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I believe (with no evidence) that infinite-scrolling social media sites have already consumed most available attention. To get a share of attention you now have

I believe (with no evidence) that infinite-scrolling social media sites have already consumed most available attention. To get a share of attention you now have to compete with them, instead of simply being an alternative to boredom.

epolanski 3y ago
To be honest if games can't compete with doom scrolling they are either crap games or the social media doom algos are too effective. No part of me thinks "I'd rather scroll my social feed" rather than doing pretty much anything more fun.
- hx8 3y ago
  If that's the case why are a significant number of people scrolling instead of playing?
  - epolanski 3y ago
    Because the distracting algos provide more entertainment than games.
  - JuanPosadas 3y ago
    I think there are people who like to do things, and people who like to do nothing. Next, there is an effort threshold between these choices for some people. For me, IRL activities and mouse/keyboard means that I "do things". At a moment I'm bound only to a touchscreen (phone, ipad, android tablet, etc.) with no access to better activities, I will likely read or watch YouTube videos. You can categorize those activities as doing something or doing nothing if you like, but the effort threshold for my regular keyboard/mouse activities is just too high to accomplish on a phone on-demand. I think in the general case, there are varying degrees of laziness and varying degress of inaccessibility for better activities in the general population. I hate tiktok, but I understand why you would watch pointless 30 second clips for an hour when the perceived alternative may be a pointless microtransaction farmville clone.
- terribleperson 3y ago
  Personally I feel it's the second one. When you're competing with boredom, a piece of entertainment can be pretty 'swingy' in how rewarding it feels, which I think is a desirable thing - dynamic range for feelings. When you're competing with social media scrolling, you have to beat that baseline of constant rewards.

epolanski 3y ago

To be honest if games can't compete with doom scrolling they are either crap games or the social media doom algos are too effective. No part of me thinks "I'd rather scroll my social feed" rather than doing pretty much anything more fun.

hx8 3y ago
If that's the case why are a significant number of people scrolling instead of playing?
- epolanski 3y ago
  Because the distracting algos provide more entertainment than games.
- JuanPosadas 3y ago
  I think there are people who like to do things, and people who like to do nothing. Next, there is an effort threshold between these choices for some people. For me, IRL activities and mouse/keyboard means that I "do things". At a moment I'm bound only to a touchscreen (phone, ipad, android tablet, etc.) with no access to better activities, I will likely read or watch YouTube videos. You can categorize those activities as doing something or doing nothing if you like, but the effort threshold for my regular keyboard/mouse activities is just too high to accomplish on a phone on-demand. I think in the general case, there are varying degrees of laziness and varying degress of inaccessibility for better activities in the general population. I hate tiktok, but I understand why you would watch pointless 30 second clips for an hour when the perceived alternative may be a pointless microtransaction farmville clone.
terribleperson 3y ago
Personally I feel it's the second one. When you're competing with boredom, a piece of entertainment can be pretty 'swingy' in how rewarding it feels, which I think is a desirable thing - dynamic range for feelings. When you're competing with social media scrolling, you have to beat that baseline of constant rewards.