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by jdiez17
903 days ago
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While it's true that there were always ways to entertain oneself, I'd argue that the the ease of consumption (or alternatively, "effort required to consume") and potency of the effect on dopaminergic networks in the brain have increased _dramatically_. And unfortunately, it turns out that this kind of entertainment is directly related to the biggest money firehose that humanity has ever invented: targeted advertising. Which means that the world's most powerful algorithms have a strong incentive to optimize both of those variables. Great for the people in control of the algorithms and content networks, not so good for the people who are suddenly exposed to a very powerful "drug" that they were not prepared to keep at bay. |
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I'm not convinced they target any better than the newspapers. I'm British and FB's targeting showed me an ad for how to renounce "Your US Citizenship for tax purposes", local news for a city I've never been to in Florida, and my response to the Brexit referendum result was to move to Berlin yet FB is showing me UK-specific ads. YouTube is no better, showing me an ad fronted by Nigel Farage, and a lot of obvious scams that couldn't (at the time) be reported. Twitter, back when it was that, classified me as being interested in three languages I can't speak and spectator sports I've never once watched.
It is of course possible that I'm merely weird enough that the optimisers can't figure me out. Anecdotes don't make for good datasets.