
Facebook admits that it is a problem - mcbeast
https://qz.com/1158984/is-facebook-fb-bad-for-you-facebook-says-it-is-and-the-company-has-a-solution/
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nlperguiy
Facebook is the ultimate individualism app.

Before, you had media that was consumed simultaneously by all members of the
family or together with your friends. There were some, not that time consuming
media sources targeting a certain age group.

Facebook targets all age groups and compartmentalizes everyone perfectly into
their own echo chambers.

People consume stuff together less, compared to times when they consumed
television or similar media.

Even families don't spend time together watching their favorite comedy shows
or similar as much as they used to. Shows are all compartmentalized.

That's what targeted advertisement and machine learning do. Tweak for the best
click through rate.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but there might be some
effects of people consuming information mostly alone without any external
input, other than their echo chamber. I've definitely felt this affect me.

~~~
fullshark
This seems more a symptom of individualized media devices
(phones/computers/tablets) than facebook.

~~~
mcny
> This seems more a symptom of individualized media devices
> (phones/computers/tablets) than facebook.

I used to talk about something I have seen people call "ipodization" but
people thought I was joking. I was more concerned with ipodization of water.
People don't trust municipal water => people buy bottled water => municipal
water gets bad.

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justboxing
> The structure of these posts is usually the same.

> Step one: identify some ill in society.

> Step two: admit that people think technology, and Facebook, might be
> contributing to that ill.

> Step three: assert that more Facebook, not less, is the cure for said ill.

Genius marketing. Looks like their MAU (Monthly Active Users) number has been
declining...

Facebook is fast becoming the MySpace of this generation.

~~~
sunseb
"Facebook is fast becoming the MySpace of this generation."

True, that's why they bought WhatsApp, Instagram, Occulus, and so.

Mark Zuckerberg knows that FB is dead.

~~~
two2two
I can see it now. "Facebook reorganizes and parent company will be called
Appbook."

~~~
Angostura
Alphabook, surely.

~~~
will_brown
My money is on tomorrowbook, quite literally

~~~
fullshark
Did you buy that domain name or something?

~~~
will_brown
A long time ago, but not seriously bc I was banking on such a notion, it was
pre iPad/tablet days and I had delusions of grandeur...also I admit I
shamelessly tried to make it available to FB in an attempt to pay off my law
school loans (haha delusions of granuder).

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codinghorror
This is exactly what I was thinking when reading that. It seemed odd to me
that nowhere in that post was it noted that addiction to social media might
be, y'know.. harmful?

That said, I do applaud the "take a break from person {x}" feature which is
very thoughtful design, and something we want to add to Discourse.

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jsemrau
It would be great if people would go out more to meet real people and have
real conversations.

Edit : What is so brave to admit a company is a problem ?

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akeck
I didn’t mean to stop using FB. It just drifted away. The FB blog writer’s
suggested solution is part of the reason. To get the same value out of FB
takes much more work than it used to. For me, it became a chore. In the face
of every other demand on my time, FB started to lose out about a year ago. I
haven’t checked it in about two weeks. 2-4 weeks is the average gap these days
for me.

