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Great info, thank you for sharing. Lets rewrite "keep you scrolling" as an inexact colloquial English expression that parses down to "spend time on site", and

Great info, thank you for sharing. Lets rewrite "keep you scrolling" as an inexact colloquial English expression that parses down to "spend time on site", and what they really mean to express: "form the daily habit". Whether it is passively watching hands free a la TikTok or being prompted to press a like button, post text, or smoke a cigarette and regardless of the trigger - so long as you don't forget the thing exists and come back to it every day profits go up.

mgraczyk 4y ago
EDIT: No
- recuter 4y ago
  Yeah, people attack Meta engineers for no reason. I wish you nothing but the best. BTW, here is a cool game for you to take your mind off things, please enjoy thoroughly: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Edit: please note before above reply was edited to 'No' it literally said that what I wrote is 'pretty much accurate'.
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    I don't work there anymore, and as you can probably tell from the stock ticker, Facebook is much closer to myspace than a universal paperclip machine. It's just been a fad to be concerned about it. That's basically passed now, and the next few fads are already pretty mature.
    - recuter 4y ago
      MySpace peaked at 75 million users, currently Facebook is approaching 3 billion and still growing (just slower). Of course I am counting humans and you are measuring by stock ticker. But hey at least it didn't drink the blood of all humanity, what's done is done. We should move on, you are correct. Although, on second thought, it did spur those new next fads and set a precedent. And they do seem to be improving on the original in habit forming. It is also attempting to generate a new one to ride to a higher water mark and to be completely honest I'm not sure all those posts and things it prompted people to do en masse were beneficial to society overall.. Maybe there's some sort of lesson to be gleaned here.
      - mgraczyk 4y ago
        > drink the blood of all humanity Building a product that people for less time per day on average than TikTok, Youtube, Snapchat is "drinking blood"? I think you should take a step back and evaluate if it's really as bad as you think it is.
        recuter 4y ago
        > Building a product that people for less time per day on average than TikTok, Youtube, Snapchat Firstly, that is despite your best efforts and not for lack of trying. Secondly, as we established, whether it is 5 minutes or 5 hours, the key is the formation of the habitual use. Thirdly, the 'drinking the blood of humanity' is about the Paperclips game. Even if you've played it before here is that link again to rejigger your memory: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Please do make sure to play it all the way through to understand the reference. A bit of a time commitment but really not as bad as you think it is.
- mgiampapa 4y ago
  Having a goal of using the product we make more isn't inherently evil, so why would anyone write about it that way.
bryan_w 4y ago
> Whether it is passively watching hands free a la TikTok or being prompted to press a like button, post text, or smoke a cigarette and regardless of the trigger - so long as you don't forget the thing exists and come back to it every day profits go up. You're just describing the basics of business but framing it to be nefarious? People who make a product, generally want it to be used as much as possible. It's why newspapers have crosswords and tv shows have cliffhangers. It's a problem when you want it to happen over the wellbeing of the users, so unless you think getting people to communicate with their friends and families is as bad as smoking, it doesn't seem to be the same thing. It reminds me of that Key and Peele sketch where Peele described robbing a bank by working for them every day for 40 years
- recuter 4y ago
  > It's a problem when you want it to happen over the wellbeing of the users, so unless you think getting people to communicate with their friends and families is as bad as smoking, it doesn't seem to be the same thing. Facebook thinks its pretty bad: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701445/facebook-instagram-mental-health-research-pdfs-documents https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701445/facebook-instagr... I don't know that it is worse than cancer. Lets hope not. Strange yardstick.
  - bryan_w 4y ago
    High level: "We know Facebook executives believe that the company has positive overall benefits for the world" And it was you that originally brought up cigarettes
    - recuter 4y ago
      “We know Facebook executives believe that the company has positive overall benefits for the world, and we also know that they are meticulous students of their own data,” Newton wrote on Tuesday. “It’s hard to understand why, if the data is so positive, Facebook is often so reluctant to share it.” Please don't take things out of context. The authors really actually are claiming that Facebook knows it is harmful and knew all along - disagree with them if you want but don't rewrite their position.

mgraczyk 4y ago

EDIT: No

recuter 4y ago
Yeah, people attack Meta engineers for no reason. I wish you nothing but the best. BTW, here is a cool game for you to take your mind off things, please enjoy thoroughly: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Edit: please note before above reply was edited to 'No' it literally said that what I wrote is 'pretty much accurate'.
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  I don't work there anymore, and as you can probably tell from the stock ticker, Facebook is much closer to myspace than a universal paperclip machine. It's just been a fad to be concerned about it. That's basically passed now, and the next few fads are already pretty mature.
  - recuter 4y ago
    MySpace peaked at 75 million users, currently Facebook is approaching 3 billion and still growing (just slower). Of course I am counting humans and you are measuring by stock ticker. But hey at least it didn't drink the blood of all humanity, what's done is done. We should move on, you are correct. Although, on second thought, it did spur those new next fads and set a precedent. And they do seem to be improving on the original in habit forming. It is also attempting to generate a new one to ride to a higher water mark and to be completely honest I'm not sure all those posts and things it prompted people to do en masse were beneficial to society overall.. Maybe there's some sort of lesson to be gleaned here.
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      > drink the blood of all humanity Building a product that people for less time per day on average than TikTok, Youtube, Snapchat is "drinking blood"? I think you should take a step back and evaluate if it's really as bad as you think it is.
      - recuter 4y ago
        > Building a product that people for less time per day on average than TikTok, Youtube, Snapchat Firstly, that is despite your best efforts and not for lack of trying. Secondly, as we established, whether it is 5 minutes or 5 hours, the key is the formation of the habitual use. Thirdly, the 'drinking the blood of humanity' is about the Paperclips game. Even if you've played it before here is that link again to rejigger your memory: https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ Please do make sure to play it all the way through to understand the reference. A bit of a time commitment but really not as bad as you think it is.
mgiampapa 4y ago
Having a goal of using the product we make more isn't inherently evil, so why would anyone write about it that way.

bryan_w 4y ago

> Whether it is passively watching hands free a la TikTok or being prompted to press a like button, post text, or smoke a cigarette and regardless of the trigger - so long as you don't forget the thing exists and come back to it every day profits go up. You're just describing the basics of business but framing it to be nefarious? People who make a product, generally want it to be used as much as possible. It's why newspapers have crosswords and tv shows have cliffhangers. It's a problem when you want it to happen over the wellbeing of the users, so unless you think getting people to communicate with their friends and families is as bad as smoking, it doesn't seem to be the same thing. It reminds me of that Key and Peele sketch where Peele described robbing a bank by working for them every day for 40 years

recuter 4y ago
> It's a problem when you want it to happen over the wellbeing of the users, so unless you think getting people to communicate with their friends and families is as bad as smoking, it doesn't seem to be the same thing. Facebook thinks its pretty bad: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701445/facebook-instagram-mental-health-research-pdfs-documents https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/29/22701445/facebook-instagr... I don't know that it is worse than cancer. Lets hope not. Strange yardstick.
- bryan_w 4y ago
  High level: "We know Facebook executives believe that the company has positive overall benefits for the world" And it was you that originally brought up cigarettes
  - recuter 4y ago
    “We know Facebook executives believe that the company has positive overall benefits for the world, and we also know that they are meticulous students of their own data,” Newton wrote on Tuesday. “It’s hard to understand why, if the data is so positive, Facebook is often so reluctant to share it.” Please don't take things out of context. The authors really actually are claiming that Facebook knows it is harmful and knew all along - disagree with them if you want but don't rewrite their position.