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Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly ad

Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly adults need help here too).

whiplash451 3mo ago
I am with you and wish you were right, but good luck forcing Meta to change the key dark design patterns of their products (correctly identified by the regulators as "highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll") This is a step in the right direction, though. It will be a long journey.
- Frieren 3mo ago
  > good luck forcing Meta When I was a kid there were fines for factories that polluted water. Most of the time they were not found out, and when they did they just paid the fine that it was cheaper than to solve the problem. Regulations changed, factories that polluted water got closed until they fixed the problem. Most factory owners fear the regulation, they are extremely pro-active to avoid breaking the law because the consequences are not worth it. (This trend reversed a decade ago when punishments started to be less harsh and government became more pro-business using the euphemism for corrupt) It is possible to reign in Meta. Parents should be angry enough to bring governments down for letting tech treat their children as products. When citizens are angry change happens and becomes unavoidable.
  - xoac 3mo ago
    Exactly. If social media apps had a configurable old style non-algorithmic feed the problem would be dramatically smaller.
    - Symbiote 3mo ago
      With FBPurity: https://www.fbpurity.com/ https://www.fbpurity.com/ I have Facebook on my desktop computer exactly as it used to be in the 2000s when I signed up: content only from my "friends" and a few chosen sources (a band I like etc). The newsfeed is very slow to load, as to fill the screen the extension must make twenty plus requests while hiding 99% of what Facebook's addiction machine returns.
    - intended 3mo ago
      People prefer the more engaging option, based on testing when preferences are offered. You aren’t really putting a fair choice here. A product that is tested and refined to be viscerally attractive to our brains, vs will power. This means you have the illusion of individual choice, with practical addiction at scale.
- villish 3mo ago
  > highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll Didn't tiktok get hit with this earlier in the year? Has tiktok removed these features for European users?
testing22321 3mo ago
Forcing alcoholic drinks to have a less addictive product is a much better way to protect young people’s brains than an alcohol age limit is (and frankly adults need help there too).
- bix6 3mo ago
  What’s your point? We do this. NA beer now exists. Beer and wine places can’t sell liquor. Alcohol sales aren’t 24/7 in many places.
- nkrisc 3mo ago
  Yes, that would help. Putting regulatory caps on the strength of alcoholic drinks would probably go a long way towards reducing harm across all of society. Of course there will be bootleggers, but the benefits would probably outweigh any of the incidental drawbacks. And I say this as someone who drinks. I would be fine with regulation like this and making a sacrifice of something small I enjoy if it meant greater good across society.
- ajsnigrutin 3mo ago
  In quite a few countries, you can drink less-acoholic drinks, eg. beer and wine, much younger than high-alcohol drinks, eg. whiskey, vodka, etc. Germany is one such example.
- YurgenJurgensen 3mo ago
  Good idea. There’s an objective measure of alcohol content. All you need to do to make this analogy work is to create one for social media. Best of luck with that.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Young people are drinking much less alcohol now. Some people call it a crisis. It's probably related to the reason they date less and have less sex and do less of all the other things you're not supposed to do but people did anyway, and that reason probably has something to do with social media taking their attention instead.
somenameforme 3mo ago
Social media, even before the era of dark patterns and 'engagement' maximization was still extremely addictive. It just had a less pronounced effect in large part because fewer people were using it. For instance there was a time when Facebook was university only and invite only. And this is all for people that are of the 'legal age' so to speak using it. For kids, who are going to be even more insecure, have more ongoing brain development, and such - I think the idea of creating a non-addictive or non-harmful social media is basically a nonstarter. The same is true of use by adults as well, but we generally are more accepting of adults' right to engage in self destructive behaviors.
- nathias 3mo ago
  it isn't about avoiding all harm as sociallity itself is harmful, it's about software not hijacking/exploiting our cognition especially in times when this would mess with our development
  - somenameforme 3mo ago
    Socializing isn't harmful. Socializing in a way that naturally trends towards mob mentality, where everything is potentially permanently recorded, and where artificial representations of people are the norm - that's all harmful, and it's inescapable in social media.
- ajsnigrutin 3mo ago
  Back then, you had 20, 30, 50 'friends' on facebook and basically all the content you saw was made by them. Except for chatting, you could basically view all the 'daily content' (all the posts by everyone you had on your friends list) in maybe 10 minutes. Then facebook turned to "let's show you random political articles instead of your friends dinner plates", and people moved to instagram... which stopped showing your friends dinner plates soon after it got bought out by facebook and it too replaced the friends dinner plates with random "reels". If the kids only saw stuff posted by their 'friends', instead of being pushed a lot of random garbage they never decided to 'follow', it would still be a much nicer place.
braiamp 3mo ago
[dead]
psychoslave 3mo ago
What about calling these stuffs something like "junk media"? Using the words of the offenders to depict the landscape is giving a major concession in this battle for critical thinking.
- CrzyLngPwd 3mo ago
  Junk media is the shoe that fits. I'm definitely going to start calling it that when discussing it from now on.
- emayljames 3mo ago
  I prefer Anti-social Media

Forcing social media apps to have a less addictive design is a much better way to protect young people's brains than a social media age limit is (and frankly adults need help here too).

whiplash451 3mo ago

I am with you and wish you were right, but good luck forcing Meta to change the key dark design patterns of their products (correctly identified by the regulators as "highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll") This is a step in the right direction, though. It will be a long journey.

Frieren 3mo ago
> good luck forcing Meta When I was a kid there were fines for factories that polluted water. Most of the time they were not found out, and when they did they just paid the fine that it was cheaper than to solve the problem. Regulations changed, factories that polluted water got closed until they fixed the problem. Most factory owners fear the regulation, they are extremely pro-active to avoid breaking the law because the consequences are not worth it. (This trend reversed a decade ago when punishments started to be less harsh and government became more pro-business using the euphemism for corrupt) It is possible to reign in Meta. Parents should be angry enough to bring governments down for letting tech treat their children as products. When citizens are angry change happens and becomes unavoidable.
- xoac 3mo ago
  Exactly. If social media apps had a configurable old style non-algorithmic feed the problem would be dramatically smaller.
  - Symbiote 3mo ago
    With FBPurity: https://www.fbpurity.com/ https://www.fbpurity.com/ I have Facebook on my desktop computer exactly as it used to be in the 2000s when I signed up: content only from my "friends" and a few chosen sources (a band I like etc). The newsfeed is very slow to load, as to fill the screen the extension must make twenty plus requests while hiding 99% of what Facebook's addiction machine returns.
  - intended 3mo ago
    People prefer the more engaging option, based on testing when preferences are offered. You aren’t really putting a fair choice here. A product that is tested and refined to be viscerally attractive to our brains, vs will power. This means you have the illusion of individual choice, with practical addiction at scale.
villish 3mo ago
> highly personalised recommendations, autoplay and infinite scroll Didn't tiktok get hit with this earlier in the year? Has tiktok removed these features for European users?

testing22321 3mo ago

Forcing alcoholic drinks to have a less addictive product is a much better way to protect young people’s brains than an alcohol age limit is (and frankly adults need help there too).

bix6 3mo ago
What’s your point? We do this. NA beer now exists. Beer and wine places can’t sell liquor. Alcohol sales aren’t 24/7 in many places.
nkrisc 3mo ago
Yes, that would help. Putting regulatory caps on the strength of alcoholic drinks would probably go a long way towards reducing harm across all of society. Of course there will be bootleggers, but the benefits would probably outweigh any of the incidental drawbacks. And I say this as someone who drinks. I would be fine with regulation like this and making a sacrifice of something small I enjoy if it meant greater good across society.
ajsnigrutin 3mo ago
In quite a few countries, you can drink less-acoholic drinks, eg. beer and wine, much younger than high-alcohol drinks, eg. whiskey, vodka, etc. Germany is one such example.
YurgenJurgensen 3mo ago
Good idea. There’s an objective measure of alcohol content. All you need to do to make this analogy work is to create one for social media. Best of luck with that.
inigyou 3mo ago
Young people are drinking much less alcohol now. Some people call it a crisis. It's probably related to the reason they date less and have less sex and do less of all the other things you're not supposed to do but people did anyway, and that reason probably has something to do with social media taking their attention instead.

somenameforme 3mo ago

Social media, even before the era of dark patterns and 'engagement' maximization was still extremely addictive. It just had a less pronounced effect in large part because fewer people were using it. For instance there was a time when Facebook was university only and invite only. And this is all for people that are of the 'legal age' so to speak using it. For kids, who are going to be even more insecure, have more ongoing brain development, and such - I think the idea of creating a non-addictive or non-harmful social media is basically a nonstarter. The same is true of use by adults as well, but we generally are more accepting of adults' right to engage in self destructive behaviors.

nathias 3mo ago
it isn't about avoiding all harm as sociallity itself is harmful, it's about software not hijacking/exploiting our cognition especially in times when this would mess with our development
- somenameforme 3mo ago
  Socializing isn't harmful. Socializing in a way that naturally trends towards mob mentality, where everything is potentially permanently recorded, and where artificial representations of people are the norm - that's all harmful, and it's inescapable in social media.
ajsnigrutin 3mo ago
Back then, you had 20, 30, 50 'friends' on facebook and basically all the content you saw was made by them. Except for chatting, you could basically view all the 'daily content' (all the posts by everyone you had on your friends list) in maybe 10 minutes. Then facebook turned to "let's show you random political articles instead of your friends dinner plates", and people moved to instagram... which stopped showing your friends dinner plates soon after it got bought out by facebook and it too replaced the friends dinner plates with random "reels". If the kids only saw stuff posted by their 'friends', instead of being pushed a lot of random garbage they never decided to 'follow', it would still be a much nicer place.

braiamp 3mo ago

[dead]

psychoslave 3mo ago

What about calling these stuffs something like "junk media"? Using the words of the offenders to depict the landscape is giving a major concession in this battle for critical thinking.

CrzyLngPwd 3mo ago
Junk media is the shoe that fits. I'm definitely going to start calling it that when discussing it from now on.
emayljames 3mo ago
I prefer Anti-social Media