
The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction - headalgorithm
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-death-of-social-reciprocity-in-the-era-of-digital-distraction/
======
aphextim
One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if
they make eye contact with you.

In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7
and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the
youth of today by being friendly.

Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make
eye contact anymore of if they do they make eye contact and turn away. (Maybe
I'm just butt ugly I dunno).

Kid however all seem to enjoy a quick smile/eye contact.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
Something I've been making an effort to do more is to try to have a softer
look on my face when I'm in public. I tend to be pretty intense looking,
especially when I'm thinking hard, which I usually am when I'm walking or
standing in line.

I've noticed that consciously thinking about something that makes me very
happy, or something I find funny, will make that happy emotion show on my
face. When I project happy into the world, I get a lot more happy back -
people (I'm talking about adults here) seem drawn to strangers in a good mood.
When I'm consciously trying to be happy, people are much more likely to smile
and say hello.

And maybe it's confirmation bias, but when I'm trying to project happiness,
and when I try to really smile at people and say good morning and mean it, I
notice a lot of times that people seem to walk away with a little more pep.
Almost like "wow, some stranger just genuinely wished me a good morning."

This all could be cause I live in Santa Monica and people out here tend to be
happier than they did in NYC.

~~~
word-reader
When I moved to NYC, I was used to walking around with a pleasant and
welcoming face, "without armor" as you say. Unfortunately, this caused me to
be accosted multiple times a day by beggars, scammers, or just crazy people.
After a few months, I developed the mild scowl and cold attitude required to
keep them away.

~~~
ncr100
Dense cities are a "product" ripe for disruption - great stimulation
opportunities but simultaneously an unhealthy environment for humans.

Consider: Containerized city. 0-population cities where rapid transit brings
people in during active-hours only? Walkable areas being vehicles themselves,
forceably removing people after N-hours and dumping them in to less-dense
habitation areas?

~~~
IfOnlyYouKnew
FWIW, I haven't made the parent comment's sort of experience in either Berlin,
London, or Paris. So it might be somewhat specific to New York.

And I have trouble understanding what you are actually suggesting, but it
seems to be an entirely technocratic take ignoring what actually makes cities
liveable, with possibly some dehumanisation of homeless people thrown in for
extra discredit?

~~~
word-reader
In US cities it seems the norm is to never say a word to strangers about
anything, ever, so it then follows that anyone who does talk to you is more
likely trying to grift you. Which makes you even less likely to talk to
strangers in the future, in a vicious cycle. I've never actually read Jane
Jacobs but I'm pretty sure this isn't what she was interested in preserving. I
don't know if it's technology, population churn, or what.

~~~
totablebanjo
I would disagree that all US cities are like that. In the midwest, people will
talk to strangers on the train or street in Chicago. Even in the coastal
cities there have been instances where I’ve spoken w people around me if
something funny or odd is happening.

------
wallflower
Distractions are our lives now. You can choose to minimize them. Start by
turning off “new email” notifications. You may not miss much by not knowing
the _moment_ an email arrives. If something is truly important and urgent,
they will usually use multiple means to contact you, like calling you.

You can also graduate to removing almost all notifications from your phone. I
say almost all because the beauty of Slack is that it never differentiated
between being mobile or at a desktop (like Skype did) so you might need
notifications from your work Slack to appear if you are not really present.
Also, get rid of non-work Slacks on your phone, if you spend too much time on
Slack on your phone, it could help eliminate more potential distractions.

The next level is to remove all native applications for anything that you
think might distract you. It is much, much harder to fall into the rabbit hole
of infinite scroll type binging with a mobile web experience. There is just
enough friction with mobile web to snap you out of your trance, usually.

~~~
ryandrake
Do Not Disturb mode, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your life will change. No
notifications, no vibrations, no dings, no texts, no calls. It's wonderful.
You, and only you should be in charge of when you use your phone. Not some
random caller or E-mail sender, not some app developer's "growth hacker", not
AI running on some service's backend. Take back control of your attention!

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> You, and only you should be in charge of when you use your phone.

Life happens. Your wife falls and breaks her wrist. Your mom has a heart
attack. They want you _now_ , not when you deign to look at your
communications. And until you do look, you won't know if it's that she broke
her wrist or that she had a heart attack.

If you are disconnected enough from other people that nobody has a valid
demand on your attention, then you're part of the problem of social
disconnection.

~~~
univalent
iOS has a feature where you can setup certain contacts to override your 'do
not disturb' settings. Check that out.

~~~
switch007
While that is certainly useful, what about local hospitals, police
departments, when someone borrows someone else's phone you call you etc.

IIRC iOS also has a feature which allows through someone who rings multiple
times in quick-ish succession?

~~~
tomjen3
Android does, and I haven't had reason to disable it yet. Should that be
necessary, people can leave a message. They might have to, even if they were
whitelisted as I don't take my phone with me to the bathroom or to most
meetings.

------
chrisfinne
The Jews identified this problem and the solution thousands of years ago,
hence their weekly Sabbath ritual of disconnecting from work/technology and
focusing on their family/faith.

I've got a growing appreciation for rituals that seem silly, worthless or out-
dated. If the ritual has survived this long, deep examination is in order
before altering or dismissing it.

~~~
kromem
Yes, but Jesus's revisionist take on it is worthwhile to keep in mind too:

"The sabbath was created for man, not man for the sabbath."

Disconnecting is good for many as a general practice. I myself have a "no
technology day" once a month or so. And certainly taking a population recently
freed from slavery and instituting a labor law ensuring a weekend was a great
idea (whoever thought of it).

But that's the nice thing about weekends - each of us get to spend them as we
choose.

If you are feeling disconnected from your loved ones and want to mutually
agree to put away your phones, awesome.

But likewise, if you had a rough week and want to lose yourself in binge
watching Stranger Things, that's cool too.

Let's not fall back into the ways of every generations before us in how we
consider younger trends as we age. Even chess was condemned as corrupting the
youth in its day.

A central theme to the success of all life in this world is balance. If you
feel out of balance, adjust your own life accordingly to regain it. But it
would probably be unwise to assume the balance that works for one works for
all.

I doubt any one of us has an identical idea of what living the perfect life
looks like. All we can do is figure out what our own version of that picture
looks like and do our best to realize it.

------
Verdex
Back in my day when you passed someone on the way to buy your morning paper
you would say "good day sir" and tip your hat. These kids don't even read the
paper anymore. And they're all like, "what is up" and "how is it hanging".
What does that even mean? I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar
to say these things.

And what the deal with likes on facebook. Too busy posting pictures of what
they're eating to listen quietly to the adults discussing aunt Joann's
ridiculous choice of hat. Seriously, it's August so she should really know not
to wear a green hat when we all go to watch the 10 hours of reruns of
Survivor.

EDIT: 'News' article on the web complains about technology trying to steal our
attention from 'the true reality' and it does this by employing a click bait
title and pairs the message proper with multiple visual ads.

~~~
jolmg
> I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar to say these things.

But "good day sir" lacks a verb and subject/object, so it's not even a
sentence. On the other hand, "what is up" and "how is it hanging" are proper
interrogative sentences, as far as grammar is concerned anyway.

------
al_form2000
The title giveth, the body takes away. Articles like these have been making
the rounds for maybe 6 ears now, and I cannot see how this brings even a
moderately non-stale perspective to the fray .I checked the date, it's from
today. Must be a slow week at SciAm.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Yes. It's an odd phenomenon. Some messages of this form seem to live and
recirculate for years, perpetuated without much analytical thought.

I often get preached at about how bad social media is. The irony is that I
don't have any, and the people preaching at me do.

My best theory: I suspect both online and offline, people "parrot" ideas 90%
of the time. They hear an idea, repeat it without much thought, if it
resonates well they repeat it more.

I think the reason people do this in-person is the same as they do it online.
They say things not because they have deeply reflected on all the
ramifications and sincerely believe and live by those ideas. They say things
"to get likes."

~~~
jonfw
So there is this common idea that social media is creating sort of "fake"
social interactions where things are said and pictures are taken in pursuit of
social reward (likes, follows, engagement). But this behavior isn't really
caused by social media, in fact this is just a digital representation of a
behavior that people have been doing for a really long time.

This is a completely fresh perspective to me and I find it very interesting,
there's a good chance that you're right.

------
olah_1
I think digital spaces have added an additional dimension of social
reciprocity.

Just one tiny example is the "courtesy like" when having a friendly
interaction on twitter. It's like waiting to go back inside your house until
your guest has fully driven out of your driveway and gone away.

Healthy technology is additive, not subtractive of our existing lives. And I
think it's natural for us to have digital equivalents of analog reciprocity.

~~~
awinder

      So, yes, some people don’t hear back from me as quickly as 
      they used to. I hear all the time from people who are 
      genuinely upset with me about that.
    

To me, the problem is that with immediacy people come up with all sorts of new
less-than-healthy ideas of reciprocity and social mores. In this case, the
expectation of immediate reply because it's possible -- someone could not have
that thought before the 1990s & ubiquity of cellphones, and more realistically
it's within the last decade that that kind of expectation could even be
possible.

------
jancsika
Title doesn't match the article, which appears to be about social media
manipulation techniques making people feel disconnected and sad.

But "death of social reciprocity?"

According to my own research set to appear in the second clause of this
sentence, sad people are apparently still thanking the Fortnite bus driver in
record numbers.

~~~
chansiky
Yes but how many of them would donate a spare kidney for him if he really
needed it.

People risked their lives for each other. I’m not sure that it’s the same case
with people who like your selfie.

------
xoraes
Is it just me or others also feel that this is only exacerbated by having
'always in ear devices' like AirPods (or any other earbuds for that matter)?
Why is it not considered rude to have them on while you're having a discussion
with someone?

~~~
twic
It is. Is this common behaviour somewhere? Where?

~~~
allenu
One of my coworkers did this the other day during daily standup. He had his
airpods in while he talked.

------
ipython
The problem is, social reciprocity is /expensive/ ... and like anything else
expensive, it's been eliminated in today's society.

Say what you want about Wal-Mart, but Sam Walton wanted his stores to have a
more 'neighborhood' feel, so he employed greeters to stand at the front of the
store to say hello to shoppers as they entered. A small gesture, but
eliminated in the name of 'cost savings'.

For most businesses these days, labor is one of your largest - if not your
largest - direct cost. So it is a natural target when thinking how to increase
profitability.

That's just talking about direct $$ cost... I think this article also touches
on the fact that 'expensive' is also measured in attention. It's a lot easier
to get a dopamine hit by checking your phone rather than a spontaneous
interaction with another human being. You know what that little badge on the
phone means, the outcome from a random conversation with another human ... is
a little less certain.

~~~
munificent
_> am Walton wanted his stores to have a more 'neighborhood' feel, so he
employed greeters to stand at the front of the store to say hello to shoppers
as they entered._

The reality is, alas, not quite as wholesome:

 _The idea of having dedicated greeters at the front door of a store may have
come from an employee of the company, Lois Richard. She was working in the
early 1980s as an invoice clerk at the Walmart store in Crowley, Louisiana.
The Walmart store in Crowley, which had opened in 1980, was experiencing
shoplifting and had a significant "inventory shrinkage" after two years. The
initial idea was to have an employee standing at the door in order to try to
decrease shoplifting. After a shoplifting sting conducted by the local police
showed that piles of merchandise could have been taken away, Lois Richard
pitched the idea the next day to her manager and it was accepted._

Having someone who visibly sees each patron when they enter and is physically
present at the exit likely reduces shoplifting more than enough to pay for the
position. They're basically security guards.

~~~
ipython
So you’re saying that some social graces have a positive side effect of
reducing crime? How is that not wholesome?

------
blaser-waffle
In other words, stop using abstract digital tools to interact with people, and
just interact with people.

Presumably the people I'm interacting with now won't be annoyed by my use of
digital tools to do so.

~~~
non-entity
The problem is the abstract digital tools allow me to easily find and interact
with people I find interesting, share common interest with, etc., often on the
other side of the country than myself. Which is something I've found difficult
in real life.

~~~
kkarakk
People find different things interesting, the ideal way to find your tribe is
to find where your tribe congregates and move there

~~~
jonfw
I have a diverse array of interests. In terms of technology interests I would
be at home in San Francisco it seems, but I also love off-roading and shooting
guns and all of that.

~~~
seandhi
For what it's worth, you'll find people in San Francisco who like to shoot
guns and, presumably, go off-roading. I was surprised to be invited to a gun
range last time I was there for work.

------
Ididntdothis
I think this trend started way before digital media. Since TV a lot of people
spend hours every day in front of a screen which is their main source of
information about the outside world. Business also has been becoming
increasingly impersonal. You are beholden to shareholders you don’t know and
shareholders demand things from people they don’t know. You can’t give
feedback to job applicants for a vague fear of being sued. We are afraid of
strangers talking to children or even us.

I am not sure if this trend will be positive or negative long term but I think
social media is just another (accelerated) step in that direction.

------
scarejunba
Nah, technology is pretty cool for this shit. Everyone likes their friends'
posts. It's like an acknowledgement - I see you and I like that I do. iMessage
reactions and FB messenger reactions are the same. I think if I looked through
my group chats, most messages have reactions. And Find my Friends? You have
that shit broadcasting and you'll run into each other all the time.

I feel so thoroughly connected with my friends. They're like a mesh that
catches me when I'm down and bounces me back up. And it's so easy with tech.

------
morcutt
This article resonates with me. As of late, social media has been a negative
for my life. It is terribly distracting. I pay attention to who interacts with
my content more than I should. I just deactivated Instagram (user ~#66,000 so
I signed up in the first few days) for the first time this week (after
deleting the app many times) and it has been very refreshing.

------
4ntonius8lock
I like that they bring up distractions. The addictive nature of online media
is an issue, but that isn't the only thing going on.

People are hyper sensitive now, and at least here in the US, there is a sense
that 'someone one is to blame, and that person needs to be punished'... and
that sense is way stronger than the sense of 'is this person even guilty'.

Where I'm from, I give hitch hikers rides all the time.

Since I've lived in the US, I don't. If the hitch hiker was to have drugs on
them, and we got stopped, I could easily be liable for this, and go to jail
and lose my right to be in the United States. Those are some high stakes.
Especially since I don't have a $250,000 lying around to pay for a criminal
defense attorney.

And lower stakes happen everywhere. The other day I was hiking (with my
expensive hiking gear) in some back-country trail and I watched as first the
dad took a shot, then what appeared to be the mom. So I offered to take the
picture of the whole family. The mom yanked her camera to the side when I
offered (as if afraid I'd steal it) and tersely rejected my offer (a single,
cold and distrustful "NO")

One day I sat down at a restaurant and there was a really nice new cell phone
on the seat. In my home country, I would have taken it, and waited to receive
a call from the owner to give it back. Not so in the US. I wouldn't want to be
accused of stealing it. Instead, I called the staff to take it away. Maybe
they stole it? I don't know, but I don't want the liability.

When you do away with presumption of innocence, there is a strong chilling
effect.

------
duderific
One thing I've noticed is that people often don't hold the door open anymore
when you're following them out of a building or room, because they're looking
at their phone.

I thought the article would be focused on these sorts of things, but it seemed
to be more of an advice column. Not what I was expecting.

------
theonionknight
For anyone interested in this topic, i would strongly recommend Cal Newport’s
book digital minimalism

------
angrydev
This article lacks substance and is painfully anecdotal. I was expecting
something more from SA.

------
scotty79
Reciprocity is one of the mechanisms people use to part you with your money.
Sellers use it, charity uses it, scammers use it. No wonder that people tend
to dial down their reciprocity if they can.

------
sak5sk
It's worse than that. It is all baked into our daily tools. Even HN as a
community and a forum aids in distraction. Pretty much any community that lets
you form an echo chamber around yourself (all social networks, and communities
including HN)commands your attention by making you interact with people who
think like you. If this were done in real life it would be much different, but
the online medium of it falls short in the tangible relationship department.

I hate to say it, but the big nasty "R" word might be the only way to curb the
disease of distraction by limiting notifications and psychologically abusive
features.

The extend of psychological abuse for attention seeking is so great now that
most if not all of us are in some way affected, even if we deny it (myself
included).

Major offenders: \- Twitter - notifications, likes, comments, emails,
notifications in tab titles \- FB - notifications, messenger, likes, comments,
friend recommendations. \- Slack .. good luck making those little notification
circles disappear if you are in a number of different channels \- Linked In -
constant emails, people who have looked at your profile, messenger you can't
close

It's also going to get worse. As automation grows, more and more people will
find themselves occupied with bullshit jobs, the kinds that look to expand and
capture a piece of the attention economy. There is a good chance you, the
person reading this right now has a bullshit job. You may even know it and
acknowledge it, but will ultimately justify it as necessary and a force for
good (sorry, it's probably not). It's a tragedy, but a lot of talent, time and
life is being wasted on increasingly larger number of bullshit activities that
add absolutely nothing (except $$) and take away everything (time).

I should know all of this as I work in a bullshit industry, doing bullshit
things, taking people's time & money. I am not happy about it but I see no
real alternative in the foreseeable future. My job involves figuring out how
people think, what will make them buy and then making them buy crap they don't
need or in more quantities than they need it.

Personally, I have made significant effort to cut down on distractions but I
still fail by coming to HN. I can't help that discussions here are engaging
and make me think. Twitter is another platform I have tried quitting many
times but find myself too curious to see what's happening and checking again.
I've managed to cut Reddit down to 1 sub, but even then it seems really
difficult to quit that last piece. I still check LinkedIN occasionally but
don't expect much from it, nor do I care about what's being discussed. FB is
totally out of my life, including messenger so I have made some progress
there. Slack also totally gone. I completely uninstalled it and direct people
to email. Speaking of email, I am almost always at inbox zero thanks to a ton
of filters. Stuff still gets through from spammers and occasional
subscriptions that want to push crap I don't care about, but I manage to zap
those with the "mark as spam" button quickly.

~~~
byko3y
Could it be the information bombardment made you impenetrable to the real
information? For example, since I found really important information and
sources I value, no bullshit sources distract my attention. I don't watch TV,
I don't visit popular news websites (including HN, made an exception today),
I'm not captured by any social net service.

I feel like I'm still half-blind and thus see no clear way out of the prison,
just like you. I'm a really honest man and the fight for the real world
requires an advanced pretentiousness skill which I lack.

~~~
tomjen3
Would you be willing to share those sources?

~~~
byko3y
They are not something private and hidden, it's more like a diamonds lying in
the road dust because people are just too busy to stop and take a close look
at something, unless it jumps right into them in a form of a colorful
advertisement picturing a women with big tits offering you to try something.
Basically those are random people, random articles/books/lectures I
encountered and considered helpfull.

I don't have much to share with english-speaking folks, most amazing "sources"
I got acquainted with speak russian. I really enjoyed George Carlin, he
provides some helpfull insights for starters.

~~~
sak5sk
I'd like to check out these russian-speaking sources if they are online.

~~~
byko3y
You could check a pretty well-known economist Khazin e.g. worldcrisis.ru.

------
buboard
The text refutes the title, whats going on. Anyway, another article about how
it is "destroying society". But there is no mention on what really destroys
society. Try smiling to an adult and u re the weird one. So much for saying hi
or chatting, ewww unless you re physically on the high end of the scale. Like
others have said, you can only react to kids , and that's only if you re not a
man outside a certain age range. Frankly this doesnt sound like an interesting
book.

------
theonionknight
For anyone interested in this topic, I would strongly recommend Cal Newport’s
book digital minimalism

