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This article's threads are also filled with people talking about being on their phone too much and wishing they/other people weren't. It's all self declared th

This article's threads are also filled with people talking about being on their phone too much and wishing they/other people weren't. It's all self declared though, the same way people will complain they don't exercice enough, they don't eat enough vegetable, they don't read enough books, they didn't stick to their new year's resolution etc. We can't take people's guilt or self loathing as an indicator of an actual critical problem.

pms 3y ago
There is a difference you neglected: nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions, so the responsibility is on us, whereas social media platforms do optimize for engagement, which implies showing us sensational and shallow content that grabs our attention, without giving us enough ways to control it, so responsibility is divided...
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  > nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions Disclaimer: I have no hourse in these races. There's absolutely whole industries dedicated to make you eat juicy meat as the main dish and making sure it stays so for the foreseeable future. Our media landscape is a zero sum attention market, we only have 24h in a day and you can check Netflix CEO interviews, he's painfuly aware the battle is against any other form of entertainment. And yes, you going to the gym doesn't help Netflix or Nintendo or Epic. If they find a lever to cut it down, they'll totally do it. On social media it's the same playing field: giving companies full freedom to do whatever they want at scale has always been a recipe for disaster. If we want more control we should get it, the same way radio and TV had more control structures in place. That's not what the author is pushing for though. Except if the definition of "control" is squarely "stop people from using it"

pms 3y ago

There is a difference you neglected: nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions, so the responsibility is on us, whereas social media platforms do optimize for engagement, which implies showing us sensational and shallow content that grabs our attention, without giving us enough ways to control it, so responsibility is divided...

makeitdouble 3y ago
> nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions Disclaimer: I have no hourse in these races. There's absolutely whole industries dedicated to make you eat juicy meat as the main dish and making sure it stays so for the foreseeable future. Our media landscape is a zero sum attention market, we only have 24h in a day and you can check Netflix CEO interviews, he's painfuly aware the battle is against any other form of entertainment. And yes, you going to the gym doesn't help Netflix or Nintendo or Epic. If they find a lever to cut it down, they'll totally do it. On social media it's the same playing field: giving companies full freedom to do whatever they want at scale has always been a recipe for disaster. If we want more control we should get it, the same way radio and TV had more control structures in place. That's not what the author is pushing for though. Except if the definition of "control" is squarely "stop people from using it"