5 ms·

What Tim Berners Lee doesn’t know or understand - Social media is like fentanyl or cocaine for the masses. It’s preying on people’s stresses and poor mental he

• hackernewsdhsu 2y ago
  I wonder if he knows he posted a compliant about walled gardens behind a paywall.... Another form of walled garden.
  • CaffeineLD50 2y ago
    Oh the irony.
• JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Start doing mass studies on cognitive problems created by instagram and TikTok. Publish them in big journals This has already happened. We didn't kick Big Tobacco by publishing research and just talking about it. We got them with bans. I don't see America doing it. But now would be a good time for e.g. the EU to start regulating social media like a utility.
  • VectorLock 2y ago
    We almost got there with TikTok. Almost...
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > We almost got there with TikTok. Almost... Not really. The TikTok ban was rooted in national security concerns. The coalition that brought it forward would not be useful for regulating social media as the drug analog it is. I don't see a brilliant move in America. (There is an a brilliant opportunity in the EU, Canada and Mexico to recapitulate the TikTok bill's rhetoric and structure, aiming it at both China and America.)
      • kelseydh 2y ago
        The TikTok ban was motivated primarily by the Israel lobby wanting to crack down on pro-Palestinian content.
        • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
          > TikTok ban was motivated primarily by the Israel lobby wanting to crack down on pro-Palestinian content It really wasn't. But I agree that this was a popular take. (Funnily enough, the rumor helped shore up the bill's polling among Republican-leaning voters. And once it was up, like, yes, rule number one of politics is you generally don't say no to votes.) The EU going after Instagram and Twitter would find its own stable of bizarre conspiracy theories.
  • Nextgrid 2y ago
    > the EU to start regulating social media like a utility. They could just actually enforce the existing GDPR which already makes most of these addiction-based models unsustainable.
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > could just actually enforce the existing GDPR which already makes most of these addiction-based models unsustainable It would be ill advised without a popular mandate. Remember the conspiracy theories the TikTok ban prompted? You don't want to yank the neo-Nazis' Twitters on a bureaucratic point.
• dleeftink 2y ago
  While I'd welcome more studies, this has been on the research agenda for a while now[0]. It'll be up to implementing better technical stewardship on the developer side, renewed educational programs and revisiting our regulation. Or getting people to touch grass[1]. [0]: Leung, L. (2004). Net-generation attributes and seductive properties of the internet as predictors of online activities and internet addiction. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 333-348. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43158660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43158660
• dkh 2y ago
  He does know this, he just wants it to stop. There is a massive amount of very high-quality compelling (and damning) studies on this subject, with more coming in all the time, and very little that contradicts the premise of "yeah this stuff can be really bad for us". But what's next? The social media companies aren't going to do anything about it. They will fight fight any attempt to admit it, discuss it, legislate it. And unfortunately it just so happens that these same companies and social networks are also most often the conduits by which people try to spread information to the masses, to make things known and to get people to care about them. Quite a predicament
• tayo42 2y ago
  > Social medias promise of social connections was really just the same as what drug dealers offer, the good stuff for new consumers and then once they are hooked give them the cheap stuff. They really don’t care about ‘social’ part of it because the addiction potential is so high. This is a little to cynical of a take and ignores how social media really evolved. Facebook and myspace were actual social places where we interacted with each other. You need to look at the evolution (which mostly happened organically) where businesses started joining as people and eventually social media stopped being social and turned into a one direction communication platform. The only non-organic evolution i think is the change from chronological timeliness to algorithim
• cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  [dead]
• ilamont 2y ago
  > What Tim Berners Lee doesn’t know or understand He knows, he uses, he understands more than you think.
• developerDan 2y ago
  > Social media is like fentanyl or cocaine for the masses… Ive seen people unable to get out of instagram. Their fingers are constantly twitching and scrolling. This is just like drugs and controlled substances. Flying is such a wild experience as you can always see the person in front of you constantly scrolling. One time I saw a young gal pay $20 for internet on a 3 hour flight and would scroll Facebook for a minute or two, switch to Instagram for a minute or two, then back to Facebook… for 4 straight hours (boarding + flight + landing). I was genuinely appalled.
  • jonathanyc 2y ago
    I've been the same thing now that I look for it. In a theater in December I saw at least 2 people scrolling through Google or Apple News. In the plane I saw at least 3 people on TikTok. On roadtrips people scroll through Reddit when there is a lull in the conversation. I don't think it's necessarily worse than people reading a book! But it is certainly widespread.
  • enaaem 2y ago
    When you are stuck doomscrolling you will notice that it isn't even enjoyable, which is true for a lot of addiction.
• Aurornis 2y ago
  Rhetoric like this is interesting to me because it so precisely mirrors what I heard growing up about alcohol. I had a large group of friends whose families were very religious in a religion that was very anti-alcohol. They had reached a critical mass where they didn’t know anyone who drank alcohol (or admitted to it, anyway) other than stories of severe alcoholics that got passed around the community. These stories were emphasized and amplified for them every Sunday. They truly didn’t believe that moderate or occasional alcohol consumption was possible, because to them the only thing they knew about alcohol was the part about addicts whose lives had been destroyed. Even from a young age I thought it was strange how much they bounced these stories back and forth off of each other and how good they were at finding more stories about celebrities or local figures who had problems with alcohol to support their case. It was also fascinating how self-congratulatory it all become. They weren’t simply sharing stories to earn each other away from a trap, they were sharing stories to reaffirm their own superiority as people who saw through the sham and wisely chose against it. The worse they made it sound, the more superior they could feel about being on the outside. I get the exact same vibes when I read internet posts like this, which take the situation to such an extreme that they think comparisons like this are accurate and profound: > Zuckerberg is probably worse than Escobar Then there’s the idea that social media can’t be used for socializing, and anyone claiming otherwise is lying: > Social media being a place to connect and maybe even run a small business is like 1% of it. It’s a place for attention seeking people filling their loneliness with fake connections and content Yet many of us are out here using social media to keep up with friends without spending 99% of our time doing this fentanyl-like addiction that everyone tells us is inevitable. I’m not saying that people don’t get addicted to social media, just as there are people who get addicted to alcohol (obviously). I’m merely pointing out that, like alcohol, the vast majority of people who participate aren’t degenerate addicts who lose control. This weird rhetoric about Zuckerberg being worse than Escobar or implied calls for government to treat it like drug dealers are fodder for the self-congratulatory people who want extra validation for their decision to stay off social media (defined in a way to exclude Hacker News, Reddit, and other social sites), but they’re hardly accurate. It’s weird to see these hyperbolic takes being so popular on, oddly enough, social commentary sites.
  • diamond559 2y ago
• monero-xmr 2y ago
  Soda is an addiction. Coffee is an addiction. Chicken wings and cheese burgers are an addiction. Watching sports is an addiction. Orgasm is an addiction. Making money is an addiction, and so is spending money. Humans are driven by pleasure. We are all pleasure seekers. If scrolling social media is an addiction then maybe exercise self control. I don’t care what someone tells me is an addiction. Either control yourself or shut the fuck up
  • enaaem 2y ago
    There is a huge difference between a chicken wing enjoyer (most people) and a chicken wing addict.
• hilbert42 2y ago
  "What Tim Berners Lee doesn’t know or understand - Social media is like fentanyl or cocaine for the masses." First, I've a similar expression I've used for years which is Social Media is addictive electronic heroin. I agree strongly with your comment and from my observations I've little doubt what you say is essentially correct. The evidence is everywhere; whenever I'm out and about I inevitability come across people staring transfixed at their phones, some whilst walking, others motionless, and still others walk across busy roads oblivious to traffic. These people are so engaged they really haven't a clue what else is going on around them. (OK, critics would argue engaging in Social Media isn't all that people do on their phones and clearly that's true. But I'd counter that by saying Social Media is a large aspect of a broader addiction to electronic tech.) Unless HN counts as one, I've no Social Media accounts—not even a Google account—so it's not surprising I'm a little curious about what so occupies those who do. This raises questions about why so many engage in Social Media and I reckon you've answered that to a tee, it also raises the matter of why people like me find Social Media repulsive yet I've still no problem participating in forums such as HN. Clearly, Social Media is having a large impact on human behavior and much of it negative but where's the proof and what's to be done about it? Social Media is now so entrenched that regulating it is essentially impossible. It seems to me we need much more research into the effects of Social Media on human behavior before we can arrive at any definitive conclusions, and the most likely way to determine that is through a large longitudinal study—and that might take years. Unless there's watertight scientific evidence that certain aspects of Social Media are having negative effects on behavior then nothing will happen to correct the problems—as commercial pressures to maintain the status quo will just quash any attempt to correct the situation.
  • kavalg 2y ago
    Nothing like FB/Insta (which I am not using), but for me HN still counts.
    • hilbert42 2y ago
      I could give many reasons for why I made that point but it'd only start point-scoring over each issue. That said, whilst Social Media has many problems HN isn't perfect either. That common problem is the voting system—likes/dislikes, up/downvoting. There are multiple problems here and there's much to say about it, but perhaps the worst is that it's polarizing. Frankly, I'd like to see it either eliminated or the rules substantially modified. For instance, downvoters are anonymous and they affect the outcome without ever having to say why they disagree†. That's not a good system, if one disagrees one ought to have the guts to argue why. Of course, those who run the show would disagree as fewer people would participate. † On HN, if, say, a poster receives 10 upvotes and 10 downvotes neither the poster nor others are aware of the fact. Effectively, a controversial topic where opinion is split down the middle turns out to look like it's a matter of little interest to anyone. That doesn't make much sense.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]