Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by glial 399 days ago
> I think a lot of us want the same thing

Cognitively, yes. This is like saying "a lot of us want the same thing - healthy, fresh food that makes us stronger, sleep better, and live longer". Of course. But fast food is a $400B industry in the US. Social media is fast food. Nobody says they want it but their behavior indicates otherwise.
3 comments
eggbrain 399 days ago
I agree both with you and the OP comment here.

Ideally, I think if we could, we'd only get content from the creators or people we care about -- but that content runs out eventually, and yet our minds still want to be stimulated.

To bring it back to your food analogy, if I had a personal chef that made delicious food whenever I wanted it, I'd probably not indulge in fast food very often -- but if I needed a quick bite to eat, I'd probably still jump into a McDonalds.

link
aaronbaugher 399 days ago
Yep. Every time a platform comes out that tries to give people more control over what they see and how they share, it languishes and people keep going back to the ad-laden mosh pit of Big Social.

For instance, Yahoo 360 let you create "circles," so you could have your "work circle" and your "friend circle" and so on, and let them overlap however you wanted, and then you could post things to whichever circles you wanted and read them how you wanted. Seems like a great idea, but most people didn't want it. Too complicated, probably. Easier to just scroll through garbage looking for gems like flipping through TV channels.

And the truth is, most people posting a selfie want everyone to see it. All their friends, at least, but really, the world if possible. So they don't really want restrictions on what reaches them because they don't want restrictions on themselves.

link
Draiken 399 days ago
Our brains are wired to answer to stimuli but that doesn't necessarily mean we consciously want it.

These platforms prey on us with every possible tactic to keep us there since every second "engaged" means profits for them.

If we take a generic view of "if they are in these platforms, then they want it" we might as well say that fish want to be caught because they bite the hook.

link