Social Vanity

[stevenkovar]

http://stevenkovar.com/post/17876195148/social-vanity

[acavailhez]

That "63 years" comes out of nowhere and does not means anything.

Those 800m users combined have more than 2 millions years "per day". They spend way more time brushing their teeths.

For just a second spent, "liking" something on Facebook seems a pretty efficient use of time.

[joezydeco → acavailhez]

Brushing my teeth has a direct, proportional return on my time investment. My mouth stays healthy (reducing dentist expenses) and my wife doesn't turn green when I speak near her.

Clicking "Like" has an unbalanced return on my time investment, short as it is. I get virtually nothing in return, but marketers and advertisers have another data point that they can use. My friends couldn't give a crap what I click Like on.

[TeMPOraL → joezydeco]

> My friends couldn't give a crap what I click Like on.

Well, in case of my friends Liking things, I do. It's a good recomendation engine. Especially, if your friends are not from the same industry as you, looking at what they Like is a way to avoid filter bubble.

[cathrithbo]

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

There are plenty of activities that may seem to an outsider to be a waste of time. Daydreaming, for example.

(Just don't tell that to Albert Einstein who used to daydream about travelling on a wave of light.)

Even supposing that social networking is some sort of vice, it's easy to think of much more harmful alternatives.

[AlexandrB → cathrithbo]

> Even supposing that social networking is some sort of vice, it's easy to think of much more harmful alternatives.

If a vice is less harmful but more widespread is it better or worse than the alternative? E.g. Facebook vs. World of Warcraft

[cathrithbo → AlexandrB]

With vices I suspect that it isn't just the activity concerned but the purpose, which varies from person to person.

e.g. TV can be used to educate but it can also be used to distract

That said, some vices may be worse than others. In the case of social networking, I guess the obvious alternative is going to parties which are OFC a gateway to alcohol consumption.

[stevenkovar]

Beyond the time being spent via social media, I'm curious what HN thinks we can do to show qualitative value per interaction vs. quantitative.

One thing I didn't include in my post was Hoffman's discussion of the three types of data that will prove to be important moving forward: explicit (data people supply), implicit (data created by behavior), and analytic (data gleaned from explicit and implicit information). Currently most social tools are very good at taking in the explicit data and showing people their own implicit data (think Tweets, Retweets, Followers), but there is--from a user standpoint--a lack of open analytic data showing the impact of their own behaviors.

[drewonstuff]

You have to have faith that all this time wasting will go somewhere practical, at some point. I posted this yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3607718

If people can use this online time to figure out how to apply their skills to make money, they wouldn't be at their jobs browsing Facebook.

[ypcx]

  echo "127.0.0.2 www.facebook.com plus.google.com \
  www.twitter.com news.ycombinator.com www.reddit.com" >> /etc/hosts

  sudo vim /etc/hosts

...and add '#' in front of that line every time you want to get social. Remove the '#' after use. Works miracles.

[littledude]

i wouldn't call it a waste of time. they're using some of the most efficient current forms of personal trait signaling. check out the book "Spent: sex, evolution and the secrets of consumerism".

[giusemir1978]

Nice point of view. Actually, it is ok to spend some time on social networks, the point is we collectively spend too much of it trying to boost our ego.

[niyogi]

and so is posting a link to your own article on hacker news