say almost all because the beauty of Slack is that it never differentiated between being mobile or at a desktop (like Skype did) so you might need notifications from your work Slack to appear if you are not really present. Also, get rid of non-work Slacks on your phone, if you spend too much time on Slack on your phone, it could help eliminate more potential distractions. The next level is to remove all native applications for anything that you think might distract you. It is much, much harder to fall into the rabbit hole of infinite scroll type binging with a mobile web experience. There is just enough friction with mobile web to snap you out of your trance, usually.
- flanbiscuit 7y ago
  > they will usually use multiple means to contact you like via Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or SMS or WhatsApp or one of your many Slacks or Discord or Google Hangout or your work email or your other personal email or.... There are so many ways to communicate now and that's not necessarily a bad thing but I definitely get communication fatigue.
  - wallflower 7y ago
    > There are so many ways to communicate now Yes, the idea to remove most distractions is to limit those communication mediums that give you near-instantaneous notifications of “activity”. Ignore all communication via all other modes until you decide, if ever, to check. There is a reason why some people communicate solely via Instagram DMs or Snapchat (it is where they live their lives). I do not use Facebook regularly but I do keep the account. I’ve noticed that Facebook will send an email notification if something important happened, like someone’s parent passing away. Usually, if someone who you know is calling your phone, it is probably important. Monitoring services like PagerDuty even allow you to “self escalate” from a text message to an automated call, for this reason. PagerDuty uses the same set of numbers so they could be added to a contact if you are whitelisting all incoming phone calls.
olah_1 7y ago
I think digital spaces have added an additional dimension of social reciprocity. Just one tiny example is the "courtesy like" when having a friendly interaction on twitter. It's like waiting to go back inside your house until your guest has fully driven out of your driveway and gone away. Healthy technology is additive, not subtractive of our existing lives. And I think it's natural for us to have digital equivalents of analog reciprocity.
- awinder 7y ago
  So, yes, some people don’t hear back from me as quickly as they used to. I hear all the time from people who are genuinely upset with me about that. To me, the problem is that with immediacy people come up with all sorts of new less-than-healthy ideas of reciprocity and social mores. In this case, the expectation of immediate reply because it's possible -- someone could not have that thought before the 1990s & ubiquity of cellphones, and more realistically it's within the last decade that that kind of expectation could even be possible.
sak5sk 7y ago
It's worse than that. It is all baked into our daily tools. Even HN as a community and a forum aids in distraction. Pretty much any community that lets you form an echo chamber around yourself (all social networks, and communities including HN)commands your attention by making you interact with people who think like you. If this were done in real life it would be much different, but the online medium of it falls short in the tangible relationship department. I hate to say it, but the big nasty "R" word might be the only way to curb the disease of distraction by limiting notifications and psychologically abusive features. The extend of psychological abuse for attention seeking is so great now that most if not all of us are in some way affected, even if we deny it (myself included). Major offenders: - Twitter - notifications, likes, comments, emails, notifications in tab titles - FB - notifications, messenger, likes, comments, friend recommendations. - Slack .. good luck making those little notification circles disappear if you are in a number of different channels - Linked In - constant emails, people who have looked at your profile, messenger you can't close It's also going to get worse. As automation grows, more and more people will find themselves occupied with bullshit jobs, the kinds that look to expand and capture a piece of the attention economy. There is a good chance you, the person reading this right now has a bullshit job. You may even know it and acknowledge it, but will ultimately justify it as necessary and a force for good (sorry, it's probably not). It's a tragedy, but a lot of talent, time and life is being wasted on increasingly larger number of bullshit activities that add absolutely nothing (except $$) and take away everything (time). I should know all of this as I work in a bullshit industry, doing bullshit things, taking people's time & money. I am not happy about it but I see no real alternative in the foreseeable future. My job involves figuring out how people think, what will make them buy and then making them buy crap they don't need or in more quantities than they need it. Personally, I have made significant effort to cut down on distractions but I still fail by coming to HN. I can't help that discussions here are engaging and make me think. Twitter is another platform I have tried quitting many times but find myself too curious to see what's happening and checking again. I've managed to cut Reddit down to 1 sub, but even then it seems really difficult to quit that last piece. I still check LinkedIN occasionally but don't expect much from it, nor do I care about what's being discussed. FB is totally out of my life, including messenger so I have made some progress there. Slack also totally gone. I completely uninstalled it and direct people to email. Speaking of email, I am almost always at inbox zero thanks to a ton of filters. Stuff still gets through from spammers and occasional subscriptions that want to push crap I don't care about, but I manage to zap those with the "mark as spam" button quickly.
jancsika 7y ago
Title doesn't match the article, which appears to be about social media manipulation techniques making people feel disconnected and sad. But "death of social reciprocity?" According to my own research set to appear in the second clause of this sentence, sad people are apparently still thanking the Fortnite bus driver in record numbers.
- chansiky 7y ago
  Yes but how many of them would donate a spare kidney for him if he really needed it. People risked their lives for each other. I’m not sure that it’s the same case with people who like your selfie.
xoraes 7y ago
Is it just me or others also feel that this is only exacerbated by having 'always in ear devices' like AirPods (or any other earbuds for that matter)? Why is it not considered rude to have them on while you're having a discussion with someone?
- 09bjb 7y ago
  Don't worry, plenty of us would consider that rude :) It's really the same as checking your phone during a conversation. Is it useful for me to give you my full attention if yours is constantly changing channels?
- dymk 7y ago
  It is rude, that didn’t change. People take out their earpods when they talk to me (or me to them).
- twic 7y ago
  It is. Is this common behaviour somewhere? Where?
  - allenu 7y ago
    One of my coworkers did this the other day during daily standup. He had his airpods in while he talked.
- duderific 7y ago
  My favorite one lately, which is kind of the opposite, but at least as rude, is people having conversations on speaker phone as they're walking around in public. I don't really need to hear your conversation with Verizon customer service, bro.
- hosteur 7y ago
  It is considered rude?
- kart23 7y ago
  YES it is 100% rude and weird imo. I was having a conversation with someone at an event, asked him a couple questions, and he only took his airpods out after a couple minutes. It felt weird and disrespectful. I told my colleagues about it and they agreed with me.
Verdex 7y ago
Back in my day when you passed someone on the way to buy your morning paper you would say "good day sir" and tip your hat. These kids don't even read the paper anymore. And they're all like, "what is up" and "how is it hanging". What does that even mean? I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar to say these things. And what the deal with likes on facebook. Too busy posting pictures of what they're eating to listen quietly to the adults discussing aunt Joann's ridiculous choice of hat. Seriously, it's August so she should really know not to wear a green hat when we all go to watch the 10 hours of reruns of Survivor. EDIT: 'News' article on the web complains about technology trying to steal our attention from 'the true reality' and it does this by employing a click bait title and pairs the message proper with multiple visual ads.
- beeskneecaps 7y ago
  Darn youths!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jolmg 7y ago
  > I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar to say these things. But "good day sir" lacks a verb and subject/object, so it's not even a sentence. On the other hand, "what is up" and "how is it hanging" are proper interrogative sentences, as far as grammar is concerned anyway.
buboard 7y ago
The text refutes the title, whats going on. Anyway, another article about how it is "destroying society". But there is no mention on what really destroys society. Try smiling to an adult and u re the weird one. So much for saying hi or chatting, ewww unless you re physically on the high end of the scale. Like others have said, you can only react to kids , and that's only if you re not a man outside a certain age range. Frankly this doesnt sound like an interesting book.
angrydev 7y ago
This article lacks substance and is painfully anecdotal. I was expecting something more from SA.
morcutt 7y ago
This article resonates with me. As of late, social media has been a negative for my life. It is terribly distracting. I pay attention to who interacts with my content more than I should. I just deactivated Instagram (user ~#66,000 so I signed up in the first few days) for the first time this week (after deleting the app many times) and it has been very refreshing.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
I think this trend started way before digital media. Since TV a lot of people spend hours every day in front of a screen which is their main source of information about the outside world. Business also has been becoming increasingly impersonal. You are beholden to shareholders you don’t know and shareholders demand things from people they don’t know. You can’t give feedback to job applicants for a vague fear of being sued. We are afraid of strangers talking to children or even us. I am not sure if this trend will be positive or negative long term but I think social media is just another (accelerated) step in that direction.
duderific 7y ago
One thing I've noticed is that people often don't hold the door open anymore when you're following them out of a building or room, because they're looking at their phone. I thought the article would be focused on these sorts of things, but it seemed to be more of an advice column. Not what I was expecting.
4ntonius8lock 7y ago
I like that they bring up distractions. The addictive nature of online media is an issue, but that isn't the only thing going on. People are hyper sensitive now, and at least here in the US, there is a sense that 'someone one is to blame, and that person needs to be punished'... and that sense is way stronger than the sense of 'is this person even guilty'. Where I'm from, I give hitch hikers rides all the time. Since I've lived in the US, I don't. If the hitch hiker was to have drugs on them, and we got stopped, I could easily be liable for this, and go to jail and lose my right to be in the United States. Those are some high stakes. Especially since I don't have a $250,000 lying around to pay for a criminal defense attorney. And lower stakes happen everywhere. The other day I was hiking (with my expensive hiking gear) in some back-country trail and I watched as first the dad took a shot, then what appeared to be the mom. So I offered to take the picture of the whole family. The mom yanked her camera to the side when I offered (as if afraid I'd steal it) and tersely rejected my offer (a single, cold and distrustful "NO") One day I sat down at a restaurant and there was a really nice new cell phone on the seat. In my home country, I would have taken it, and waited to receive a call from the owner to give it back. Not so in the US. I wouldn't want to be accused of stealing it. Instead, I called the staff to take it away. Maybe they stole it? I don't know, but I don't want the liability. When you do away with presumption of innocence, there is a strong chilling effect.
theonionknight 7y ago
For anyone interested in this topic, I would strongly recommend Cal Newport’s book digital minimalism
theonionknight 7y ago
For anyone interested in this topic, i would strongly recommend Cal Newport’s book digital minimalism
ipython 7y ago
The problem is, social reciprocity is /expensive/ ... and like anything else expensive, it's been eliminated in today's society. Say what you want about Wal-Mart, but Sam Walton wanted his stores to have a more 'neighborhood' feel, so he employed greeters to stand at the front of the store to say hello to shoppers as they entered. A small gesture, but eliminated in the name of 'cost savings'. For most businesses these days, labor is one of your largest - if not your largest - direct cost. So it is a natural target when thinking how to increase profitability. That's just talking about direct $$ cost... I think this article also touches on the fact that 'expensive' is also measured in attention. It's a lot easier to get a dopamine hit by checking your phone rather than a spontaneous interaction with another human being. You know what that little badge on the phone means, the outcome from a random conversation with another human ... is a little less certain.
- munificent 7y ago
  > am Walton wanted his stores to have a more 'neighborhood' feel, so he employed greeters to stand at the front of the store to say hello to shoppers as they entered. The reality is, alas, not quite as wholesome: The idea of having dedicated greeters at the front door of a store may have come from an employee of the company, Lois Richard. She was working in the early 1980s as an invoice clerk at the Walmart store in Crowley, Louisiana. The Walmart store in Crowley, which had opened in 1980, was experiencing shoplifting and had a significant "inventory shrinkage" after two years. The initial idea was to have an employee standing at the door in order to try to decrease shoplifting. After a shoplifting sting conducted by the local police showed that piles of merchandise could have been taken away, Lois Richard pitched the idea the next day to her manager and it was accepted. Having someone who visibly sees each patron when they enter and is physically present at the exit likely reduces shoplifting more than enough to pay for the position. They're basically security guards.
  - ipython 7y ago
    So you’re saying that some social graces have a positive side effect of reducing crime? How is that not wholesome?
chrisfinne 7y ago
The Jews identified this problem and the solution thousands of years ago, hence their weekly Sabbath ritual of disconnecting from work/technology and focusing on their family/faith. I've got a growing appreciation for rituals that seem silly, worthless or out-dated. If the ritual has survived this long, deep examination is in order before altering or dismissing it.
- handoflixue 7y ago
  I really like Zvi's article on bringing back the Sabbath as a secular tool for disconnecting and ensuring your life is balanced enough that you can survive a day offline: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/bring-back-the-sabbath/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/bring-back-the-sabba...
- m463 7y ago
  I think the Amish have an interesting take on technology too. They do adopt it - but very slowly and only to enhance their community. Fascinating article by Kevin Kelly on Amish Hackers: https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
- kromem 7y ago
  Yes, but Jesus's revisionist take on it is worthwhile to keep in mind too: "The sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath." Disconnecting is good for many as a general practice. I myself have a "no technology day" once a month or so. And certainly taking a population recently freed from slavery and instituting a labor law ensuring a weekend was a great idea (whoever thought of it). But that's the nice thing about weekends - each of us get to spend them as we choose. If you are feeling disconnected from your loved ones and want to mutually agree to put away your phones, awesome. But likewise, if you had a rough week and want to lose yourself in binge watching Stranger Things, that's cool too. Let's not fall back into the ways of every generations before us in how we consider younger trends as we age. Even chess was condemned as corrupting the youth in its day. A central theme to the success of all life in this world is balance. If you feel out of balance, adjust your own life accordingly to regain it. But it would probably be unwise to assume the balance that works for one works for all. I doubt any one of us has an identical idea of what living the perfect life looks like. All we can do is figure out what our own version of that picture looks like and do our best to realize it.
scotty79 7y ago
Reciprocity is one of the mechanisms people use to part you with your money. Sellers use it, charity uses it, scammers use it. No wonder that people tend to dial down their reciprocity if they can.
scarejunba 7y ago
Nah, technology is pretty cool for this shit. Everyone likes their friends' posts. It's like an acknowledgement - I see you and I like that I do. iMessage reactions and FB messenger reactions are the same. I think if I looked through my group chats, most messages have reactions. And Find my Friends? You have that shit broadcasting and you'll run into each other all the time. I feel so thoroughly connected with my friends. They're like a mesh that catches me when I'm down and bounces me back up. And it's so easy with tech.

242 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

In other words, stop using abstract digital tools to interact with people, and just interact with people. Presumably the people I'm interacting with now won't be annoyed by my use of digital tools to do so.

non-entity 7y ago
The problem is the abstract digital tools allow me to easily find and interact with people I find interesting, share common interest with, etc., often on the other side of the country than myself. Which is something I've found difficult in real life.
- kkarakk 7y ago
  People find different things interesting, the ideal way to find your tribe is to find where your tribe congregates and move there
  - jonfw 7y ago
    I have a diverse array of interests. In terms of technology interests I would be at home in San Francisco it seems, but I also love off-roading and shooting guns and all of that.
    - seandhi 7y ago
      For what it's worth, you'll find people in San Francisco who like to shoot guns and, presumably, go off-roading. I was surprised to be invited to a gun range last time I was there for work.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Here's the thing: my tribe congregates on the Internet.

aphextim 7y ago

One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make eye contact and turn away. (Maybe I'm just butt ugly I dunno). Kid however all seem to enjoy a quick smile/eye contact.

hos234 7y ago
You can also ask for directions, where to buy stuff in the neighborhood, is that take out place good etc. For some mysterious reason, it makes most people feel good, being of use to others.
rglover 7y ago
Yes! Kids are great. I always make faces at them or stick my tongue out and put my hands over my head and they always giggle. It's especially fun when the parents don't get it and think you're a weirdo.
Ascetik 7y ago
Yes, I have noticed the same. I try to put my phone away when I am in public. Kids really pick up on it if you're ignoring them and they have heightened senses of emotion, so it's important for their psychological well-being to know that not everyone is sucked into the machine and actually cares about them. I've always been friendly to children, but after having a few it really makes you appreciate their innocence that much more.
dctoedt 7y ago
That goes for adults (in some settings) too. My wife and I walk our dogs for about two miles in the neighborhood every morning around 5:00 a.m. or thereabouts. Every few minutes we'll encounter someone else running, walking a dog, bicycling, etc. We seldom know the people, but we make it a point to say "[good] morning" to everyone, and we usually get a response. What's especially gratifying is that we've started to see others saying good morning to other people. Of course, on a busy sidewalk downtown, you wouldn't do the same — that'd be just weird. But in the neighborhood when it’s quiet, it's a nice exchange of confirmation signals that while we're strangers, we're not just strangers, we're neighbors.

al_form2000 7y ago

The title giveth, the body takes away. Articles like these have been making the rounds for maybe 6 ears now, and I cannot see how this brings even a moderately non-stale perspective to the fray .I checked the date, it's from today. Must be a slow week at SciAm.

marmaduke 7y ago
Doesn't that make it a replication of previous articles? Authenticity doesn't oblige originality You otoh offer nothing of substance
- vernvandamn 7y ago
  I think stating the article is unoriginal is a valid critique. The article is saying digital distraction is affecting society. We know that. Telling people they shouldn't be so distracted isn't a original thought and therefore reading the article is a waste of time. Despite the authenticity of a publication I wouldn't want to read 10 articles saying the same thing. There is some expectation of originality. Right?
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    Agree, although [there's no telling what's new to someone else][0], so if a message is important enough there can be value in its being repeated in different times and places. Just because I've read a hundred and one articles about e.g., strong passwords, doesn't mean my friends have the first clue. [0]:https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ https://www.xkcd.com/1053/
  - marmaduke 7y ago
    > Despite the authenticity of a publication I wouldn't want to read 10 articles saying the same thing I agree in a mundane sense, repetition is not exciting, but the sorts of large scale messages such as this one, need to be repeated across many sources of information (has Sci Am ever run an article in this before? Not the same as if Huff Post does) before it's taken seriously enough, by enough people, for something to change.

wallflower 7y ago

Distractions are our lives now. You can choose to minimize them. Start by turning off “new email” notifications. You may not miss much by not knowing the moment an email arrives. If something is truly important and urgent, they will usually use multiple means to contact you, like calling you. You can also graduate to removing almost all notifications from your phone. I say almost all because the beauty of Slack is that it never differentiated between being mobile or at a desktop (like Skype did) so you might need notifications from your work Slack to appear if you are not really present. Also, get rid of non-work Slacks on your phone, if you spend too much time on Slack on your phone, it could help eliminate more potential distractions. The next level is to remove all native applications for anything that you think might distract you. It is much, much harder to fall into the rabbit hole of infinite scroll type binging with a mobile web experience. There is just enough friction with mobile web to snap you out of your trance, usually.

flanbiscuit 7y ago
> they will usually use multiple means to contact you like via Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or SMS or WhatsApp or one of your many Slacks or Discord or Google Hangout or your work email or your other personal email or.... There are so many ways to communicate now and that's not necessarily a bad thing but I definitely get communication fatigue.
- wallflower 7y ago
  > There are so many ways to communicate now Yes, the idea to remove most distractions is to limit those communication mediums that give you near-instantaneous notifications of “activity”. Ignore all communication via all other modes until you decide, if ever, to check. There is a reason why some people communicate solely via Instagram DMs or Snapchat (it is where they live their lives). I do not use Facebook regularly but I do keep the account. I’ve noticed that Facebook will send an email notification if something important happened, like someone’s parent passing away. Usually, if someone who you know is calling your phone, it is probably important. Monitoring services like PagerDuty even allow you to “self escalate” from a text message to an automated call, for this reason. PagerDuty uses the same set of numbers so they could be added to a contact if you are whitelisting all incoming phone calls.

olah_1 7y ago

I think digital spaces have added an additional dimension of social reciprocity. Just one tiny example is the "courtesy like" when having a friendly interaction on twitter. It's like waiting to go back inside your house until your guest has fully driven out of your driveway and gone away. Healthy technology is additive, not subtractive of our existing lives. And I think it's natural for us to have digital equivalents of analog reciprocity.

awinder 7y ago
So, yes, some people don’t hear back from me as quickly as they used to. I hear all the time from people who are genuinely upset with me about that. To me, the problem is that with immediacy people come up with all sorts of new less-than-healthy ideas of reciprocity and social mores. In this case, the expectation of immediate reply because it's possible -- someone could not have that thought before the 1990s & ubiquity of cellphones, and more realistically it's within the last decade that that kind of expectation could even be possible.

sak5sk 7y ago

It's worse than that. It is all baked into our daily tools. Even HN as a community and a forum aids in distraction. Pretty much any community that lets you form an echo chamber around yourself (all social networks, and communities including HN)commands your attention by making you interact with people who think like you. If this were done in real life it would be much different, but the online medium of it falls short in the tangible relationship department. I hate to say it, but the big nasty "R" word might be the only way to curb the disease of distraction by limiting notifications and psychologically abusive features. The extend of psychological abuse for attention seeking is so great now that most if not all of us are in some way affected, even if we deny it (myself included). Major offenders: - Twitter - notifications, likes, comments, emails, notifications in tab titles - FB - notifications, messenger, likes, comments, friend recommendations. - Slack .. good luck making those little notification circles disappear if you are in a number of different channels - Linked In - constant emails, people who have looked at your profile, messenger you can't close It's also going to get worse. As automation grows, more and more people will find themselves occupied with bullshit jobs, the kinds that look to expand and capture a piece of the attention economy. There is a good chance you, the person reading this right now has a bullshit job. You may even know it and acknowledge it, but will ultimately justify it as necessary and a force for good (sorry, it's probably not). It's a tragedy, but a lot of talent, time and life is being wasted on increasingly larger number of bullshit activities that add absolutely nothing (except $$) and take away everything (time). I should know all of this as I work in a bullshit industry, doing bullshit things, taking people's time & money. I am not happy about it but I see no real alternative in the foreseeable future. My job involves figuring out how people think, what will make them buy and then making them buy crap they don't need or in more quantities than they need it. Personally, I have made significant effort to cut down on distractions but I still fail by coming to HN. I can't help that discussions here are engaging and make me think. Twitter is another platform I have tried quitting many times but find myself too curious to see what's happening and checking again. I've managed to cut Reddit down to 1 sub, but even then it seems really difficult to quit that last piece. I still check LinkedIN occasionally but don't expect much from it, nor do I care about what's being discussed. FB is totally out of my life, including messenger so I have made some progress there. Slack also totally gone. I completely uninstalled it and direct people to email. Speaking of email, I am almost always at inbox zero thanks to a ton of filters. Stuff still gets through from spammers and occasional subscriptions that want to push crap I don't care about, but I manage to zap those with the "mark as spam" button quickly.

jancsika 7y ago

Title doesn't match the article, which appears to be about social media manipulation techniques making people feel disconnected and sad. But "death of social reciprocity?" According to my own research set to appear in the second clause of this sentence, sad people are apparently still thanking the Fortnite bus driver in record numbers.

chansiky 7y ago
Yes but how many of them would donate a spare kidney for him if he really needed it. People risked their lives for each other. I’m not sure that it’s the same case with people who like your selfie.

xoraes 7y ago

Is it just me or others also feel that this is only exacerbated by having 'always in ear devices' like AirPods (or any other earbuds for that matter)? Why is it not considered rude to have them on while you're having a discussion with someone?

09bjb 7y ago
Don't worry, plenty of us would consider that rude :) It's really the same as checking your phone during a conversation. Is it useful for me to give you my full attention if yours is constantly changing channels?
dymk 7y ago
It is rude, that didn’t change. People take out their earpods when they talk to me (or me to them).
twic 7y ago
It is. Is this common behaviour somewhere? Where?
- allenu 7y ago
  One of my coworkers did this the other day during daily standup. He had his airpods in while he talked.
duderific 7y ago
My favorite one lately, which is kind of the opposite, but at least as rude, is people having conversations on speaker phone as they're walking around in public. I don't really need to hear your conversation with Verizon customer service, bro.
hosteur 7y ago
It is considered rude?
kart23 7y ago
YES it is 100% rude and weird imo. I was having a conversation with someone at an event, asked him a couple questions, and he only took his airpods out after a couple minutes. It felt weird and disrespectful. I told my colleagues about it and they agreed with me.

Verdex 7y ago

Back in my day when you passed someone on the way to buy your morning paper you would say "good day sir" and tip your hat. These kids don't even read the paper anymore. And they're all like, "what is up" and "how is it hanging". What does that even mean? I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar to say these things. And what the deal with likes on facebook. Too busy posting pictures of what they're eating to listen quietly to the adults discussing aunt Joann's ridiculous choice of hat. Seriously, it's August so she should really know not to wear a green hat when we all go to watch the 10 hours of reruns of Survivor. EDIT: 'News' article on the web complains about technology trying to steal our attention from 'the true reality' and it does this by employing a click bait title and pairs the message proper with multiple visual ads.

beeskneecaps 7y ago
Darn youths!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jolmg 7y ago
> I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar to say these things. But "good day sir" lacks a verb and subject/object, so it's not even a sentence. On the other hand, "what is up" and "how is it hanging" are proper interrogative sentences, as far as grammar is concerned anyway.

buboard 7y ago

The text refutes the title, whats going on. Anyway, another article about how it is "destroying society". But there is no mention on what really destroys society. Try smiling to an adult and u re the weird one. So much for saying hi or chatting, ewww unless you re physically on the high end of the scale. Like others have said, you can only react to kids , and that's only if you re not a man outside a certain age range. Frankly this doesnt sound like an interesting book.

angrydev 7y ago

This article lacks substance and is painfully anecdotal. I was expecting something more from SA.

morcutt 7y ago

This article resonates with me. As of late, social media has been a negative for my life. It is terribly distracting. I pay attention to who interacts with my content more than I should. I just deactivated Instagram (user ~#66,000 so I signed up in the first few days) for the first time this week (after deleting the app many times) and it has been very refreshing.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I think this trend started way before digital media. Since TV a lot of people spend hours every day in front of a screen which is their main source of information about the outside world. Business also has been becoming increasingly impersonal. You are beholden to shareholders you don’t know and shareholders demand things from people they don’t know. You can’t give feedback to job applicants for a vague fear of being sued. We are afraid of strangers talking to children or even us. I am not sure if this trend will be positive or negative long term but I think social media is just another (accelerated) step in that direction.

duderific 7y ago

One thing I've noticed is that people often don't hold the door open anymore when you're following them out of a building or room, because they're looking at their phone. I thought the article would be focused on these sorts of things, but it seemed to be more of an advice column. Not what I was expecting.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago

I like that they bring up distractions. The addictive nature of online media is an issue, but that isn't the only thing going on. People are hyper sensitive now, and at least here in the US, there is a sense that 'someone one is to blame, and that person needs to be punished'... and that sense is way stronger than the sense of 'is this person even guilty'. Where I'm from, I give hitch hikers rides all the time. Since I've lived in the US, I don't. If the hitch hiker was to have drugs on them, and we got stopped, I could easily be liable for this, and go to jail and lose my right to be in the United States. Those are some high stakes. Especially since I don't have a $250,000 lying around to pay for a criminal defense attorney. And lower stakes happen everywhere. The other day I was hiking (with my expensive hiking gear) in some back-country trail and I watched as first the dad took a shot, then what appeared to be the mom. So I offered to take the picture of the whole family. The mom yanked her camera to the side when I offered (as if afraid I'd steal it) and tersely rejected my offer (a single, cold and distrustful "NO") One day I sat down at a restaurant and there was a really nice new cell phone on the seat. In my home country, I would have taken it, and waited to receive a call from the owner to give it back. Not so in the US. I wouldn't want to be accused of stealing it. Instead, I called the staff to take it away. Maybe they stole it? I don't know, but I don't want the liability. When you do away with presumption of innocence, there is a strong chilling effect.

theonionknight 7y ago

For anyone interested in this topic, I would strongly recommend Cal Newport’s book digital minimalism

theonionknight 7y ago

For anyone interested in this topic, i would strongly recommend Cal Newport’s book digital minimalism

ipython 7y ago

The problem is, social reciprocity is /expensive/ ... and like anything else expensive, it's been eliminated in today's society. Say what you want about Wal-Mart, but Sam Walton wanted his stores to have a more 'neighborhood' feel, so he employed greeters to stand at the front of the store to say hello to shoppers as they entered. A small gesture, but eliminated in the name of 'cost savings'. For most businesses these days, labor is one of your largest - if not your largest - direct cost. So it is a natural target when thinking how to increase profitability. That's just talking about direct $$ cost... I think this article also touches on the fact that 'expensive' is also measured in attention. It's a lot easier to get a dopamine hit by checking your phone rather than a spontaneous interaction with another human being. You know what that little badge on the phone means, the outcome from a random conversation with another human ... is a little less certain.

munificent 7y ago
> am Walton wanted his stores to have a more 'neighborhood' feel, so he employed greeters to stand at the front of the store to say hello to shoppers as they entered. The reality is, alas, not quite as wholesome: The idea of having dedicated greeters at the front door of a store may have come from an employee of the company, Lois Richard. She was working in the early 1980s as an invoice clerk at the Walmart store in Crowley, Louisiana. The Walmart store in Crowley, which had opened in 1980, was experiencing shoplifting and had a significant "inventory shrinkage" after two years. The initial idea was to have an employee standing at the door in order to try to decrease shoplifting. After a shoplifting sting conducted by the local police showed that piles of merchandise could have been taken away, Lois Richard pitched the idea the next day to her manager and it was accepted. Having someone who visibly sees each patron when they enter and is physically present at the exit likely reduces shoplifting more than enough to pay for the position. They're basically security guards.
- ipython 7y ago
  So you’re saying that some social graces have a positive side effect of reducing crime? How is that not wholesome?

chrisfinne 7y ago

The Jews identified this problem and the solution thousands of years ago, hence their weekly Sabbath ritual of disconnecting from work/technology and focusing on their family/faith. I've got a growing appreciation for rituals that seem silly, worthless or out-dated. If the ritual has survived this long, deep examination is in order before altering or dismissing it.

handoflixue 7y ago
I really like Zvi's article on bringing back the Sabbath as a secular tool for disconnecting and ensuring your life is balanced enough that you can survive a day offline: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/bring-back-the-sabbath/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/bring-back-the-sabba...
m463 7y ago
I think the Amish have an interesting take on technology too. They do adopt it - but very slowly and only to enhance their community. Fascinating article by Kevin Kelly on Amish Hackers: https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/
kromem 7y ago
Yes, but Jesus's revisionist take on it is worthwhile to keep in mind too: "The sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath." Disconnecting is good for many as a general practice. I myself have a "no technology day" once a month or so. And certainly taking a population recently freed from slavery and instituting a labor law ensuring a weekend was a great idea (whoever thought of it). But that's the nice thing about weekends - each of us get to spend them as we choose. If you are feeling disconnected from your loved ones and want to mutually agree to put away your phones, awesome. But likewise, if you had a rough week and want to lose yourself in binge watching Stranger Things, that's cool too. Let's not fall back into the ways of every generations before us in how we consider younger trends as we age. Even chess was condemned as corrupting the youth in its day. A central theme to the success of all life in this world is balance. If you feel out of balance, adjust your own life accordingly to regain it. But it would probably be unwise to assume the balance that works for one works for all. I doubt any one of us has an identical idea of what living the perfect life looks like. All we can do is figure out what our own version of that picture looks like and do our best to realize it.

scotty79 7y ago

Reciprocity is one of the mechanisms people use to part you with your money. Sellers use it, charity uses it, scammers use it. No wonder that people tend to dial down their reciprocity if they can.

scarejunba 7y ago

Nah, technology is pretty cool for this shit. Everyone likes their friends' posts. It's like an acknowledgement - I see you and I like that I do. iMessage reactions and FB messenger reactions are the same. I think if I looked through my group chats, most messages have reactions. And Find my Friends? You have that shit broadcasting and you'll run into each other all the time. I feel so thoroughly connected with my friends. They're like a mesh that catches me when I'm down and bounces me back up. And it's so easy with tech.