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Way back ~1990, when internet email was first being rolled out to non-technical employees at fairly-tech-savvy orgs, I noticed that there were a very small mino

Way back ~1990, when internet email was first being rolled out to non-technical employees at fairly-tech-savvy orgs, I noticed that there were a very small minority of people - yes, generally non-technical older women - who suffered from "Recreational Sharing Disorder". It didn't matter if the stuff was blond jokes, or "everyone has to pray for Katie, who has cancer", or "forward this 1,000 times and there will be world peace", or what. Obviously they had neither filters for credibility, nor good filters for respecting other peoples' time budgets and expressed interests. And as the number of connected users expanded, a tiny % of RSD cases could quickly generate enough email traffic to badly impact a site's email service. (Which was usually dial-up modem or fractional T-1.) Mathematically, it was very interesting. And with an occasional reminder from management, they could pretty-well control their RSD at work. These days, there's a toxic hot mess of politics and emotions laid over the whole situation. But it might be useful to recall that the underlying problem is mostly a network with a very large N, and the bell-curve distributions of certain human behaviors.

zug_zug 2y ago
I appreciate the anecdote. The distinction I’d draw is that email was a push model, but today it’s platforms that decide what we see. If platforms wanted, I think it’d be trivial for them to make a setting for their users to filter out politics/outrage/whatever For example Reddit will (unprompted) put links to videos of police brutality on the home page when I’m not part of that subreddit. To me this anti pattern reminds me of putting candy bars in the checkout lane — pitting me against my self control on purpose
- bell-cot 2y ago
  True, to a degree. But if you recall the 1987-ish to 2007-ish era - there was enormous growth in the anger-positive, fact-indifferent conservative talk radio and TV segment. Which was not 100% opt-in...but still far more so than most modern social media. Another anecdote: Back about 2002, an old friend of mine cut off all contact with a life-long, retired friend of his. In retirement, the friend-of-friend had been bitten by the Viral Conservative Anger bug - and refused to stop forwarding dozens of VCA emails to my friend every week. Similar for discussing any other topic on the phone, or ... (Pre-retirement, the friend-of-friend had been a highly skilled engineer, and had seemed to be a wonderful person.)
- spixy 2y ago
  > For example Reddit will (unprompted) put links to videos of police brutality on the home page when I’m not part of that subreddit. What? Yes if you go to r/popular/ or r/all/ but on home page it wont (I just tested to be sure and it shows only my subscribed subreddits).
  - smegger001 2y ago
    I bet you removed all of the default subs and gp didn't.
  - benfortuna 2y ago
    In my experience of Reddit you don't just get your subscribed subreddits, but also "you might like this" posts from subreddits you aren't subscribed to. So I think there's definitely an algorithm at play here.
  - zug_zug 2y ago
    What happens (if you aren’t on old.reddit.com) is if you have too few subreddits it recommends stuff from other subreddits, and a lot of it is viral/outrageous stuff
itronitron 2y ago
Reminds me of the day after 9/11. I was working at a small company located a few hours drive from NYC that was a subsidiary of a much larger company headquartered further west. For whatever reason, an employee in one of the lead administrative groups at 'HQ' was forwarding very high resolution photos of the previous day's events and the group email address they were using happened to include everyone in any organization that was in some way under the management chain, so anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 people likely received those pictures. They sent about three emails before stopping, or being stopped. For better or worse, the people suffering from RSD have moved to Facebook.
- dylan604 2y ago
  > For better or worse, the people suffering from RSD have moved to Facebook. Better for me. They've stopped sending emails, and I don't use FB! So win-win for me. Although, that email filter that sequestered all of "that uncle's" emails is still ready to go if needed. Which is one advantage of the emails vs socials.
causality0 2y ago
One of the best things about my parents retiring was the cessation of the endless torrent of garbage e-mails they sent me every day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSA7kKNu2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSA7kKNu2Y

zug_zug 2y ago

I appreciate the anecdote. The distinction I’d draw is that email was a push model, but today it’s platforms that decide what we see. If platforms wanted, I think it’d be trivial for them to make a setting for their users to filter out politics/outrage/whatever For example Reddit will (unprompted) put links to videos of police brutality on the home page when I’m not part of that subreddit. To me this anti pattern reminds me of putting candy bars in the checkout lane — pitting me against my self control on purpose

bell-cot 2y ago
True, to a degree. But if you recall the 1987-ish to 2007-ish era - there was enormous growth in the anger-positive, fact-indifferent conservative talk radio and TV segment. Which was not 100% opt-in...but still far more so than most modern social media. Another anecdote: Back about 2002, an old friend of mine cut off all contact with a life-long, retired friend of his. In retirement, the friend-of-friend had been bitten by the Viral Conservative Anger bug - and refused to stop forwarding dozens of VCA emails to my friend every week. Similar for discussing any other topic on the phone, or ... (Pre-retirement, the friend-of-friend had been a highly skilled engineer, and had seemed to be a wonderful person.)
spixy 2y ago
> For example Reddit will (unprompted) put links to videos of police brutality on the home page when I’m not part of that subreddit. What? Yes if you go to r/popular/ or r/all/ but on home page it wont (I just tested to be sure and it shows only my subscribed subreddits).
- smegger001 2y ago
  I bet you removed all of the default subs and gp didn't.
- benfortuna 2y ago
  In my experience of Reddit you don't just get your subscribed subreddits, but also "you might like this" posts from subreddits you aren't subscribed to. So I think there's definitely an algorithm at play here.
- zug_zug 2y ago
  What happens (if you aren’t on old.reddit.com) is if you have too few subreddits it recommends stuff from other subreddits, and a lot of it is viral/outrageous stuff

itronitron 2y ago

Reminds me of the day after 9/11. I was working at a small company located a few hours drive from NYC that was a subsidiary of a much larger company headquartered further west. For whatever reason, an employee in one of the lead administrative groups at 'HQ' was forwarding very high resolution photos of the previous day's events and the group email address they were using happened to include everyone in any organization that was in some way under the management chain, so anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 people likely received those pictures. They sent about three emails before stopping, or being stopped. For better or worse, the people suffering from RSD have moved to Facebook.

dylan604 2y ago
> For better or worse, the people suffering from RSD have moved to Facebook. Better for me. They've stopped sending emails, and I don't use FB! So win-win for me. Although, that email filter that sequestered all of "that uncle's" emails is still ready to go if needed. Which is one advantage of the emails vs socials.

causality0 2y ago

One of the best things about my parents retiring was the cessation of the endless torrent of garbage e-mails they sent me every day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSA7kKNu2Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSA7kKNu2Y