Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
Nobody needs a margarita or any other addictive substance to function in society (barring actual substances issues). So it’s a false equivalence to compare apps like this.
An example in my middle aged life is that my kids extra-curriculars are all organized on WhatsApp. If I choose not to have a Meta account then my kids suffer when I am out of the loop on their events. Then of course all of the invites and venues are on Facebook. And all the parents post their pics to IG.
Because these apps are purposely designed to addict you, it is a real sticky thing to have to dip your toes in without getting sucked into a scrolling nightmare.
Some apps are addictive but have some reasonable informational value. Some are just straight key bumps of entertainment with an algorithmic comedown to keep you looking for the next baggie.
I have the same situation you do about Facebook, but still don't have the app on my phone. I just check the mobile site and I was forced to install messenger. I have no need or desire to install things like TikTok or Instagram, of the hundreds of times people have sent me links to things on those apps I've never come away with the feeling that it was a value add.
Most of the time that I get sucked into a website, it’s because autocomplete and muscle memory got me there without thinking. Every once in a while I’ll clean out my history cache and for a week or so I’ll find myself on the page of google search results for “re” or “fa”
this contradicts thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng
> thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng
If its still cloudy, a "thought leader" is anyone recognized as an authority in their field, whose ideas and insights influence others and shape the direction of the hype cycle.
I quite like it actually because although I do use AI, I think you really do have to be careful about how you use it to avoid wasting more time than it saves when you run into a problem and insist on getting the AI to fix it instead of doing it yourself. It is very easy to fall into this trap of trying to get AI to do everything, because our brains are hardwired to avoid effort, and so we use it even when AI is not appropriate.
The biggest time saver for me with AI is to really try to avoid the round-and-round with AI and instead just get AI to take the first pass, maybe some small follow-ups, and then I take it from there and complete the task manually. AI can be a significant time-saver in that first pass at the problem, but after that you can waste so much time trying to get AI to fix something small that you could fix yourself in 5 minutes. And this can be especially damaging because it is less effort to use AI, so we don't necessarily notice when we are wasting time due to our own cognitive biases, which I think this study does a good job of pointing out.
I’ve seen so many ads that show a nice product, so I click and it takes me to nice polished landing page, which leads to a smooth checkout flow. But then the thing arrives and it’s garbage. I believe that there’s an entire genre of niche-marketed consumer goods that have been broken by Campbell/Goodharts law because they’ve integrated the product design and marketing so tightly that the product is designed to optimize CTR and funnel conversions rather than being a good at being the thing that it is.
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
The worst one is Mercado Libre, which also requires you to use your phone to "scan" your face every time you log in with a new device. My friends were locked out due to having an allergy or growing a beard. Nowadays, I don't even bother with them... I just shop elsewhere.
The most realistic security threat for OTP's is that they can be phished in a few ways which is the same problem if you're using MFA stored on your desktop or phone. Hence the preference for physical security keys / passkeys which are impossible to phish.
Muggings and kidnappings, as bad as they are, can't really be done at scale.
That device a) has some kind of secure enclave, hopefully, and more importantly b) restricts your ability to run arbitrary code off the internet to the point that everyday users probably can't do it. I don't like it, but they do it because it's effective.
Because MFA requirements have never been about security, only security theater. It's the modern version of the "you must change your password every 30 days" rule.
My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch, but my previous employer was big on making me check my smartphone.
(Lately I've been using "It's a work phone, I'm not able to install apps on it, you'll need to run your app past our corporate IT and Security team.")
It's quite possible to live with websites.
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
I disagree. I am absolutely certain that the vast majority of the readers here would have known in the context of that headline exactly what "The Dopamine Carnival" meant, without needing any specific positive or negative implications about dopamine in general or it's actual biochemical mechanisms. It's blatantly obviously about social media and mobile apps that are intentionally designed to manipulate your brain and its reward system.
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
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