As always, the poison is in the dose, and the environment matters a lot.
It's a very similar pattern to other engineered addictive substances (introduction/harm/recognition/regulation.)
Tobacco has been around forever in the Americas. Were Native Americans sprawled out on the forest floor, unable to function because of tobacco? Of course not. The mild high and self-limiting supply of tobacco was no problem in their environment.
Then came the industrialization of tobacco. Cigarettes came in convenient dosages, and were cheap and ubiquitous. You could get cigarettes anywhere, and you could smoke them almost anywhere. They were given out for free to soldiers. Movies made smoking look glamorous. And smoking does help keep you slim.
But then people started living longer, and the health problems of tobacco addiction (even to people just in proximity to tobacco smoke) became clear. So we no longer let tobacco companies advertise to children, and attractive actors (mostly) no longer smoke in movies. We tax the hell out of tobacco, and restrict smoking areas more and more. We also forced the tobacco companies to clearly label their product, and there are widespread education campaigns.
Eventually tobacco use dropped. But it wasn't primarily because the addicts all suddenly found self-discipline.
The social media companies, just like tobacco, will never see the problem until they are forced. And I am afraid, given the sums of money involved, we will end up with the equivalent of social-media "vaping" (that has to go through the full cycle of introduction/harm/recognition/regulation again...)
skeezyboy · 2h ago
"sophisticated behavioural machines built to capture attention"...
It just looks like a video website to me. Is this your first time on a computer? When HAVENT websites tried to catch your attention? This stinks to me like a 50+ person who first discovered the internet in the last 10 years.
SirFatty · 1h ago
"50+ person"
The 50ish person was 20 when the web started happening.
danaris · 1h ago
See, this type of attitude is genuinely part of the problem.
People look at websites/apps/etc that are engineered for maximum "engagement" through dark patterns and they don't think it looks like something nefariously designed to catch and milk your attention, so it must be just fine, right?
And part of this is because they're so used to the dopamine-drip-inducing style that they think that sort of thing is just "normal;" part of it is because many websites, and before them newspapers, magazines, and TV shows/ads, do try to catch your attention, just in less ruthlessly-optimized ways, and part of it is because that ruthless optimization doesn't actually have to look like anything particular. It's not always Candy Crush Saga with obvious sparkly rewards and microtransactions.
And so the...whatever the Internet design equivalent of the Overton window is, drifts ever farther toward that end of things.
rinze · 2h ago
"By AI Content Team"
Would be nice to start flagging these articles so we don't lose time on slop.
polotics · 2h ago
I disagree: at least here the poster is being honest about the source of the text...
xenospn · 3h ago
I have a theory that chatgpt and Claude are specifically engineered to trigger the same dopamine hit by always starting their response with “you’re absolutely right!”
flixing · 3h ago
100% agreed...
msgodel · 2h ago
You absolutely must use time limiting tools if you're going to use social media. Either ScreenTime on iOS or something like bingeblock elsewhere.
fsflover · 2h ago
This has been known for a while and needs much more publicity. Related discussion:
Testimony to House committee by former Facebook executive Tim Kendall (house.gov)
266 points by aaronbrethorst on Sept 24, 2020 | 197 comments
It's a very similar pattern to other engineered addictive substances (introduction/harm/recognition/regulation.)
Tobacco has been around forever in the Americas. Were Native Americans sprawled out on the forest floor, unable to function because of tobacco? Of course not. The mild high and self-limiting supply of tobacco was no problem in their environment.
Then came the industrialization of tobacco. Cigarettes came in convenient dosages, and were cheap and ubiquitous. You could get cigarettes anywhere, and you could smoke them almost anywhere. They were given out for free to soldiers. Movies made smoking look glamorous. And smoking does help keep you slim.
But then people started living longer, and the health problems of tobacco addiction (even to people just in proximity to tobacco smoke) became clear. So we no longer let tobacco companies advertise to children, and attractive actors (mostly) no longer smoke in movies. We tax the hell out of tobacco, and restrict smoking areas more and more. We also forced the tobacco companies to clearly label their product, and there are widespread education campaigns.
Eventually tobacco use dropped. But it wasn't primarily because the addicts all suddenly found self-discipline.
The social media companies, just like tobacco, will never see the problem until they are forced. And I am afraid, given the sums of money involved, we will end up with the equivalent of social-media "vaping" (that has to go through the full cycle of introduction/harm/recognition/regulation again...)
It just looks like a video website to me. Is this your first time on a computer? When HAVENT websites tried to catch your attention? This stinks to me like a 50+ person who first discovered the internet in the last 10 years.
The 50ish person was 20 when the web started happening.
People look at websites/apps/etc that are engineered for maximum "engagement" through dark patterns and they don't think it looks like something nefariously designed to catch and milk your attention, so it must be just fine, right?
And part of this is because they're so used to the dopamine-drip-inducing style that they think that sort of thing is just "normal;" part of it is because many websites, and before them newspapers, magazines, and TV shows/ads, do try to catch your attention, just in less ruthlessly-optimized ways, and part of it is because that ruthless optimization doesn't actually have to look like anything particular. It's not always Candy Crush Saga with obvious sparkly rewards and microtransactions.
And so the...whatever the Internet design equivalent of the Overton window is, drifts ever farther toward that end of things.
Would be nice to start flagging these articles so we don't lose time on slop.
Testimony to House committee by former Facebook executive Tim Kendall (house.gov)
266 points by aaronbrethorst on Sept 24, 2020 | 197 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498