The Tech Industry's War On Kids (curry.com) 108
Long-time Slashdot reader RoccamOccam summarizes an article now circulating on the web sites of several schools:
Child and adolescent psychologist Richard Freed writes, "...parents have no idea that lurking behind their kids' screens and phones are a multitude of psychologists, neuroscientists, and social science experts who use their knowledge of psychological vulnerabilities to devise products that capture kids' attention for the sake of industry profit. What these parents and most of the world have yet to grasp is that psychology—a discipline that we associate with healing—is now being used as a weapon against children."
Stanford psychology researcher B.J. Fogg, has developed the "Fogg Behavior Model", which he claims is a well-tested method to change behavior and, in its simplified form, involves three primary factors: motivation, ability, and triggers. Describing how his formula is effective at getting people to use a social network, the psychologist says in an academic paper that a key motivator is users' desire for "social acceptance," although he says an even more powerful motivator is the desire "to avoid being socially rejected."
Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, says in a KQED Science article, "We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behavior in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design."
Stanford psychology researcher B.J. Fogg, has developed the "Fogg Behavior Model", which he claims is a well-tested method to change behavior and, in its simplified form, involves three primary factors: motivation, ability, and triggers. Describing how his formula is effective at getting people to use a social network, the psychologist says in an academic paper that a key motivator is users' desire for "social acceptance," although he says an even more powerful motivator is the desire "to avoid being socially rejected."
Ramsay Brown, the founder of Dopamine Labs, says in a KQED Science article, "We have now developed a rigorous technology of the human mind, and that is both exciting and terrifying. We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behavior in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design."
They do it to adults as well (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as they don't come to your house and shoot you then "War" is a misnomer. More like persuasion.
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Libertarians believe that only physical violence or the direct threat of it can be coercion, and even then only when it comes from poor or black people.
Violence from angry white men is just self-defence by the most oppressed people ever to exist in the world, or sometimes it's necessary discipline for their women, children, and other property.
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By your description, cyberattacks, poison gas and even ICBMs aren't weapons of war.
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I agree that ICBMs are weapons of war. So are cyberweapons. And so is psychological manipulation. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot.
The OP definitely said ICBMs weren't, although he could probably fix that through a clarification. But even then his point doesn't make sense, so I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt with the least stupid thing he could have said. Because he devoted less effort to his statement than you or I have in discussing it.
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A cyber attack is a type of trespass which can cause economic and consequently physical harm. It can also cause direct physical harm such as hacking a car's computer or a drone.
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Yeah, fucking with the brains of children to damage them psychological for life, not the same. Why is this different from paedophiles grooming children to exploit them, of course it is different the paedophiles do it to a child here and there, the corporations do it on a mass scale. They are actively promoting sex to children, why, what are the corporate executives after http://pediatrics.aappublicati... [aappublications.org], https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharon... [uow.edu.au].
How damning is that stuff, is profit all that psychopath corporate e
Re: They do it to adults as well (Score:1)
Executives are at the behest of stock holders. They are legally required to make them as much profit as possible.
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This statement is not true and you will be unable to post a link or reference to the statute or other legal document that supports your claim that they are "legally required" because they are not.
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Contractually, then. IANAL. Same difference: If they fail to make as much profit as possible, they will go to jail and be replaced with someone else.
The point is that the world does not revolve around them.
If you own enough stock, you have a say in how a company operates. And most stock-holders don't care about what a company does, they care about how much money they can make from it, through dividends or, more often, fluctuations in the company value. And if that is not enough, by asset stripping.
If you ar
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Yes really.
It's not a war. War involves the other party being an enemy.
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And yet if the enemy is destroyed or converted to a purpose no shots need be fired, as in a cold war or a coup or propaganda war, etc. You are not "really" thinking this through. Campaign is campaign, shots are shots. War is overbroad.
The use of "war on" as a media term is overused. The term retains its meaning despite that fail.
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And yet if the enemy is destroyed or converted to a purpose no shots need be fired, as in a cold war or a coup or propaganda war, etc. You are not "really" thinking this through. Campaign is campaign, shots are shots. War is overbroad.
The use of "war on" as a media term is overused. The term retains its meaning despite that fail.
There still needs to be an enemy.
Customers, clients, users, etc. are not enemies, they're buddies which the corporations want to turn into lovers.
Re: They do it to adults as well (Score:5, Insightful)
This is becoming retarded.
The title says: The Tech Industry's War On Kids” - implying the tech industry sees kids as an enemy. This is not correct.
They see kids as products, not as enemies. So the tech industry doesn't wage a war. Is this so hard to comprehend?
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I'm not American. It's impossible for me to defend a foreign politician. Also, it's impossible for me to defend any politician whatsoever.
Re: They do it to adults as well (Score:2)
They see kids (and users ingeneral) as raw material.
It's not a war on kids, it's the same old war for eyeballs.
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"War" is definitely hyperbolic, but you paint the situation as much more benign than it is. It's a exploitative relationship, where one party is generally (and legally) regarded as unfit to make sound decisions for themselves. Exploitation of minors and the mentally unsound is regarded as pretty damn heinous by our society, apparently except when it comes to advertising. When the advertising industry starts using psychologists to manipulate children and influence their behavior against their (and their pare
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Totally agreed. Therefore, the title is wrong :)
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Re: They do it to adults as well (Score:2)
Re: They do it to adults as well (Score:2)
We tried that, but the babies were really crap marksmen even after months of training.
Welp, better grow up (Score:1)
Learn to make your own decisions, based on your own solid research and genuine needs and wants, rather than based on what some shiny! glowy! display tells you. And better learn it fast, before you become a broke string puppet.
This is related to learning not to fall for spanish prisoner scams a.k.a. advance fee fraud. IOW, facebook et al. are the next-gen nigerian royalty.
Re:Welp, better grow up (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, kids, please don't grow up to become like your parents!
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I'm not sure what you think are "your genuine wants". Sounds like the ingrained results of lots of "manipulation" to me. But yes, you can think yourself superior and above it all as you comparison shop to save 50 cents on the thing you've been convinced to buy. You're totally immune to advertising. Good job, you're awesome.
howâ(TM)s this different from Sunday church a (Score:1)
Sadly weâ(TM)ve been engineering how people think and act as long as religion and human society has existed. Hopefully this will be used to improve peopleâ(TM)s lives and not make them better sources of unquestioning obedience and monetary donations.
Only kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids 1. will become adults, 2. already control their parents and grandparents, having them obey a significant part of the kid's requests.
Re:Only kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where does it say "only kids" in TFA? But anyway, adults earn it, so they know the value of it, and have a better idea of whether the shiny thing is good value or not. Generally, that is.
But attacking the weak link is nothing new, "pester power" was an established phrase in the 1980s.
Re: Only kids? (Score:2)
Where does it say "only kids" in TFA?
It's implied by the "war on kids" hyperbole. Nobody calls WW2 "the war on Poland".
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If I discovered wallabies in Patagonia and wrote a story about it would that imply they'd all disappeared from Australia?
Re: Only kids? (Score:2)
I'm sure he'd find some way to phrase it in a way that did.
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It goes back much further than that. Ray Kroc was going after kids to capture the parents (and the adults the kids would eventually become) by the late 1950's.
Re: trying to scare parents about the interwebs (Score:1)
The great white males are the establishment.
OMG Curry.com! (Score:2)
Time for a (Score:2)
moral panic [wikipedia.org]
Won't somebody think of the children!!
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Isn't thinking of the children, sorta the problem here?
Why single out kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
You think it has more impact? On Slashdot?
By the way, calling something a "war on..." is usually in the same league as adding "-gate" to something: A weak attempt to make something sound interesting and scandalous that nobody would otherwise give 2 fucks about.
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You think it has more impact? On Slashdot?
By the way, calling something a "war on..." is usually in the same league as adding "-gate" to something: A weak attempt to make something sound interesting and scandalous that nobody would otherwise give 2 fucks about.
It is a war, if you spent more then a few minutes on half the sites kids use you'd understand. Pure indoctrination. Parents have _no clue_ what these companies do. Hell half the people on Slashdot probably have no clue either.
It starts with little things like banning words. I'm not talking about "ngger" (which is of itself a poltiically motivated "bad word") -- anything the left deems inappropriate and much of which may shock you. Twitch is a perfect example of this, they actually ban memes, their o
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best example Fortnite (Score:1)
Fortnite attracts kids like flies with the cartoonish look, competetive gameplay and humoristic side parts (dancing, skins,etc.)
But in reality those kids are used as a direct way to get into their parents pockets. This is the real way to success in 2018 imho. Get the kids addicted and make the parents pay for their addiction.
"War on...." (Score:1)
I stopped reading after that.
Quack warns: Other quacks are after your money! (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is somewhat new that people of the same profession now warn the public about their colleagues being only after your money... as if we didn't know that already.
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I miss the Unabomber. (Score:2)
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He was more right than even he realized. I wish, now more than ever, that he still had access to a hardware store and a post office.
Do you want to be on a list? Because this is how you get on a list.
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Terrorism does not work as an approach to fight for freedom. For one thing, you hit almost exclusively people that are not the source of the problem. For another, you just give the fascists an excuse to further their agenda of removing freedoms. In addition, under this threat, many people will flock to authoritarians that promise to "do something", regardless of whether they actually can. Makes the whole thing not only morally reprehensible, but also hugely counter-productive. One of the reasons why quite a
Dump social media, already. (Score:2)
Re: Dump social media, already. (Score:1)
Stop calling it "social media" already! It's just messaging, chat rooms and forums!
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You forgot adverts and fake news.
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I didn't know that television was considered a social medium.
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Attitudes like this are WHY they end up killing themselves.
I hope you don't really have any kids.
Science finally catches up! (Score:1)
Science finally learns what conmen, priests, pastors, and charlatans, have known for millennia!!! Woot! Woot! Go Science.
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Well, there is a difference between a scientific experiment and a gifted amateur doing it intuitively. The most important one here is that the effect gets quantified and documented.
marketing industry, not tech industry (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not the "Tech Industry"'s war on kids, it's the Marketing Industry's, the propagandists, the people shapers. It's not even new, Vance Packard [wikipedia.org] was warning about this in the 1950s, and he wasn't the only one. The marketers they've had over 60 years since then to refine their techniques.
The tech - smartphones, internet, whatever - is just a new tool that they've adopted and twisted to their purposes. Unfortunately, it's a very effective tool for them - made even more effective by decades of habituating people to ubiquitous propaganda.
Marketing is one of the greatest evils ever to be invented. A crime against humanity - and should be prosecuted and sentenced as such.
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So...no. According to the fucking article, the games and apps (social media), are actually coded to trick the pleasure center in the brain to continue engaging with the game/app just as a drug does to an addict. Same principle....by design.
blah blah (Score:2)
The lame quality of this post, and the lame quality of responses to it, remind me how far Slashdot has slid down the slippery slope.
The 'Tech Industry' is made of human beings ... many of whom are nothing to write home about. This is not a revelation, nor something anyone can do anything about, short of running a million volts through them.
Journalism industry's war on people (Score:2)
If the production of content based on analysis of consumer behavior can be cast as "war", then nothing can mean anything.
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That's what they want. Then Collusion - which isn't an actual crime can mean impeachment - high crime or misdemeanor. They even managed to seat a special prosecutor that hasn't even charged anyone with anything to do with this and really stupid people think it's about collusion. Talk about a fishing expedition. Let's set up a special prosecutor to look at the Democrats. Now we'd see some indictments and convictions. They're all connected.
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Let's set up a special prosecutor to look at the Democrats.
They did. [wikipedia.org] Where were you?
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Very funny. He was special prosecutor before most slashdotters were even born.
Where was I? Funny you should ask. I worked about 4 blocks away from him at another Government agency. They were corrupt as hell back then too. Everyone lied Ken said. The Dems of today makes those guys look honest. The Dems now expect to get away with it because they do almost all the time. It's like Tammany hall all over again.
The Psychology of Advertising (Score:1)
could that website look any worse? (Score:2)
I know (Score:2)
We all know this is happening, but there's very little you can do about it.
And before you jump on your high horse, I went to school with kids who had parents that tried to protect them from TV, McDonalds, Coke etc (the p
Life imitating art (Score:2)
We have the ability to twiddle some knobs in a machine learning dashboard we build, and around the world hundreds of thousands of people are going to quietly change their behavior in ways that, unbeknownst to them, feel second-nature but are really by design."
Vernor Vinge predicted this in 2006 in Rainbows End. Turns out he was optimistic: he predicted it for 2025. He called it the YGBM, an acronym for Ya Gotta Believe Me. He characterized it correctly: as a weapon.
Hugo and Locus Award winner for 2007. Good book.
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Most capitalists are sick ****s who'd sell your children to pedophiles if it meant they could make a 'legal' taxable profit out of it.
You mean compared to pedophiles who make a legal non-taxable profit? Pretty much every religious and quasi-religious group (be they Nazis or SJWs) makes indoctrination of children from the earliest possible age one of their top priorities.
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Communists did nothing wrong.