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> As for endlessly scrolling the newsfeed all day, well that is not so much Facebook's fault as that people who do that are probably having too much idle time
by zenhack 7y ago
> As for endlessly scrolling the newsfeed all day, well that is not so much Facebook's fault as that people who do that are probably having too much idle time and not knowing how to do some productive or more creative activity. If Facebook did not exist those people would trawl through Twitter or Youtube or something else.
ehh... yes and no.
On the one hand, there is something to the idea that folks should take responsibility for figuring out how to not waste their time like this (if they consider it a problem; if you want to spend all day on goofing around on the internet, have fun I guess). There's some internal motivation required to make that happen that's a skill worth learning.
...but on the other hand, companies spend a ton of money researching how to keep people "engaged." This includes hiring psychologists to help them fine-tune the crap out of their platforms to make them addictive. Given that level of manipulative behavior, I don't think it's entirely fair to blame the users. And yes, without Facebook they might just do the same on Twitter or YouTube, but those platforms are doing the same thing. It doesn't make it ok just because everyone else is doing it.
- fenwick67 7y agoThis is what pisses me off about using Facebook. I just want status updates and photos from my friends. If I could literally mute all shared content (memes, twitter dunk screenshots and "shares") it would be a much nicer platform to use, but from Facebook's perspective this would be awful because I would be on and off the site in a few minutes. It turns out I really just wanted MySpace with photo albums.