Nice piece. At this point I am pretty exasperated at the ~ decade of efforts I've made to reduce my social media usage as a gen-z person.
The greyscale, the turning off notifications, the uninstalling of apps, the screen time blocks. The only things that have had long-term (and yet still incomplete) benefit is physically separating myself from my phone, like leaving it in the car or at home during dinner, as well as maximally delaying phone usage in the morning.
Whats frustrating is that the discourse, like in this essay, usually revolves around summoning discipline or willpower on the part of the user, and usually doesn't discuss the behavior of the tech companies. These apps and technologies are engineered very carefully to exploit the fast, instinctual type 1 side of your brain that, for good reasons, has evolutionary has dominion over the deliberate, thoughtful type 2 thinking that I think most of us would prefer to be doing more of.
Because of this, I just don't see this scourge changing through efforts on the parts of the users. Maybe that's pessimistic.
andrewrn•6mo ago
I do wonder what AI will do to this dynamic. The generative capabilities will surely turbocharge the existing dynamic (which frankly I don't see how it can get too much worse), but I do wonder about AI applications that can act as a sort of tether to the conscious type 2 thinking.
When conscious, you define how you'd like to spend your time, and that agent/AI can help reel you in when you lapse into unconscious scrolling. Or an AI that curates only topics you'd be happy spending time viewing.
A bunch of very powerful people have a huge vested interest in not letting these things happen, though, so I'm not hopeful.
thefaux•6mo ago
In the long run, the only way things can get better is through individual action as daunting and hopeless as that might feel in the face of the current system.
andrewrn•6mo ago
You're right about this. Thanks for catching my cynicism lol
graemep•6mo ago
Uninstall the apps. Only use social media from a desktop. That gives you the physical separation in a sustainable way.
xorvoid•6mo ago
Agreed. I don’t use social media of any kind. Not even on the desktop. I always run with Downtime on. All new apps are disallowed from running or notifying unless I whitelist them explicitly.
You really don’t need this “attention porn” in your life. Just turn it all off. Make friends IRL instead. So worth it.
andrewrn•6mo ago
I am in complete agreement that the attention porn is not needed.
But that doesn't address the fact that its habit-forming. Nicotine is also not needed in the lives of smokers. This isn't terribly different.
graemep•6mo ago
That is all the more reason to make an effort to break the addiction. That is what people do with nicotine.
I do not know of any countries that have banned nicotine. Almost all countries banned sales to kids from a very long time ago, so that was not what changed.
One thing I remember from looking at the industry (I was an investment analyst back then) about 25 years ago, and from my own observations, is that there was a cultural change. Smoking became uncool, a mark of a lack of education. First in the west, and then later globally. Sales of more expensive brands declined, market share moved to cheap brands.
That motivated people to break their addiction and a lot of people gave up as a result. However, everyone with an addiction had to struggle to break it.
Maybe we need more support for people trying to break their social media addiction. Social media addiction anonymous? I guess it still feels like someone trying to give up smoking when everyone did it.
On the other hand, I would encourage you to try. I am very fond of quoting the serenity prayer, and this is something you can control (although its not easy).
andrewrn•6mo ago
You're right about the smoking. Boy did stigma kill that, at least in the US. I still remember bars where you could smoke when I was a kid.
This is an interesting comparison you bring up, because there isn't no stigma around social media, I'd say. It's definitely not well regarded to be on your phone in social settings, at least for my generation. But in private, I know many (incl myself) scroll way more than I'd like. Almost like a smoker sneaking off to get their fix.
A few days ago I came across some idea of having a public readout on a website or something of how much time you spend on your phone, as a way to reproduce this stigma. Unfortunately all the API's to access this data are closed, including iOS. With more access, there could be some really amazing tools to help people use their technology in a way that serves them better, but the people in power would prefer that don't happen...
andrewrn•6mo ago
I cringe to admit this, but this just results in eventually getting bored and re-downloading. Or just going to the web version.
I do agree that social media completely loses its teeth on desktop... which is sorta peculiar. Something about the form factor of the phone makes the passivity so much worse. I never mindlessly scroll on my computer.
graemep•6mo ago
I always put it down to the notifications dragging people in, but maybe something else about the form factor contributes to it.
andrewrn•6mo ago
I've had notifications off for a long time, and it doesn't personally help too much. In fact it kinda seems like it perversely increases the curiosity to check, because now there may or may not be some comment/message waiting for me, whereas with notifications I know for sure.
andrewrn•6mo ago
The greyscale, the turning off notifications, the uninstalling of apps, the screen time blocks. The only things that have had long-term (and yet still incomplete) benefit is physically separating myself from my phone, like leaving it in the car or at home during dinner, as well as maximally delaying phone usage in the morning.
Whats frustrating is that the discourse, like in this essay, usually revolves around summoning discipline or willpower on the part of the user, and usually doesn't discuss the behavior of the tech companies. These apps and technologies are engineered very carefully to exploit the fast, instinctual type 1 side of your brain that, for good reasons, has evolutionary has dominion over the deliberate, thoughtful type 2 thinking that I think most of us would prefer to be doing more of.
Because of this, I just don't see this scourge changing through efforts on the parts of the users. Maybe that's pessimistic.
andrewrn•6mo ago
When conscious, you define how you'd like to spend your time, and that agent/AI can help reel you in when you lapse into unconscious scrolling. Or an AI that curates only topics you'd be happy spending time viewing.
A bunch of very powerful people have a huge vested interest in not letting these things happen, though, so I'm not hopeful.
thefaux•6mo ago
andrewrn•6mo ago
graemep•6mo ago
xorvoid•6mo ago
You really don’t need this “attention porn” in your life. Just turn it all off. Make friends IRL instead. So worth it.
andrewrn•6mo ago
But that doesn't address the fact that its habit-forming. Nicotine is also not needed in the lives of smokers. This isn't terribly different.
graemep•6mo ago
I do not know of any countries that have banned nicotine. Almost all countries banned sales to kids from a very long time ago, so that was not what changed.
One thing I remember from looking at the industry (I was an investment analyst back then) about 25 years ago, and from my own observations, is that there was a cultural change. Smoking became uncool, a mark of a lack of education. First in the west, and then later globally. Sales of more expensive brands declined, market share moved to cheap brands.
That motivated people to break their addiction and a lot of people gave up as a result. However, everyone with an addiction had to struggle to break it.
Maybe we need more support for people trying to break their social media addiction. Social media addiction anonymous? I guess it still feels like someone trying to give up smoking when everyone did it.
On the other hand, I would encourage you to try. I am very fond of quoting the serenity prayer, and this is something you can control (although its not easy).
andrewrn•6mo ago
This is an interesting comparison you bring up, because there isn't no stigma around social media, I'd say. It's definitely not well regarded to be on your phone in social settings, at least for my generation. But in private, I know many (incl myself) scroll way more than I'd like. Almost like a smoker sneaking off to get their fix.
A few days ago I came across some idea of having a public readout on a website or something of how much time you spend on your phone, as a way to reproduce this stigma. Unfortunately all the API's to access this data are closed, including iOS. With more access, there could be some really amazing tools to help people use their technology in a way that serves them better, but the people in power would prefer that don't happen...
andrewrn•6mo ago
I do agree that social media completely loses its teeth on desktop... which is sorta peculiar. Something about the form factor of the phone makes the passivity so much worse. I never mindlessly scroll on my computer.
graemep•6mo ago
andrewrn•6mo ago