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Hackernews is also addictive. Fortnine is addictive. World of Warcraft is addictive. NFL is addictive. Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the

Hackernews is also addictive. Fortnine is addictive. World of Warcraft is addictive. NFL is addictive. Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the social media. The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.

XorNot 9mo ago
Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment.
- hackyhacky 9mo ago
  > Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment. Sure, but fwiw the HN echo chamber is organic. People choose to interact with people who have similar opinions, as they have since forever. In contrast, the echo chamber on HN, Tiktok, FB, etc is architected specifically to drive engagement. You are shown more of the content that you react to, so that you won't leave.
  - edoceo 9mo ago
    Typo on second mention of HN?
  - mike_hearn 9mo ago
    It's not at all organic. There's lots of flag killing and shadow banning on HN to suppress opinions, mostly anything that hints of right wing stuff. It mostly works, too.
    - hackyhacky 9mo ago
      No, they block political stuff because this is not the place for political stuff. Stop playing the victim.
- quotemstr 9mo ago
  Nah. Hacker News has a diversity of views! In this very thread, you can see a robust debate between 1) people who want to ban kids from social media, and 2) people who want to ban everyone from social media. See? HN captures the full range of legitimate perspectives on technology.
- insane_dreamer 9mo ago
  actually, much more diverse because everyone is in the same forum rather than being divided into "subreddits"
hackyhacky 9mo ago
> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique. More specifically: using "engagement" as the metric to optimize. Users' use of content is measured: how long do they watch it? Do they leave a comment? Do they give a "like"? Based on that, the algorithm finds similar content that will elicit an even stronger response. Every action you take on modern social media is giving information to your drug dealer so they can make the next hit even better. But not better for you; better for the social media, who make money from ads. The continuously adaptive nature of the input stream as a basis for keeping users' eyeballs leashed to ads is what separates FB, Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube from the more benign, but still addictive alternatives (HN, Fortnite, WoW, NFL, Reddit).
eimrine 9mo ago
> Hackernews is also addictive. False. It is good, no more addictive than a spoon.
- YuukiRey 9mo ago
  A spoon has no randomization.
  - eimrine 9mo ago
    Define the randomization. Probably the content of spoon fits the definition.
baq 9mo ago
HN doesn’t optimize for addictive. Fortnite and wow do. No opinion on NFL, but they probably do at least somewhat.
- nish__ 9mo ago
  The difference is whether or not the platform is for-profit. If the goal of the platform is to make money, decisions will be made to keep people more addicted than would otherwise be natural. And that's the problem.
- mike_hearn 9mo ago
  HN lets users opt to automatically lock themselves out after a while (noprocrast). Fortnite and WoW do not. Sounds like one knows they have users with problems, no? I think the term addiction is way overused in this stuff. If a company makes a product you enjoy using that doesn't mean you can just describe it as addictive and get out of jail free. If there's some chemical in it that messes with your brain, fine, otherwise people need to take ownership of their own choices. I think the disturbing reality is these countries are wanting to control social media to control the population politically. There was even a Labour MP in the UK who admitted it on television. If it weren't the case they'd just tell concerned parents to turn on the parental controls devices already have, problem solved. Instead they pass laws to end internet anonymity, but only on the big networks, which won't do anything for kids but is an excellent way to control political discontent.
  - baq 9mo ago
    Parental controls don’t work, they’re too coarse grained and too easy to get past. Source: am a parent.
    - mike_hearn 9mo ago
      They do work. You may not feel they work perfectly, but government mandated ID verification on social media will work far worse and be far more coarse grained. You don't even have any control with government regulation, so being "coarse grained" isn't even worth discussing because with one-size-fits-all laws imposed by the providers there is no grain.
carlosjobim 9mo ago
> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique. At least you can now choose your bubble and even listen to your own echo. That beats having the government beam their psychosis straight into everybody's brain by TV, radio and newspapers. That makes the whole society an "echo chamber" of whatever the rulers have on their current agenda. And not just on your devices, but all the people you meet in real life.
- enaaem 9mo ago
  Content on social media nowadays isn’t organic. State level resources are being thrown to influence people. So you are being beamed some government propaganda anyway. I grew up in the forum days and internet discussions were very different back then. Accounts like “Endwokeness” would never work. People will make fun of him for being so obsessed with trans. You can’t just post some low effort political openings and walk away. Your openings need to have substance and you are pressured to engage. Otherwise people will see through your schtick and you get banned. I don’t have a solution for this, and I think it’s a different problem regarding social media for kids.
  - carlosjobim 9mo ago
    > Content on social media nowadays isn’t organic. Billions of people are posting real organic content on places like Instagram and Facebook. Their vacations, their workouts, their barbecues with friends, their thoughts and feelings on different matters. What you're saying is the opposite of truth.
    - enaaem 9mo ago
      The topic at hand was state propaganda and BBQ recipes are outside the scope of state propaganda. Perhaps I should have made that more clear that this is only applied to political topics. But you do point out something interesting. I still follow football sites and football is still outside of the scope of state propaganda. Although you definitely have tribalism and biased fans and pundits, the vibe is completely different from any political topic.
blackhaz 9mo ago
I wonder if your KPI is no. of active users, page views, etc - then you are a priori building an addictive thing.

XorNot 9mo ago

Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment.

hackyhacky 9mo ago
> Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment. Sure, but fwiw the HN echo chamber is organic. People choose to interact with people who have similar opinions, as they have since forever. In contrast, the echo chamber on HN, Tiktok, FB, etc is architected specifically to drive engagement. You are shown more of the content that you react to, so that you won't leave.
- edoceo 9mo ago
  Typo on second mention of HN?
- mike_hearn 9mo ago
  It's not at all organic. There's lots of flag killing and shadow banning on HN to suppress opinions, mostly anything that hints of right wing stuff. It mostly works, too.
  - hackyhacky 9mo ago
    No, they block political stuff because this is not the place for political stuff. Stop playing the victim.
quotemstr 9mo ago
Nah. Hacker News has a diversity of views! In this very thread, you can see a robust debate between 1) people who want to ban kids from social media, and 2) people who want to ban everyone from social media. See? HN captures the full range of legitimate perspectives on technology.
insane_dreamer 9mo ago
actually, much more diverse because everyone is in the same forum rather than being divided into "subreddits"

hackyhacky 9mo ago

> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique. More specifically: using "engagement" as the metric to optimize. Users' use of content is measured: how long do they watch it? Do they leave a comment? Do they give a "like"? Based on that, the algorithm finds similar content that will elicit an even stronger response. Every action you take on modern social media is giving information to your drug dealer so they can make the next hit even better. But not better for you; better for the social media, who make money from ads. The continuously adaptive nature of the input stream as a basis for keeping users' eyeballs leashed to ads is what separates FB, Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube from the more benign, but still addictive alternatives (HN, Fortnite, WoW, NFL, Reddit).

eimrine 9mo ago

> Hackernews is also addictive. False. It is good, no more addictive than a spoon.

YuukiRey 9mo ago
A spoon has no randomization.
- eimrine 9mo ago
  Define the randomization. Probably the content of spoon fits the definition.

baq 9mo ago

HN doesn’t optimize for addictive. Fortnite and wow do. No opinion on NFL, but they probably do at least somewhat.

nish__ 9mo ago
The difference is whether or not the platform is for-profit. If the goal of the platform is to make money, decisions will be made to keep people more addicted than would otherwise be natural. And that's the problem.
mike_hearn 9mo ago
HN lets users opt to automatically lock themselves out after a while (noprocrast). Fortnite and WoW do not. Sounds like one knows they have users with problems, no? I think the term addiction is way overused in this stuff. If a company makes a product you enjoy using that doesn't mean you can just describe it as addictive and get out of jail free. If there's some chemical in it that messes with your brain, fine, otherwise people need to take ownership of their own choices. I think the disturbing reality is these countries are wanting to control social media to control the population politically. There was even a Labour MP in the UK who admitted it on television. If it weren't the case they'd just tell concerned parents to turn on the parental controls devices already have, problem solved. Instead they pass laws to end internet anonymity, but only on the big networks, which won't do anything for kids but is an excellent way to control political discontent.
- baq 9mo ago
  Parental controls don’t work, they’re too coarse grained and too easy to get past. Source: am a parent.
  - mike_hearn 9mo ago
    They do work. You may not feel they work perfectly, but government mandated ID verification on social media will work far worse and be far more coarse grained. You don't even have any control with government regulation, so being "coarse grained" isn't even worth discussing because with one-size-fits-all laws imposed by the providers there is no grain.

carlosjobim 9mo ago

> The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique. At least you can now choose your bubble and even listen to your own echo. That beats having the government beam their psychosis straight into everybody's brain by TV, radio and newspapers. That makes the whole society an "echo chamber" of whatever the rulers have on their current agenda. And not just on your devices, but all the people you meet in real life.

enaaem 9mo ago
Content on social media nowadays isn’t organic. State level resources are being thrown to influence people. So you are being beamed some government propaganda anyway. I grew up in the forum days and internet discussions were very different back then. Accounts like “Endwokeness” would never work. People will make fun of him for being so obsessed with trans. You can’t just post some low effort political openings and walk away. Your openings need to have substance and you are pressured to engage. Otherwise people will see through your schtick and you get banned. I don’t have a solution for this, and I think it’s a different problem regarding social media for kids.
- carlosjobim 9mo ago
  > Content on social media nowadays isn’t organic. Billions of people are posting real organic content on places like Instagram and Facebook. Their vacations, their workouts, their barbecues with friends, their thoughts and feelings on different matters. What you're saying is the opposite of truth.
  - enaaem 9mo ago
    The topic at hand was state propaganda and BBQ recipes are outside the scope of state propaganda. Perhaps I should have made that more clear that this is only applied to political topics. But you do point out something interesting. I still follow football sites and football is still outside of the scope of state propaganda. Although you definitely have tribalism and biased fans and pundits, the vibe is completely different from any political topic.

blackhaz 9mo ago

I wonder if your KPI is no. of active users, page views, etc - then you are a priori building an addictive thing.