8 ms·

I'd like to see similar study about the original gateway drug: "24-hour News Channels", which was followed by "24-hour Outrage-News Channels". Seems like we've

by sbf501 4y ago

I'd like to see similar study about the original gateway drug: "24-hour News Channels", which was followed by "24-hour Outrage-News Channels". Seems like we've been building toward this, the interactivity of the internet was the paradigm shift (to use a 90's term). EDIT: I realize it isn't news messing with youths' self-esteem (well, in some cases it is), but it is related in that the media is custom-made to drive engagement at all costs.

oDot 4y ago
You've reminded me of a very good Norm bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ktWtIDQQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ktWtIDQQQ
mcrad 4y ago
Engagement with broadcast TV vs with hyper-personalized apps is a specious comparison.
- svachalek 4y ago
  The psychological manipulation is based on the same principles, it's just the application is less refined.
  - samatman 4y ago
    It is and it isn't, but mostly, it isn't. The relentless Skinner Boxing which Facebook and similar platforms engage in has no parallel in broadcast media, which can't be algorithmically tuned to harm the victim as much as possible.
- klodolph 4y ago
  Do you care to elaborate? Why do you say it's specious?
  - mcrad 4y ago
    Well engagement implies a certain amount to decision making and real-time action. TV watching is pretty much passive, and I just have a hard time believing the brain is impacted similarly but such different types of activity.
    - sbf501 4y ago
      I don't think that qualifies as "specious" because I'm not trying to deceive anyone. You missed the part where I stated TV isn't interactive. I tried to pose a question in good faith. Did I fail? I am interested in information. Using the term "specious" incorrectly, deliberately or accidentally, is a judgement of the basis of my argument, which is actually specious.
      - mcrad 4y ago
        Strawman argument then? I'm simply disagreeing that cable TV has a similar kind of mental health impact referred to in the article, just because there are similarities in how they operate as economic/social entities. I have no reason to believe you are trying to deceive anyone and specious is a great word :)
        sbf501 4y ago
        > and specious is a great word :) Lol, it is. :) > Strawman argument then? How about I rephrase, "Does 24-hour news have similar effects on viewers as this study shows social media has on kids, despite not being interactive?" Yeah, I see your point. Apples and oranges. Still interested in that study.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      I think "engagement" in the discussion here is more of a term of art, and it's not really a question of what it implies.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  TiVo monetized hyper-personalized broadcast TV, by interposing ads based on all sorts of calculated data, into recorded broadcast TV streams, though. So it's more continuous a transition i suspect than people consider.
  - kurthr 4y ago
    TiVo allowed you to skip ads. Was there an earlier or later version? You own the recording... I know there's still 5-15-30sec skip. Hulu, Roku, et al do of course insert their own ads because they're ad supported.
- viridian 4y ago
  People aren't as unique and individualized as one might think. A half dozen channels, and thus permutations of outrage content is likely plenty enough to capture the overwhelming majority of the population's attention.
gergov 4y ago
Right, engagement at all cost it is, but there is a fundamental difference. Television required professionals where even wrestling and reality TV is scripted: it requires some sort of willful ignorance from the viewer to engage with it. Social media pushes the illusion that you are not engaging with professionals but peers, and the dominant signals (how many views, likes, comments, etc.) of this day and age were not present with TV. This seriously messes with the innate reasoning of most humans, because for all our individualism we are norm conforming herd animals. Show a kid a celebrity pushing something and they can tell it's fake. If the same thing is pushed by all of their friends, now we're in the territory of peer pressure which is a different ball game!
- otikik 4y ago
  > some sort of willful ignorance Not "some sort of willful ignorance". It just requires "ignorance". I think most of us know someone who thinks that reality TV is ... well, reality. "It says it in the name". > Show a kid a celebrity pushing something and they can tell it's fake Perhaps you have very bright kids. My kid will ask me to buy two of whatever that person is pushing. He's simply not equipped to handle marketing at any level, yet.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    I’m not sure we’re equipped as a society, otherwise why would marketing budgets be so high? I know adults who voted for Trump because they believed the apprentice gave them an unvarnished view of his character and decision making prowess in the real world. My own grandmother would cite episodes of the show.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    Up to now, I have vigorously shielded my toddler from marketing - as far as he knows, the TV occasionally shows holiday church services and election results, and "his" laptop shows fairly non-violent excerpts from BBC animal documentaries and bird-watching videos (he's taken to asking to watch by making the slurping sounds the desert rain frog in his favorite video makes as it's eating termites, then exclaiming "froggy!"). I know he needs to be exposed to some marketing while I'm watching along to talk about it so he isn't completely defenseless against it later, but I don't think that time is quite yet. So far, I'm going with his being able to separate "real" from "pretend" as a minimum.
swayvil 4y ago
Books, radio, tv, videogames, internet, vr... A progression of machines for interacting with dreams more deeply. A progreassion of better and better dream amplifiers. Dreams becoming a bigger part of our life Expert dreamers making the big bucks A whole population with one foot in dreamland. You ever noticed how fiction is everywhere? And advertising. And propaganda.
duxup 4y ago
My father in law, who suffers from parkinson's calls me several times a day to leave me voice mails about how terrible the world is and how scared he is about what is coming. If there's a hell I hope there is a special place for 24-hour news channels and folks who feed fear and skewed garbage to people and hurt them. I sometimes wish I could run a 24 hour news channel that tried to do more of a mix of content / etc. It might not be popular, or profitable, but it wouldn't be doom and gloom and conflict and bait all day. Maybe some stories about rando people's lives and other things?
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  You'd go out of business. I'm not dismissing malice or opportunism in the media, but it is also important to appreciate the situation mass news media is in. Mass media are extremely dependent on things like advertising and that's always been the case for as long mass media have existed. The price of subscription or buying a paper is simply too meager to cover the costs of running a paper, for example. Advertising introduces its own perverse incentives and limitations (you can't bite the hand that feeds you, for example). 24 hour news are, for the most part, useless, so they've got to fill the air time with sensationalized garbage, and because there's an arms race, the sensantionalism escalates.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    The only FTA 24 hour news channel we have in Australia is government funded, no advertising. Not sure if its existence helps prevent the proliferation of the sorts of channels that seem to exist in the US, though it hardly has any significant viewer numbers.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
We have been gamified. But then again spending 6 hours a day reading celebrity magazines to r watching daytime TV will equally rot our sense of balance. We some how think this would be six hours replaced with "improving our minds", visiting museums and working on our calculus or oil painting. I mean we could all do that. we more or less force our children to do that at school. If there was a "improve my mind" button on facebook, do you think we would all press it? I am torn between my pessimism and optimism
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  National parks in the US experienced a surge in interest after the covid lockdowns. I have hope that while more people might be falling into the unhealthy trap of news and social media - a lot of people are breaking free and exploring the world and it's people and places.
- sbf501 4y ago
  > We some how think this would be six hours replaced with "improving our minds", visiting museums and working on our calculus or oil painting. I'm in my 50's and am literally doing the latter two on weekends. Have I become a trope?!? lol.
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    Was the museum packed with hundreds of 20 somethings? if not then the "life long education" idea is not really catching on - you aren't a trope. You probably aren't a minority - barely make a cult I suspect :-)
oblib 4y ago
>>I'd like to see similar study about the original gateway drug: "24-hour News Channels" Back in the early 80s I was living in LA and I'd grab some food on the way home from work and the "News" on an independent station. They had 3 half hour News show back to back. They started out with "Local News", then moved on to "National News", and finally "World News". At first it didn't seem much different than the big 3 Networks. Everyday I'd come home from work feeling fine but after a few months of doing that I realized by the end of the last broadcast I was very depressed. It finally occurred to me, after a few months, that the station was gathering every tragedy they could find, rapes, robberies, murders, wars, airplane and auto crashes, etc. So I decided to stop watching it and immediately went back to my normal, happy, content self. Since I've learned to monitor the "News" as opposed to consuming it and that's much easier to do when we can pick and choose what to consume and ignore it with just a click or tap. And since then I've had quite a few friends and relatives who're happy and content before and are now in a constant state of rage because they're pretty much addicted to watching FOX/CNN/MSNBC, etc. That said, I would love to see a serious study on this because it's grown into a serious and national mental heath problem here in the U.S.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  It’s been well studied. We know the ad suppprted news make us sad. Don’t watch the news. NPR and PBS are the best if you have to. I think someone could make a few billion running a positive happy news channel.
  - sbf501 4y ago
    I also like Reuters, BBC and Al Jazeera, but I think the beeb is under too much scrutiny at home, but I still find them fair-ish?
  - retzkek 4y ago
    > I think someone could make a few billion running a positive happy news channel. Isn't that essentially what TikTok is? A 24/7 feed of all the positive, happy, dopamine-triggering content you could ever want, tailored to you. And yeah, they have.
tomcam 4y ago
> "24-hour Outrage-News Channels" That’s the only kind
baby 4y ago
People always attack the latest tech. If it’s not video games it’s TV, if it’s not TV its radio, etc. Wait til VR is evil
LanceH 4y ago
In the 80's, my grandmother was in a nursing home and we would receiver her mail. She would receive stacks of mail -- generally Democrat leaning, but not always -- with long copy outrage about Social Security or Medicare being eviscerated (There is a bill on the House floor now!!!) We suspect she donated and got on a list somehow, but the mail was pure outrage, all the time, and I'm sure it goes back much further than this.

by sbf501 4y ago

oDot 4y ago

You've reminded me of a very good Norm bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ktWtIDQQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2ktWtIDQQQ

mcrad 4y ago

Engagement with broadcast TV vs with hyper-personalized apps is a specious comparison.

svachalek 4y ago
The psychological manipulation is based on the same principles, it's just the application is less refined.
- samatman 4y ago
  It is and it isn't, but mostly, it isn't. The relentless Skinner Boxing which Facebook and similar platforms engage in has no parallel in broadcast media, which can't be algorithmically tuned to harm the victim as much as possible.
klodolph 4y ago
Do you care to elaborate? Why do you say it's specious?
- mcrad 4y ago
  Well engagement implies a certain amount to decision making and real-time action. TV watching is pretty much passive, and I just have a hard time believing the brain is impacted similarly but such different types of activity.
  - sbf501 4y ago
    I don't think that qualifies as "specious" because I'm not trying to deceive anyone. You missed the part where I stated TV isn't interactive. I tried to pose a question in good faith. Did I fail? I am interested in information. Using the term "specious" incorrectly, deliberately or accidentally, is a judgement of the basis of my argument, which is actually specious.
    - mcrad 4y ago
      Strawman argument then? I'm simply disagreeing that cable TV has a similar kind of mental health impact referred to in the article, just because there are similarities in how they operate as economic/social entities. I have no reason to believe you are trying to deceive anyone and specious is a great word :)
      - sbf501 4y ago
        > and specious is a great word :) Lol, it is. :) > Strawman argument then? How about I rephrase, "Does 24-hour news have similar effects on viewers as this study shows social media has on kids, despite not being interactive?" Yeah, I see your point. Apples and oranges. Still interested in that study.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I think "engagement" in the discussion here is more of a term of art, and it's not really a question of what it implies.
jjtheblunt 4y ago
TiVo monetized hyper-personalized broadcast TV, by interposing ads based on all sorts of calculated data, into recorded broadcast TV streams, though. So it's more continuous a transition i suspect than people consider.
- kurthr 4y ago
  TiVo allowed you to skip ads. Was there an earlier or later version? You own the recording... I know there's still 5-15-30sec skip. Hulu, Roku, et al do of course insert their own ads because they're ad supported.
viridian 4y ago
People aren't as unique and individualized as one might think. A half dozen channels, and thus permutations of outrage content is likely plenty enough to capture the overwhelming majority of the population's attention.

gergov 4y ago

Right, engagement at all cost it is, but there is a fundamental difference. Television required professionals where even wrestling and reality TV is scripted: it requires some sort of willful ignorance from the viewer to engage with it. Social media pushes the illusion that you are not engaging with professionals but peers, and the dominant signals (how many views, likes, comments, etc.) of this day and age were not present with TV. This seriously messes with the innate reasoning of most humans, because for all our individualism we are norm conforming herd animals. Show a kid a celebrity pushing something and they can tell it's fake. If the same thing is pushed by all of their friends, now we're in the territory of peer pressure which is a different ball game!

otikik 4y ago
> some sort of willful ignorance Not "some sort of willful ignorance". It just requires "ignorance". I think most of us know someone who thinks that reality TV is ... well, reality. "It says it in the name". > Show a kid a celebrity pushing something and they can tell it's fake Perhaps you have very bright kids. My kid will ask me to buy two of whatever that person is pushing. He's simply not equipped to handle marketing at any level, yet.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  I’m not sure we’re equipped as a society, otherwise why would marketing budgets be so high? I know adults who voted for Trump because they believed the apprentice gave them an unvarnished view of his character and decision making prowess in the real world. My own grandmother would cite episodes of the show.
- MandieD 4y ago
  Up to now, I have vigorously shielded my toddler from marketing - as far as he knows, the TV occasionally shows holiday church services and election results, and "his" laptop shows fairly non-violent excerpts from BBC animal documentaries and bird-watching videos (he's taken to asking to watch by making the slurping sounds the desert rain frog in his favorite video makes as it's eating termites, then exclaiming "froggy!"). I know he needs to be exposed to some marketing while I'm watching along to talk about it so he isn't completely defenseless against it later, but I don't think that time is quite yet. So far, I'm going with his being able to separate "real" from "pretend" as a minimum.

swayvil 4y ago

Books, radio, tv, videogames, internet, vr... A progression of machines for interacting with dreams more deeply. A progreassion of better and better dream amplifiers. Dreams becoming a bigger part of our life Expert dreamers making the big bucks A whole population with one foot in dreamland. You ever noticed how fiction is everywhere? And advertising. And propaganda.

duxup 4y ago

My father in law, who suffers from parkinson's calls me several times a day to leave me voice mails about how terrible the world is and how scared he is about what is coming. If there's a hell I hope there is a special place for 24-hour news channels and folks who feed fear and skewed garbage to people and hurt them. I sometimes wish I could run a 24 hour news channel that tried to do more of a mix of content / etc. It might not be popular, or profitable, but it wouldn't be doom and gloom and conflict and bait all day. Maybe some stories about rando people's lives and other things?

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
You'd go out of business. I'm not dismissing malice or opportunism in the media, but it is also important to appreciate the situation mass news media is in. Mass media are extremely dependent on things like advertising and that's always been the case for as long mass media have existed. The price of subscription or buying a paper is simply too meager to cover the costs of running a paper, for example. Advertising introduces its own perverse incentives and limitations (you can't bite the hand that feeds you, for example). 24 hour news are, for the most part, useless, so they've got to fill the air time with sensationalized garbage, and because there's an arms race, the sensantionalism escalates.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  The only FTA 24 hour news channel we have in Australia is government funded, no advertising. Not sure if its existence helps prevent the proliferation of the sorts of channels that seem to exist in the US, though it hardly has any significant viewer numbers.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

We have been gamified. But then again spending 6 hours a day reading celebrity magazines to r watching daytime TV will equally rot our sense of balance. We some how think this would be six hours replaced with "improving our minds", visiting museums and working on our calculus or oil painting. I mean we could all do that. we more or less force our children to do that at school. If there was a "improve my mind" button on facebook, do you think we would all press it? I am torn between my pessimism and optimism

Xeoncross 4y ago
National parks in the US experienced a surge in interest after the covid lockdowns. I have hope that while more people might be falling into the unhealthy trap of news and social media - a lot of people are breaking free and exploring the world and it's people and places.
sbf501 4y ago
> We some how think this would be six hours replaced with "improving our minds", visiting museums and working on our calculus or oil painting. I'm in my 50's and am literally doing the latter two on weekends. Have I become a trope?!? lol.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  Was the museum packed with hundreds of 20 somethings? if not then the "life long education" idea is not really catching on - you aren't a trope. You probably aren't a minority - barely make a cult I suspect :-)

oblib 4y ago

>>I'd like to see similar study about the original gateway drug: "24-hour News Channels" Back in the early 80s I was living in LA and I'd grab some food on the way home from work and the "News" on an independent station. They had 3 half hour News show back to back. They started out with "Local News", then moved on to "National News", and finally "World News". At first it didn't seem much different than the big 3 Networks. Everyday I'd come home from work feeling fine but after a few months of doing that I realized by the end of the last broadcast I was very depressed. It finally occurred to me, after a few months, that the station was gathering every tragedy they could find, rapes, robberies, murders, wars, airplane and auto crashes, etc. So I decided to stop watching it and immediately went back to my normal, happy, content self. Since I've learned to monitor the "News" as opposed to consuming it and that's much easier to do when we can pick and choose what to consume and ignore it with just a click or tap. And since then I've had quite a few friends and relatives who're happy and content before and are now in a constant state of rage because they're pretty much addicted to watching FOX/CNN/MSNBC, etc. That said, I would love to see a serious study on this because it's grown into a serious and national mental heath problem here in the U.S.

theGnuMe 4y ago
It’s been well studied. We know the ad suppprted news make us sad. Don’t watch the news. NPR and PBS are the best if you have to. I think someone could make a few billion running a positive happy news channel.
- sbf501 4y ago
  I also like Reuters, BBC and Al Jazeera, but I think the beeb is under too much scrutiny at home, but I still find them fair-ish?
- retzkek 4y ago
  > I think someone could make a few billion running a positive happy news channel. Isn't that essentially what TikTok is? A 24/7 feed of all the positive, happy, dopamine-triggering content you could ever want, tailored to you. And yeah, they have.

tomcam 4y ago

> "24-hour Outrage-News Channels" That’s the only kind

baby 4y ago

People always attack the latest tech. If it’s not video games it’s TV, if it’s not TV its radio, etc. Wait til VR is evil

LanceH 4y ago

In the 80's, my grandmother was in a nursing home and we would receiver her mail. She would receive stacks of mail -- generally Democrat leaning, but not always -- with long copy outrage about Social Security or Medicare being eviscerated (There is a bill on the House floor now!!!) We suspect she donated and got on a list somehow, but the mail was pure outrage, all the time, and I'm sure it goes back much further than this.