6 ms·

We might even look at all social media by all participants the same way we now look at smoking. It is isn't healthy for the adults either.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
The problem is that smoking is pretty much 100% bad (excluding a brief period of being more alert) - social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. It was fun and exciting to catch up with people I'd moved away from. And then it became a vile sludge of toxic positivity mixed with outrage.
- InfamousRece 4y ago
  Smoking reduces your chances of getting Parkinson’s disease so it is probably less than 100% bad.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    Yeah the problem with smoking is mostly self control. It's clearly not a good habit but you can probably smoke a cigar a month for social or even personal enjoyment reasons and get more good than bad out of it.
    - burnished 4y ago
      Oof, that is not true and frankly terrible advice. Most people who quit smoking try the 'just sometimes' approach and it leads back to the original smoking habit. Framing it as self control problems is also a non starter. That shit is skillfully made addictive - if your outcomes are a high chance of chronic use and related illness or a low chance of occasional use and questionable benefits then the overall expected value is still deeply negative.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- mikrl 4y ago
  >The problem is that smoking is pretty much 100% bad Bad FOR you, yes; bad as an experience, no. It tastes good and facilitates socialization. >social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. It was fun Again, this speaks more to the experience than the health effects. Note that you said ‘it was fun’ in the same way that I can say the cigs I’ve smoked were fun. I don’t think the comparisons are too wrong to be honest. They are both activities that can facilitate ‘fun’ social interactions but with a deleterious effect on one’s health (cardiovascular and mental)
  - classified 4y ago
    > It tastes good and facilitates socialization. Or it tastes like shit and facilitates people running away from the stink of your poison. Maybe they'll socialize over it.
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      I think it depends on the people and on the cigarettes. I actually like the taste of one specific cigarette brand. I very rarely smoke, less than a packet a year, if that (0 during 2020 - 2022). I do hate the smell, though.
    - squarefoot 4y ago
      That's subjective. I quit smoking 30 years ago and, unless someone smokes directly into my face, I still like the smell of tobacco.
  - comfypotato 4y ago
    I think the issue with the comparison is that cigarettes are much worse. Like the original comment, I won’t be surprised if social media becomes stigmatized as people continue to realize more negative effects, but I doubt any of the effects are going to be as serious as cigarettes. It’s hard to compare the data, but I’m pretty sure smoking is much worse for you. A bad smoking habit is likely to kill you. There’s a point at which you smoke so much that it’s more likely to be the reason you die than anything else. Social media just makes you miserable.
- halfnormalform 4y ago
  Smoking also has a strong social component. Smokers socialize around the ashcan. It's fun and exciting to catch up with the other smokers in your building or at your work. It does become a vile sludge, you're not wrong about that.
- stormbeta 4y ago
  That aspect at least is easy to solve by drawing a stronger line between public content and stuff seen by people you actually know. This would be more of a social change than technical of course. The harder part is figuring out how to handle public content, because there are still innocuous or positive uses for it as well.
- ChainOfFools 4y ago
  I wonder if there's a way to model this as a simple Lottery trade off. Imagine a lot of game that has 100 times better odds of winning a Powerball sized multi-million jackpot, but every hundredth winner of this jackpot, (distributed randomly with a probability of 1/100) is arrested and publicly fed to lions. Would ticket sales increase or decrease versus the current scenario?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. Sure, but there are numerous other ways of doing that without bringing in the problems of social media.
- korroziya 4y ago
  >The problem is that smoking is pretty much 100% bad Smoking has far more benefits than social media, especially social benefits. If you have a pack of 20 cigarettes at a bar, you have 20 new friends you haven't even met yet. Smokers stick together. Sharing a cigarette is a bonding moment for a lot of people. I could go on. Fuck social media. I don't want to see underage girls whoring themselves out. I don't want to see man children acting cringe for likes. If I WANT to keep up with my family, I'll call them on the phone.
j45 4y ago
Social media is one part. Manufacturing behaviour through creating habit loops from notifications and scrolling for dopamine hits is an issue beyond social media. People are working for companies for free to be their valued and attentive audience to resell to the highest bidder. With small kids of my own I am finding it important to talk to them about things they don't understand, such as being careful of screens and smartphones. They have their own fear of google home as boogie man, which was unintended since we tried it out as a simple way to play whitenoise. As much as I will worry and take the precautions I can, I also see how kids being born today are so much smarter. Just ahve to make sure to unlock their enjoyment of the real world first, whether its sensory play, the outdoors, etc. So far, the smile from a screened expreience doesn't compare to being outside.
- 13years 4y ago
  > Manufacturing behaviour through creating habit loops from notifications and scrolling for dopamine hits is an issue beyond social media. I agree, but they are mostly intrinsically linked. > So far, the smile from a screened expreience doesn't compare to being outside. Yes, this is wisdom. It also reflects that beyond the manipulative algorithms, there still remains unfavorable outcomes of living life online.
- deadly_syn 4y ago
  The kids beig born today arent any smarter IMO, just more tuned to operate the technology by virtue of being native, just because someone can speak english, french, chinese, german, etc... does not grant the ability to utilize those skills to say something meaningful or having literacy in media using that language.
hattmall 4y ago
Agreed 100%. I've said this for a while as well. I can see lawsuits too because Social media companies are doing the same as tobacco, making changes to make the product more addictive and they also have the information to show that it is bad for health. I don't know to what level they are suppressing that information, but it seems likely.
- 13years 4y ago
  We got a glimpse of that in the documentary Social Dilemma. I expect it is going to get substantially worse. With the power of AI, data mining behavior for attention is going to surpass anything we have likely seen before.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

The problem is that smoking is pretty much 100% bad (excluding a brief period of being more alert) - social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. It was fun and exciting to catch up with people I'd moved away from. And then it became a vile sludge of toxic positivity mixed with outrage.

InfamousRece 4y ago
Smoking reduces your chances of getting Parkinson’s disease so it is probably less than 100% bad.
- notch898a 4y ago
  Yeah the problem with smoking is mostly self control. It's clearly not a good habit but you can probably smoke a cigar a month for social or even personal enjoyment reasons and get more good than bad out of it.
  - burnished 4y ago
    Oof, that is not true and frankly terrible advice. Most people who quit smoking try the 'just sometimes' approach and it leads back to the original smoking habit. Framing it as self control problems is also a non starter. That shit is skillfully made addictive - if your outcomes are a high chance of chronic use and related illness or a low chance of occasional use and questionable benefits then the overall expected value is still deeply negative.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
mikrl 4y ago
>The problem is that smoking is pretty much 100% bad Bad FOR you, yes; bad as an experience, no. It tastes good and facilitates socialization. >social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. It was fun Again, this speaks more to the experience than the health effects. Note that you said ‘it was fun’ in the same way that I can say the cigs I’ve smoked were fun. I don’t think the comparisons are too wrong to be honest. They are both activities that can facilitate ‘fun’ social interactions but with a deleterious effect on one’s health (cardiovascular and mental)
- classified 4y ago
  > It tastes good and facilitates socialization. Or it tastes like shit and facilitates people running away from the stink of your poison. Maybe they'll socialize over it.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    I think it depends on the people and on the cigarettes. I actually like the taste of one specific cigarette brand. I very rarely smoke, less than a packet a year, if that (0 during 2020 - 2022). I do hate the smell, though.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    That's subjective. I quit smoking 30 years ago and, unless someone smokes directly into my face, I still like the smell of tobacco.
- comfypotato 4y ago
  I think the issue with the comparison is that cigarettes are much worse. Like the original comment, I won’t be surprised if social media becomes stigmatized as people continue to realize more negative effects, but I doubt any of the effects are going to be as serious as cigarettes. It’s hard to compare the data, but I’m pretty sure smoking is much worse for you. A bad smoking habit is likely to kill you. There’s a point at which you smoke so much that it’s more likely to be the reason you die than anything else. Social media just makes you miserable.
halfnormalform 4y ago
Smoking also has a strong social component. Smokers socialize around the ashcan. It's fun and exciting to catch up with the other smokers in your building or at your work. It does become a vile sludge, you're not wrong about that.
stormbeta 4y ago
That aspect at least is easy to solve by drawing a stronger line between public content and stuff seen by people you actually know. This would be more of a social change than technical of course. The harder part is figuring out how to handle public content, because there are still innocuous or positive uses for it as well.
ChainOfFools 4y ago
I wonder if there's a way to model this as a simple Lottery trade off. Imagine a lot of game that has 100 times better odds of winning a Powerball sized multi-million jackpot, but every hundredth winner of this jackpot, (distributed randomly with a probability of 1/100) is arrested and publicly fed to lions. Would ticket sales increase or decrease versus the current scenario?
JohnFen 4y ago
> social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. Sure, but there are numerous other ways of doing that without bringing in the problems of social media.
korroziya 4y ago
>The problem is that smoking is pretty much 100% bad Smoking has far more benefits than social media, especially social benefits. If you have a pack of 20 cigarettes at a bar, you have 20 new friends you haven't even met yet. Smokers stick together. Sharing a cigarette is a bonding moment for a lot of people. I could go on. Fuck social media. I don't want to see underage girls whoring themselves out. I don't want to see man children acting cringe for likes. If I WANT to keep up with my family, I'll call them on the phone.

j45 4y ago

Social media is one part. Manufacturing behaviour through creating habit loops from notifications and scrolling for dopamine hits is an issue beyond social media. People are working for companies for free to be their valued and attentive audience to resell to the highest bidder. With small kids of my own I am finding it important to talk to them about things they don't understand, such as being careful of screens and smartphones. They have their own fear of google home as boogie man, which was unintended since we tried it out as a simple way to play whitenoise. As much as I will worry and take the precautions I can, I also see how kids being born today are so much smarter. Just ahve to make sure to unlock their enjoyment of the real world first, whether its sensory play, the outdoors, etc. So far, the smile from a screened expreience doesn't compare to being outside.

13years 4y ago
> Manufacturing behaviour through creating habit loops from notifications and scrolling for dopamine hits is an issue beyond social media. I agree, but they are mostly intrinsically linked. > So far, the smile from a screened expreience doesn't compare to being outside. Yes, this is wisdom. It also reflects that beyond the manipulative algorithms, there still remains unfavorable outcomes of living life online.
deadly_syn 4y ago
The kids beig born today arent any smarter IMO, just more tuned to operate the technology by virtue of being native, just because someone can speak english, french, chinese, german, etc... does not grant the ability to utilize those skills to say something meaningful or having literacy in media using that language.

hattmall 4y ago

Agreed 100%. I've said this for a while as well. I can see lawsuits too because Social media companies are doing the same as tobacco, making changes to make the product more addictive and they also have the information to show that it is bad for health. I don't know to what level they are suppressing that information, but it seems likely.

13years 4y ago
We got a glimpse of that in the documentary Social Dilemma. I expect it is going to get substantially worse. With the power of AI, data mining behavior for attention is going to surpass anything we have likely seen before.