TechCrunch Argues Social Media News Feeds 'Need to Die' (techcrunch.com) 154
"Feeds need to die because they distort our views and disconnect us from other human beings around us," argues TechCrunch's Romain Dillet:
At first, I thought I was missing out on some Very Important Content. I felt disconnected. I fought against my own FOMO. But now, I don't feel anything. What's going on on Instagram? I don't care. Facebook is now the worst internet forum you can find. Twitter is filled with horrible, abusive people. Instagram has become a tiny Facebook now that it has discouraged all the weird, funny accounts from posting with its broken algorithm. LinkedIn's feed is pure spam.
And here's what I realized after forgetting about all those "social" networks. First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time. They all use thirsty notifications, promote contrarian posts that get a lot of engagement and play with your emotions. Posting has been gamified and you want to check one more time if you got more likes on your last Instagram photo. Everything is now a story so that you pay more attention to your phone and you get bored less quickly -- moving pictures with sound tend to attract your eyes... [F]inally, I realized that I was missing out by constantly checking all my feeds. By putting my phone on 'Do Not Disturb' for days, I discovered new places, started conversations and noticed tiny little things that made me smile.
He concludes that technology has improved the way we learn, communicate, and share information, "But it has gone too far...
"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you."
And here's what I realized after forgetting about all those "social" networks. First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time. They all use thirsty notifications, promote contrarian posts that get a lot of engagement and play with your emotions. Posting has been gamified and you want to check one more time if you got more likes on your last Instagram photo. Everything is now a story so that you pay more attention to your phone and you get bored less quickly -- moving pictures with sound tend to attract your eyes... [F]inally, I realized that I was missing out by constantly checking all my feeds. By putting my phone on 'Do Not Disturb' for days, I discovered new places, started conversations and noticed tiny little things that made me smile.
He concludes that technology has improved the way we learn, communicate, and share information, "But it has gone too far...
"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you."
Yes, they do! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yes, they do! (Score:5, Insightful)
With luck, Social Media will die along with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting how GP post gets a +5 and P post gets a -1.
"ICE car exhaust needs to die: +5. ICE cars need to die: -1"
Re:Yes, they do! (Score:5, Informative)
It was fun and I could get just about any karma I wanted, but also somewhat scary in how easy it was to swing opinion...almost like people had none of their own and had to be told what to think.
Re: (Score:2)
Teach me!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is called crossing a line.
Most extreamest come up because they take a good idea or at least a good intent and then bring it too far, thus become annoying at best or a bunch of murderers at worse.
Because the world is far more complex for these simple answers, that has to be absolute.
Re: (Score:2)
With luck, Social Media will die along with it.
Let us hope.
It's funny, because "social media" is about the least "social" thing I've ever seen. As far as I can tell, Facebook and Twitter exist primarily to give friends, family, and strangers a new place to fight over trivial shit.
Facebook's motto should be, "We're Here To Make You Feel Inferior", and Twitter's motto should be, "Twitter: The Confetti of the Internet".
Re: (Score:2)
just to let you know, I'm stealing your mottos. Thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
just to let you know, I'm stealing your mottos. Thanks!
Use them freely and with abandon. :)
Cheers
Re:Yes, they do! (Score:4, Insightful)
[1] I'm being generous here: psychological manipulation platforms might be a better term: their sole reason for existing is to build a detailed psychological profile that can be used to manipulate you. The most benign use of this is to try to influence you to favour a particular brand over another.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a first step: Stop referring to advertising platforms[1] as 'social media'. This is probably the most impressive advertising success in recent decades.
An excellent point. These services are little more than advertising channels that people can participate in (to their detriment).
Re: (Score:2)
Social mining is my term.
Put humans in a sandbox. Time every finger flick, every pause, every hover, every click. Record the same. Xor and diff similar aggregates after contradictory stimulus is posted to their wall and is subsequently hovered or clicked. Do the same with reinforcing stimulus. Record every word of every post. Analyze it over the years, creating a timeline of views and ideas. Look for word choice additions and changes after specifically crafted content is consumed. Get intentional.
Re: (Score:2)
> People who are too insecure to tolerate other people are... snowflakes.
Pretty much.
Although this problem isn't just limited to social media. It's a problem with all media. Some people are perfectly content to cocoon themselves inside an echo chamber of their choosing.
They don't need "social media" for this. Social media just puts it all on display. I can see just how deranged my liberal friends are and how little real commitment to liberal ideals they really have.
The level of diversity in what I see is
Re: (Score:3)
They don't need "social media" for this. Social media just puts it all on display. I can see just how deranged my liberal friends are and how little real commitment to liberal ideals they really have.
It is a bit depressing, if not surprising, that we find that most people will defenestrate their ideals for expediency. On the right, people are suddenly all for big government intervention when it's their own ass on the line. And on the left, their defense of free speech is gone once they hear stuff they don't like.
Re: (Score:3)
I have seen some very useful or pleasant things on my FB feed, and it's consistently from only a handful of people. So I have unfollowed nearly everyone in my friend list except those handful of people and it's working OK for me.
But I agree. Instead of the feed I'd rather see thumbnails of the people I follow, ordered in some combination of how frequently they post, how often I read them, and some randomness, with ability for me to move those profile up and down the list. Then I'd hover over their profile a
Re: (Score:2)
I had my FB feed nicely split into various groups based on subject and location. I could check in on various groups based on how I met them or topic. It greatly improved the signal/noise ratio. Of course FB promptly buried this.
Re: (Score:3)
Or at least they need to start being actual news feeds. Only showing you stuff you asked to see - or at least, if it must include ads, clearly labeling them as ads.
And this shit about every shopping site you visit haunting you on Facebook for the next month has got to go. There needs to be some kind of "FaceOff" movement - where huge numbers of Facebook users agree to stop using the site on certain days to demonstrate that Facebook is nothing without us. And then, maybe voting on a set of demands for wha
Re: (Score:3)
Or at least they need to start being actual news feeds. Only showing you stuff you asked to see - or at least, if it must include ads, clearly labeling them as ads.
Nope. "The stuff you asked to see" is THE problem with the social media. You just become insulated in your bubble and it just keeps being reinforced. The old time news used to include all kinds of opinions.
Re: (Score:2)
Or at least they need to start being actual news feeds. Only showing you stuff you asked to see - or at least, if it must include ads, clearly labeling them as ads.
Nope. "The stuff you asked to see" is THE problem with the social media. You just become insulated in your bubble and it just keeps being reinforced. The old time news used to include all kinds of opinions.
The old time news maybe, but probably not today's news. Most people are into listening to the echo chamber of their choice as far as mainstream news sources go. If they are interested in getting actual news from relatively unbiased news sources, they're already doing it and will be using those sources in their feeds also.
Re: (Score:2)
No it didn't.
Re:Yes, they do! (Score:5, Insightful)
I solved the overload problem by simply taking all the social media apps off my phone. Now, unless I decide to sit down at a computer I can not get immersed in the cult. I will usually sit down and look through twitter feeds for the day, make a few tweets and retweets and then move on. I ditched Facebook entirely and got rid of 90 percent of my SPAM. I'm astounded at all the people standing, walking and leaning on something furiously tapping away at their phones. Mine is in my pocket most of the time now.
Re: (Score:3)
Same here. And I sleep better at night too! I occasionally check, but realize every time that the notifications are just spam, someone I might have followed commented on a post I know something about? Fuck that. Now those occasions are getting fewer and further between. Some day I will go through and figure out which websites I have Facebook authentication with and remove it. Once that is done, download all my FB data and delete the account.
Re: (Score:3)
>"I solved the overload problem by simply taking all the social media apps off my phone. Now, unless I decide to sit down at a computer I can not get immersed in the cult."
+1 good job! I wish more people would at LEAST do that- get rid of social media on their phones. People can be so incredibly rude and mindless with their eyes constantly glued to a phone all day long.
Myself, I have never even HAD any social media accounts (other than Slashdot and a few forums, which I only access from home on my desk
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I enjoy twitter much more now. All things in moderation.
Good luck with that (Score:2)
At some point you accept that it's an innate part of human nature. And rather than trying to stamp it out, work instead towards reducing and mitigating the damage it causes. But any policies attempting to stop cold fundamental human behavior is destined to fail.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
social media or The Orville. I'm not sure which is worse.
Ironically (Score:5, Insightful)
A news feed is telling me that news feeds must die.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Ironically (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically, you're arguing that this is not a social media website by using the very features that define a social media website.
Re: Ironically (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Slashdot was one of the first social media websites. Just because it existed before the term was coined doesn't change that. The Wikipedia article defines social media as having the following four characterisics:
1. Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
2. User-generated content, such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, are the lifeblood of social media.
3. Users create service-specific profiles for the web
Re: Ironically (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone says " social media" nobody thinks "slashdot" -- nobody.
Re: (Score:2)
Given the choice of whether Slashdot is more news aggregator or more social media, I have to go with more social media. News aggregators don't typically have such an extremely low amount of aggregated news. Slashdot does because it attempts to post only the news worthy of discussion.
On a tech news aggregation site such as phys.org, arstechnica, cnet, etc. I rarely read the comments. They aren't the point.
The comments / discussions aren't an afterthought here, they are the point.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no social aspect
I have an account with a karma ranking that affects how others see my posts. I can set other users to friend or enemy and affect how I see their posts.
You can't use a social media platform without creating an account.
You can go read Twitter all you want without an account. I guess it's not a social media platform?
You might be able to argue Slashdot to be some kind of proto social media network but you cannot outright deny it has social features.
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot is a news aggregator. At best it's a more anonymous version of the classic BBS. A key difference with actual social media is that I know those people and they know me.
Even a classic BBS was far less anonymous because the audience was smaller and more localized. Even then it really wasn't "social media".
It was not a place to collect and interact with social contacts.
Neither is Slashdot.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Ironically (Score:3)
First? Are you kidding? (Score:2)
BBS's were far ahead of you in the we-exchange-news-bytes class. Far.
Back-and-forth's in radio, and prior to that, newspapers, predated any network-based social media by a very long time as well.
There were probably rock carving sequences that qualify prior to that.
Etc.
Nothing new here - other than the media in use.
Re: (Score:2)
What is mostly new is the accessibility of all of this to the masses. We all at least had to read a book or a few manuals. We paid for our radios and BBS knowledge in tech manuals. Its much easier to be anonymous these days. In the day of BBS's, you could usually figure out who the troll was because there were only so many people that had a 2400, or 9600 baud modem and you knew them all. Now you can have 40 profiles and manipulate all of them for the masses.
Most folks "entrance fee" to mass communicat
Re: (Score:2)
I think the broadness of news feed counts. Slashdot small more select, not a sole source, definitely different to the dominate affect of very large social media sites. Perhaps different rules and regulations for different numbers of active users. Really corporations should do zero censoring, the government only with the approval of the public and all done via courts to prove publicly the censoring was valid and certainly not corporate for profit censorship or corporations monitoring the public for their pol
This isn't a tech miracle... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you." ... I was ignoring those people long before I got a phone. Now I can pretend to look at the phone, and it's less rude.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Since when is "I don't know you, and I don't care to" a psychological disorder?
Re: (Score:2)
> Since when is "I don't know you, and I don't care to" a psychological disorder?
Since all of the girls in the psych department are from the sorority affiliated with the jock frat.
Psychology is not much more than the imposition of an orthodoxy and that orthodoxy is based on what people in the psych department think of themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
"Psychology is not much more than the imposition of an orthodoxy and that orthodoxy is based on what people in the psych department think of themselves."
Or is it based on what people in the psych department think other people think about them, eh?
Re: (Score:2)
The phone helps mask your social disorders/psychological issues. Good for you!
Try living in a city, and therefore interacting with several thousand people every single day. See how long you can keep that up.
Not everyone is a needy extrovert.
Re: (Score:2)
and it's less rude.
No it isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh well... less boring then.
What Social Media? (Score:2)
Despite the G+ next to my *REAL* name, I don't have any Social Media account. Facebook tried to force one on me but I claimed it as mine only long enough to delete it. No SnapChat or Instagram either.
I prefer face to face, voice phone and occasional texting to other real people.
Article is more nuanced than title may imply (Score:5, Interesting)
It simply recommends shutting down all social media and smartphone use for a weekend, to reduce "Tech Fatigue" (or ennui) and re-discover the joys or at least, different things of life already around you. Like conversations with family, friends, movies, a book, everything that is already there but easily ignored with the excuse of 'looking at something' in your phone.
Oh, and the amazing fact that you won't really miss anything of value by shutting them down for a while. After all, we lived for millenia without them. The feeds and news will still be there whenever you return.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, and the amazing fact that you won't really miss anything of value by shutting them down for a while
If anything of real value comes along, you'll still hear about it on the regular news, from friends or collegues, or whatever. That's why I rarely bother with news feeds on social media. Social media are useful for other stuff, like staying in touch with friends and whatnot, and perhaps to discuss current affairs with others. But they are not a good source nor a good filter for news.
Some of us are online.... (Score:1)
Explicitly so we DON'T have to converse with friends or family!!!
And apparently they feel the same judging by how they spend their time nose in their phone or computer pretending they are listening when you try to talk to them.
This would seem like a win win situation, until you realize that both Obama and Trump's presidencies can be directly attributed to to tech savvy campaigns and riling up people online.
Re: (Score:2)
You should be talking to these people you think you hate. You'll find you have a whole lot more in common with them than hating each other because you don't talk.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Arzaboa averred:
You should be talking to these people you think you hate. You'll find you have a whole lot more in common with them than hating each other because you don't talk.
Uhh ... no. No, I won't.
"These people (I) hate" are racist, sexist, xenophobic morons. They can't go two minutes without sneering at "liberals" (not self-identified SJW's - liberals), sharing one of those divisive, Russian troll-authored "Like and share if you agree!" dogwhistles (and, yes, I know there are left-ish versions, too - and I hate those people just as much), quoting Faux News's latest piece of disinformation (or, worse yet, Breitbart or Alex Jones or
Re: (Score:2)
That's great and all, but when we all do that, we alienate the folks that need to be shown a path forward out of their hatred. Your hatred for them is just as bad as their hatred for other groups, and you are the educated one. It takes educated people to show those that have quit thinking and learning, new ways and new motivations.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, you can't smell yourself because you have been steeping in your own ugly juices for way too long.
You stink of hatred...and of irony. You are what you dislike in others. You just think it's about their ideology. It's really about how you don't accept yourself exactly how you are.
If you could you would see how hilarious your diatribe is. You make mountains out of molehills. Most of all, you make everything about you, that's why someone else's actions and words about someone else are so upsetting to
Re: (Score:2)
> In a few words: it's not a Luddite manifesto.
It's not? It sounds a lot like Orthodox Sabbath to me.
I'm not the first one to draw this parallel. There are already gentiles that have cast unplugging for the weekend in those terms.
Things have changed (Score:5, Insightful)
News used to be stories about what has happened - events - and what it might mean. IOW, stuff you didn't already know. Today "news" is about what people are talking about because those things generate more clicks. Thus the top "news story" on the NBC News website atm is about a Trump approval survey rating drop and events in Catalonia are reduced to a sidebar.
News headlines used to be written to inform in a condensed manner. Now a "news" headline is a riddle to entice you to click.
"News" today is very different from what it used to be a few decades ago, and I don't envision it changing for the better.
And now for a list of other things I don't like...
Re: (Score:3)
And now for a list of other things I don't like...
Will #7 amaze me? Else I'm not going to bother...
Re: (Score:1)
The news is intended to control, to sway, to emotionalize.
The Internet has connected, educated, and levelled.
The 1% need their power back, and social media is the way. We have moved from a small them (whether a few channels or a few papers) controlling us, to us controlling us.
And core to it all is misinformation.
There is no greater disaster than when the truth slips out. Like the truth that Trump has 41+M Twitter followers that have no middle man between them and the big man. So MSM has been on a contin
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The great thing about social media is that people that hated Hillary could have told you that they hated Hillary even before the primaries started.
In general you can get a lot of information (on the web at large, not just "social media") from people who's intent or agenda is orthogonal to what they're cluing you in about.
Re: (Score:2)
Its sad how things have changed.
Its the frequency folks check "news" that drove this. Most people feel its important to check news to stay current and informed. Once they had access to it every day, they clicked daily. Once websites worked for clicks, it happened hourly. Once they got paid for it, they have new headlines every time you refresh.
"Don't chop down my cheery tree!" - Martha Washington
Re: (Score:2)
You aren't just whistling Dixie, are you?
I can remember hearing news stories about Trump in the lead up to the election that were all about someone's reaction to what he said. The only problem is that what Trump said was never quoted. Then the news stories about someone else's reaction to the person who reacted to Trump's statements were out. Again no direct quote of the original statement was ever made.
On that day I realized the news in this country looks more like an angsty but popular teenage girl's d
Re: (Score:2)
I've been aware of Catalonia's status since the 80s, so I am far less inclined to get hysterical about the situation. In general, I have ceased to be interested in allowing the media to lead me around by the nose on any subject. I have no interest in their adrenal overload nonsense (trolling).
no signal (Score:1)
I pose two question:
Can you really disconnect permanently from all forms of "social media" and survive properly in today's world?
Would you want to?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Fuck Facebook, fuck "s
Re: (Score:2)
That marvellous rant would have been better if you'd written 'fuck your dog', instead of chickening out and replacing it with 'love'.
This whole anti-social-media nonsense is no more than the anti-rock'n'roll reactionary nonsense of the ninteen-fifties. Social media is perfectly fine, it's only the old farts who think it's destroying the world. Young people deal with it without an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I did 4 years ago and I'm surviving just fine. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram. Nothing.
Haven't missed it for a moment.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes and Yes. They're going to think I'm cool again for not using social media eventually.
Re: (Score:2)
And I would need you to be specific about what qualifies as Social Media.
Is it Facebook, Twitter, Reddit et al? In which case sure, I use Reddit to check a few comments about computer games and Facebook for a comments-enabled version of one newspaper. I'll survive.
Is it all internet forums? Like Slashdot? Okay, gonna start getting a little boring.
Is it chatrooms where you hang out with your friends from around the world, eg. Discord? Now it's starting to get painful.
Is it all modern communications - interne
Re: (Score:2)
I tried to post a reply of "yes and I don't really mind" but only to eat my own irony as you need to be on slashdot (social media?) to post this reply.
Addiction (Score:2)
AdBlock (Score:1)
Or... (Score:2)
Re: Or... (Score:2)
The worst one of all (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't use any of these, yet there's one I absolutely hate: Pinterest.
It's nearly impossible to search for images without a huge part of the results linking to Pinterest. Pinterest, of course, don't let you do anything without a fucking account.
I wish Google would add a "Remove Pinterest results" button, or at least let us save permanent search filters to our account, applied to every search we make.
Re:The worst one of all (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I had the irritation of not being able to view a pinned item (an infographic that some AC on /. had linked to) maybe a week or so ago.
In the end I relented and signed up, though I did question my judgement at the time.
Since then they've sent me one e-mail a day, with maybe half to a dozen pins in it. A couple were actually, genuinely, interesting to me. Most, just eye candy, took a minute of my day to glance at, and dismiss, much like I do with the majority of arrivals in my general inbox. To be fair I'm no
Re: (Score:2)
You can't view anything on their website without having an account, as you yourself have demonstrated.
Having an account to post? Sure. Requiring an account to view? With so many results on Pinterest, that's like a separate Internet just like Facebook.
Not the feeds, the notifications (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the feeds themselves, it's the continuous barrage of push notifications. Ever noticed how many sites want to enable them? I just say no.
At one point I realized that WordFeud was one of my greatest productivity killers. Every few minutes it goes bleep and you pick up your phone to place a word. Kil-ling! Nothing gets done! So I disabled all notifications, sounds and vibrate; the only thing left is the LED. Now I work for a while and when I take a break I'll see the LED flashing (or not) and have a little distraction. Then put the phone down and continue working. Do this for all your apps: WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, email, et cetera and you'll find peace and quiet. And yet, nobody has complained yet that I was late with replying, or that I missed a funny must-see video.
So instead of push, pull.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much what I do, and it bothers me that others can't seem to do the same. And while I didn't seek this "feature" out, my current phone does not have a notification LED, making it even less intrusive.
TFA is about taking a break -- email ? (Score:3)
The original article was about surfacing for air -- not being a slave to the machine, eyes glued on social media (/.?) and ears pricked for an alert chime. The same could be said for email or SMS.
Possibly a good idea, I dunno. I use the _ORIGINAL_ social media, USENET . And some with this newcomer, /. . Never had much of a problem with addiction.
Re: (Score:2)
The opposite of all those things (Score:2)
Twitter is filled with horrible, abusive people
Gee, that's funny, MY twitter feed is not. Perhaps that's because I choose not to follow or pay attention to horrible, abusive people. You don't have to look at mentions people!!! You can choose to ignore anything you find annoying.
First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time.
Why do you let them press those buttons? No need to turn on notifications if you find it drawing you in too often. Choose w
New versus New (Score:1)
Why stop... (Score:2)
Why stop at just their news feeds?
They're only popular because they're new (Score:2)
Methinks that after the novelty and fashion wears off, they will be abandoned, or evolve into something more useful
I'm studying glassblowing. I slog through the river of FB crap to see posts by other glassblowers, showing stuff they made. This is a tiny bit useful, since I can ask the poster, or my teacher.. How was that done"
pushing the right buttons (Score:2)
First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time.
I have been pushing the left buttons for my whole life. No wonder it's not working.
ahh.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought all the weird musicians were on SoundCloud?
Re:social media is garbage (Score:5, Informative)
Zuckerberg called them "dumb fucks".
Here's the quote [wikiquote.org] for the "(citation needed)" readers:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks