[HN Gopher] Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social med...
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Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure
Author : shivbhatt
Score : 213 points
Date : 2021-05-27 09:14 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| freewizard wrote:
| It's definitely a progress for Instagram but probably a little
| one if the algorithm sorting is not changed.
|
| For those who may need, there have been browser addons for
| Twitter and Facebook to do the same. [1]
|
| Also worth noting Mastodon has this demetricator feature built in
| since quite a while ago.
|
| [1] https://github.com/bengrosser
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| If they truly cared about users mental health FB/IG and Twitter
| would also add a switch in the options to hide all political
| discussion.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| It's third party but I did almost exactly this with Tweetbot's
| mute feature. A lot of political topics can be summarized in a
| few buzzwords. Twitter tends to be much more focused on
| positivity and work topics since I've made this change.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| You can do this on standard Twitter too, and I do. But it's a
| game of whack a mole, every few weeks theres another
| political hot topic that floods the timeline and I have to
| add another word to the blocklist which is now over 1000
| words.
|
| What frustrates me is I know Twitter knows these topics are
| political, I know they could add a switch to hide it all but
| I also suspect they don't want to because they consider it
| important that I hear about what they consider important.
|
| America is not the world but the rest of the world is
| subjected constantly to events and outrage as if it is the
| whole world because the people running these platforms only
| have a very small perspective of what the world is.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I did that manually last year by blocking all lowbrow sources
| (orgs and individuals) in the FB news feed.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I am waiting this to be followed by "premium" tier for consumers
| that allows them to see "hidden" likes.
| annadane wrote:
| Cool! Now let us browse (and maybe give us a chronological feed?)
| without logging in maybe?
| AnonC wrote:
| I read about this on another site. I don't use Instagram, but boy
| is this whole thing so convoluted! There are three different
| places to handle this.
| geden wrote:
| Now we just need Spotify to hide play counts... These have a
| terrible effect on artists.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| Yes, and also need to hide the speedometer in cars because my
| mother-in-law drives incredibly slowly and being a passenger
| has a negative effect on my mental health.
|
| We also need to abolish the "top apps" features in the various
| app stores because my apps didn't sell well and it had a
| terrible effect on me.
|
| We also need to ensure that everyone in the Formula 1 finishes
| at the same time, holding hands, because the "losers" at the
| end didn't win and they felt bad....
|
| Where does the madness end?? It turns out that life is unfair -
| who knew?!
| [deleted]
| comfyinnernet wrote:
| I thought I'd seen bad analogies before, but I had no idea
| what was possible.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| Haha thank you!
|
| That genuinely made me laugh haha
|
| You are right - they are terrible analogies, and I am proud
| of them.
| notjes wrote:
| Hiding CNN, MSNBC, NYT from all citizens would increase the
| mental health, and physical health, of all citizens A LOT.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I always enjoy people who think newspapers are on par with
| television which is literally on 24/7 and is extremely loud.
| Like, I don't know anyone who reads the NYTs, but I have boat
| load of aunts and uncles who just leave cable news running all
| the time
| totaldex wrote:
| Even with positive intentions, I'm not convinced this will solve
| the problem in any meaningful way. Turning off likes might be
| perceived as someone being unhappy with their social media status
| relative to their peers (ie, not getting as many 'likes' as their
| friends), which signals its own stigma.
|
| Users will be forced into a new dilemma: Enable likes and accept
| the 'social media pressure', or announce to everyone that they
| harbor some sort of insecurity about their social media status by
| turning them off.
| Tomminn wrote:
| Idk, I disable my friend count on facebook. I have 600, so not
| shame worthy, just fairly average. It's just unnecessary
| information. I think many like to the ability to not be "looked
| down on" by the >2000 crowd, and not "embarrass" the <100
| crowd.
| lupire wrote:
| OTOH, now that disabling likes is an option, we can form a
| cultural norm that enabling likes on your post is a shame-
| worthy, petty, insecure, attention-seeking behavior.
| grillvogel wrote:
| who is we? and why would the typical social media user care
| what "we" think?
| bencollier49 wrote:
| This is why the feature was introduced. Just a gesture.
| dakial1 wrote:
| This is not for positive intentions. Instagram audience is
| getting old (like happened to FB) and they need to undercut
| platforms like TikTok. So they need to get into the untapped,
| and very promising, "children market". To do that they'll need
| to first correct everything that is wrong with instagram
| including features that helped it grow but now are seen as a
| negative influende on its users. But my guess is that they
| already know how to counter it with other "engagement
| acceleration" (aka addictive) features.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I disagree. I have my strava runs set to private because I've
| found the dynamic of others liking my runs affecting my
| thinking. I've also entirely disabled my Facebook wall. I don't
| have Instagram, but I would enable this immediately if I ever
| were to join.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I doubt that such stigma will be very widespread. There's been
| a renewed focus within the society to focus on digital well-
| being, screen time, and general mental wellness connected to
| the overuse of social media platforms and smartphones. People
| will try this feature just out of curiosity, and be able to
| tell their peers about non-social standing related reasons for
| why it's useful.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| The likelihood of that outcome seems likely to be
| proportional to age.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| Or, to be more precise, inversely proportional to age
| sceew wrote:
| Also the comments are a big indicator of social media clout.
| tomcooks wrote:
| It's almost as if the company that runs Instagram wants you to
| feel like they are truly, honestly, really, properly interested
| in losing the core of their business for the sake of your own
| mental health and the psychological wellbeing of society in
| general
| an_opabinia wrote:
| TikTok just makes up the view counts. So everyone feels like
| they're growing an audience. Instagram could do the same.
| They probably will. It would probably both increase
| engagement and, would it be bad for mental health?
|
| Anyway, I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts 5 years
| ago.
| crocbuzz wrote:
| Where is your source that TikTok makes up the view counts.
| As a developer myself, their interest graph is second to
| none. It has by far the best recommendation algorithm in
| the social media space to date. Of course they are doing it
| with all the data they collect, but it doesn't bother me
| because it shows me endless amounts of the type of content
| I want to see, which is not half-naked dancing teens, but
| lots of political commentary and real life stories.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Facebook also made up view counts on video. What can I
| say? What evidence do you have the counts are real?
| EE84M3i wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of Tinder Gold "hide my age" feature. Everyone
| has their age shown unless you pay extra to hide it, so hiding
| almost always will look worse than your actual age.
| vmception wrote:
| I just set an absurdly older age, while keeping my age filter
| the same. The 23 year olds actually looking for that can be
| amused and interested.
|
| But since I said something now I guess I'll have to pivot to
| something else.
| aphextron wrote:
| It's the same thing as YouTube videos with comments disabled.
| "What are they hiding from?" becomes the question.
| dewey wrote:
| > Users will be forced into a new dilemma: Enable likes and
| accept the 'social media pressure', or announce to everyone
| that they harbor some sort of insecurity about their social
| media status by turning them off.
|
| Isn't that just for your own view? Others will still see the
| likes I'm assuming?
| totaldex wrote:
| It appears that this setting controls cross-account like
| visibility on posts:
|
| "Even if a user has Like Counts enabled, they will not be
| able to see the number of likes on accounts or posts that
| have hidden them."
| yoavm wrote:
| Sounds like the perfect solution if you want to say "we are
| releasing features that support a healthy usage of the our
| app", and at the same time make sure no one uses these
| features!
| pfraze wrote:
| FWIW Casey Newton posted a writeup- they ran trials for a
| couple years and the response was polarized (some loved
| it, some hated it) and they couldn't find any clear
| indicator that it was healthier for people.
| the_local_host wrote:
| Instagram should allow users to simply _set_ the number of
| likes to whatever they want to have displayed, and let it
| increment from there.
|
| If Instagram is letting people turn the feature off, then it's
| likely that they don't actually need "likes" for their data-
| collection purposes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >they don't actually need "likes" for their data-collection
| purposes.
|
| Is that what's happening? My understanding is that you can
| hide the displaying of the likes, but still allow people to
| like them. In that case, the metrics are still being
| collected.
| kache_ wrote:
| They still allow users to like. However, you might be right
| that they don't really need it. They have engagement metrics
| based on your scrolling behavior.
| patrickmcnamara wrote:
| When they were testing this in Ireland over the last year,
| there was no option to see likes at all. That probably makes
| more sense than this.
| cianmm wrote:
| I enjoyed that, it was quite a bit nicer.
| ezekg wrote:
| Up until recently, that was the case for my IG account as
| well. I'm based in the US.
| woudsma wrote:
| I'm not a social media user, but I'm actually considering to
| start using Instagram with this feature.
|
| Disabling likes doesn't show that I harbor insecurity, it
| simply removes the 'rat race' feeling that I have with social
| media. (which was the reason why I stopped using it a couple
| years ago).
| kwonkicker wrote:
| It doesnt disable likes, it hides them.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I use Instagram but I don't bother checking like counts or
| the list of who liked a post. You have to go out of your way
| to look for this information anyway.
|
| I suppose disabling the feature could help those who can't
| resist the impulse to check and who get upset if they don't
| see the expected number of likes. It's more of a forced self-
| control option.
|
| I have known people who struggle with phone and social media
| addiction, but I have to say that the HN caricature of
| Instagram is nothing like my experience or that of anyone I
| know. Instagram has been great for keeping up with photos of
| friends' hobbies, travels, kids, and other fun things to
| share. I suppose if someone felt significant jealousy or
| insecurity at other's success or happiness then it could be
| stressful to see it presented so conveniently, but that's
| more of a personal issue than an Instagram issue. If you stay
| in touch with people you're going to hear about their kids,
| vacations, new house and new cars eventually anyway.
|
| The real problem I've seen is addiction to scrolling through
| the discover page. I can see all of my friends' updates on
| Instagram in 5-10 minutes per day at most. However, someone
| scrolling the discover page could waste endless hours
| consuming random content that has nothing to do with their
| social network.
| lupire wrote:
| It's a little weird to blame the users in the same post
| that explains how the app is designed to distract you from
| the healthy usage you advocate.
| codyb wrote:
| I'd suspect the warping of mental health might be primarily
| concentrated in younger people?
|
| You probably don't make it to 35, get all established in
| life, then Instagram tanks your whole sense of self worth.
|
| Seems more plausible you'd be growing up, trying to find
| your place in the world, head on Instagram and get
| depressed cause it seems like everyone's lifestyles are
| just so much better than yours.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I use Twitter and Instagram, and occasionally comment on
| Reddit. I don't bother to check the like/follow numbers on
| any of them.
| spoonjim wrote:
| This is akin to the ability to "de-badge" a car, offered by
| German manufacturers, where the manufacturer logo is visible but
| the specific model is not. I.e. a Mercedes SL could be a $80,000
| V6 or a $160,000 twin-turbo V12 and unless someone was clued into
| the differences (like the exhaust pipes) they wouldn't know.
|
| I've noticed anecdotally that in the US, most of the de-badged
| cars are the low end models -- people don't want to be known as
| driving the cheapest end of the range. In Northern Europe, the
| de-badged cars are generally the highest end models. Wonder if
| there's a deeper learning to be found there.
| filereaper wrote:
| >Wonder if there's a deeper learning to be found there.
|
| Yes, Europe generally has Tall Poppy Syndrome and the Nordics
| have socially accepted norms like Jantelagen.
|
| - https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191008-jantelagen-
| why...
| mywacaday wrote:
| In Ireland/UK any debadged cars are in the boy racer scene, I
| always found it interesting that without the badges it can be
| difficult to distinguish the make if the car.
| bozzcl wrote:
| I see that a lot in America as well. Very typical on modded
| Subarus and Infinitis.
| neilv wrote:
| I debadge a lot of products. That said, I would really like to
| own a red ~1980 Ferrari 308 GTS, including all the emblems,
| even if it's actually a Prius under the hood.
| bschne wrote:
| Funny, I always thought people did that for aesthetic reasons
| because they liked the cleaner look.
| pc86 wrote:
| That's certainly part of it, and if I was going to buy a car
| at the SL level I'd probably debadge regardless of the trim
| level. But I'm sure there are people on one end of the
| spectrum who don't want to advertise their $150-200k car, and
| people on the other end who want to make others _think_ it 's
| a $150-200k car.
| alexanderchr wrote:
| > Wonder if there's a deeper learning to be found there.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
| fy20 wrote:
| The whole indirect signalling of cars is very interesting.
|
| In my country (North/Eastern Europe) you pay more
| (EUR500-EUR2000) for a license plate that has certain
| combinations of numbers such as 123 or 747. I've noticed that
| pretty much every Porsche has a plate like that. It's kind of
| silly, because people who have no clue that exists won't care
| at all. You can also go full on custom plates, the funniest I
| saw recently was someone who had H0DL... on a Toyota RAV4 :D I
| guess the plate cost 20% the price of the car.
|
| I used to live in a Middle Eastern country where the plates
| were simply Latin numbers, combinations didn't matter, but if
| you wanted a shorter plate you had to pay more. If you had a 1
| or 2 character plate (which is at least $500k) supposedly girls
| would just leave their phone numbers on your car, regardless of
| what car you had.
| Rabei wrote:
| Any product/platform where the relevant metric to value your
| interaction with it is engagement has all the incentives to
| become harmful for you as end user.
|
| We should realize this, and move accordingly, does not matter how
| much we try to regulate it the incentives always end as harmful.
| homedepotdave wrote:
| They would need to make this the default if they want it to work
| at all.
| neolog wrote:
| Dang,
|
| Why is there a total upvote count for users? I think it makes me
| focus excessively on social status -- after all, it's right next
| to my name. What would you think about removing it?
| eganist wrote:
| I'd be quite content with the option of hiding mine. There's
| zero programmatic value to me or any other HN _readers_ (we don
| 't have sub-HNs we have to moderate ourselves), and I tend to
| determine credibility by reviewing a person's past submissions
| and comments rather than gleaning a simple score.
|
| For what little that's worth.
| hn8788 wrote:
| It seems silly, but I think this could actually be helpful for
| some people. I have my upvotes hidden on reddit because I found
| myself regularly checking the site after I would post, just to
| see if the number of upvotes I received had increased. It's not
| like it was making me feel pressure or depressed if a post didn't
| get votes, but it felt the same way video games feel when you try
| to get a high score. Hiding the vote count made it so I don't get
| distracted by the feeling of wanting to see if my "score" is
| going up.
| SamBam wrote:
| How do you do that? I see an option in my Reddit preferences to
| "make my votes public," but it doesn't seem like this hides
| votes on my own posts from me.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| It was mostly the lack of any usefulness. But one of the other
| major reasons I deleted my Facebook years ago was that I used to
| feel disappointed when one of my posts had less comments or
| likes. I knew it was time to delete that social network.
|
| Children and teenagers could have life altering effects due to
| constant exposure to such experiences on these sites.
| papito wrote:
| What I really need is a way to lock myself out of the account,
| especially Twitter, without suspending it. Like, disable the
| login for a day, but I am still on the platform. The electric
| fences I put up myself never work.
| david_allison wrote:
| Sounds similar to the concept of 'self-exclusion' in the UK
| gambling industry:
|
| https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Safer-g...
| gzimhelshani wrote:
| I want this for League of Legends. Disable my account for 2
| days, one week, one month etc. I don't want to lose the
| progress I made in the game by deleting the account completely
| but I also want to focus on my finals for a while.
| pjerem wrote:
| See my answer above :)
| headmelted wrote:
| This is all anecdotal but I committed social media digicide a
| short while ago because I didn't like how it was affecting my
| life.
|
| Constantly checking for likes, feeling an urge to participate
| in conversations to feel like "an important voice". I got to
| the point where it wasn't just directly affecting me but also
| the amount of attention I was giving my kids had dropped enough
| that I was mad at myself for becoming "that dad".
|
| I made sure the github stayed live (with some pointers towards
| currently supported alternatives) so that anyone relying on
| that (now redundant) work wouldn't be left high and dry - other
| than that I just quietly took my online presence down.
|
| I feel like I've lost nothing and have been much happier since.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I found myself fantasizing about social media digicide, so I
| went for it.
|
| Totally worth it. You'll know when you're ready for it.
|
| I do miss keeping in touch with some older friends via my FB
| account. There is certainly a cost.
| headmelted wrote:
| I can see how this could weigh on some people, and
| everyone's situation is different, but in my case it was
| just slices of other people's political views and (more
| often than not) photos of their pets and their lunch.
|
| In my case I just figured if I've lost touch with people
| over the years there's probably a reason. I don't mean that
| in any ill or dramatic way, and it's equally true from
| their side too.
|
| I'm not sure it's that different from an amicable break-up
| with a partner in that you can naturally drift apart from
| other people and say "hey you're going that way, I'm going
| this way, best of luck with everything".
|
| Honestly I thought losing connections with people I
| actually did have some history with and knew well many
| years ago was going to be the unfortunate cost of getting
| off of Facebook. As it turns out, not so much. Clinging too
| much to the past wastes the present, and life isn't that
| long to begin with.
| moneywoes wrote:
| That last part really hit me. Since deleting Instagram
| there's definitely people I haven't talked too but I
| wonder if it would've been beneficial to talk to them at
| all. Am I missing out?
| wilsonthewhale wrote:
| You can have a "Messenger-only" FB account, which would
| allow you to keep in touch with said friends.
| sneak wrote:
| I'd still have an FB social account if I could have
| disabled Messenger; people insisted on messaging me there
| even though I'd log in like once per month. I deleted my
| actual FB just to get people to stop trying to contact me
| on Messenger, because it was impossible to turn off.
| pjerem wrote:
| Simple solution : random password that you don't save anywhere.
| Now you must rely on account recovery to log back in. If you
| feel more safe, you can also print it and store it in a drawer
| :)
| papito wrote:
| Yeah, I've done it.
| TimonKnigge wrote:
| As an extra step you could also redirect the relevant domain
| to `0.0.0.0` in your `/etc/hosts`.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Lots of young adult catholics in my area have started including
| social media in their list of things to practice will over (to
| improve well being, grow in empathy, etc.).
|
| E.g. It has been a regular practice for the last two millennia
| to fast on Friday from some subset of enjoyable activity.
|
| It's interesting to watch ancient cultures start to contemplate
| social media and suggest healthy behaviors towards it, a
| technology that is only about a decade old.
|
| I have to keep reminding myself that the world we live in is an
| infant, and social media will exist in a century, but our
| relationship to it will be very different than it is now.
| xwdv wrote:
| Wow, imagine major religions eventually taking the next step
| to building their own official social media ecosystems, built
| by programmer priests.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yeah, I like to imagine programmer monks hidden away
| working on assembly language for thousands of years.
|
| Reminds me of the book Anathem (great book, tons of
| Catholic imagery)
| tayo42 wrote:
| The app stay focused on Android is great for this. It blocks
| opening apps or websites based on a schedule. Really helped
| kill my endless scroll habit. I found I do the empty fridge
| thing with these apps. I'm sure there's others on ios too
| 72deluxe wrote:
| Have you tried just not using it??
|
| Or developing self control??
|
| Surely it's like saying bottles need to be harder to get into
| because I like drinking alcohol too much...
|
| Or cars need to accelerate slower because I love speeding and
| can't resist permanently holding down the accelerator pedal,
| even at risk to my own health and wellbeing
| elliekelly wrote:
| We add deliberate friction to dangerous activities all the
| time. Speed bumps, for example, for those who lack the "self
| control" to follow the posted limits.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| That's a good point, but we don't only sell blunt knives in
| case someone goes on a stabbing rampage.
|
| Nobody would blame the knife for the rampage.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Ironically, a large portion of people are willing to
| support legislation like the Brady bill which would make
| it legal to go after the manufacturer of guns which are
| used in mass shootings.
|
| Many people in america do blame colt, Winchester,
| Remington, etc for ever even manufacturing these weapons
| in the first place. I've heard that the UK is also very
| strict about knives so maybe some of that can happen
| there too...
| hhh wrote:
| I don't think this is a fair comparison. Phones are on people
| essentially 24/7 now, there are few/no times where you are
| not connected. For alcoholism, a fair comparison would be a
| flask that buzzes to remind you it's there and tell you
| there's something you should check inside.
|
| Telling people to just 'develop self control' is extremely
| hard when on a societal scale, these services are becoming
| increasingly interwoven with daily life and participation in
| wider society. Opting out is an active _choice_ to move
| against the grain, and you could suffer socially for it. This
| isn't something that should weigh on one person alone.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| All choices have effects. If you are suffering mentally due
| to your activities and cutting out causes "social
| suffering", surely it is an active choice where you decide
| one is greater than the other?? And even more so in the
| case of your mental health - what's more important, your
| mental health or seeing photos of your friend's dog?
|
| What even is "suffering socially"? If I am an alcoholic and
| decide to quit drinking, is it the local pub's fault if I
| won't see my friends again? I am surely "suffering
| socially" as all my friends are at the pub.
|
| An individual's actions weigh on that individual alone. I
| don't see how you could say otherwise? If I walk out of a
| room of people, who else should it weigh on? I walked out
| of the room.
|
| If I leave the local bowling club, is it their fault I
| won't see them as often? I quit the bowling club, not the
| other way around.
|
| You are right that some things are interwoven but they are
| not mandatory. People survived in the 1980s without the
| Internet, without Facebook and without Instagram. How did
| they ever manage??
|
| Or are you saying that I need to use Instagram to be able
| to live a normal life? If so, I don't exist because I don't
| have an Instagram account. And that was a deliberate
| decision - it weighed on me alone.
|
| If we replaced the word "Instagram" with "AOL", you can see
| how faddish such "necessary" tech is and how blown-out-of-
| proportion the issues with not having an account are.
| Imagine the horror of not being on AOL in the 90s... yet
| people survived. Or replace "Instagram" with "Bebo" or
| "MySpace" - is it still necessary to have such things??
| pjerem wrote:
| It's not that simple, it's now well known that social media
| addiction is a thing.
|
| Not being able to self control is exactly what defines an
| addiction.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| There are all manner of addictions that can be
| "assisted"/made worse with technology. The solution isn't
| in the technology though - it surely starts with the
| person??
|
| Should my toaster warn me if I use it too often in an hour?
| I might put weight on with all that toast I am eating.
|
| Should my coffee machine warn me if I make too many
| coffees? I might have too much caffeine and suffer heart
| problems.
|
| Should my app warn me if I use it too much? I might be a
| workaholic and spend too much time in Excel.
|
| Who is in control of the toaster? Me or the toaster? Who is
| in control of the coffee machine? Me or the coffee machine?
| Who is in control of the phone/PC/app? Me or the
| phone/PC/app?
| adrianN wrote:
| Ease of access to the thing you're addicted to is a big
| factor for relapse probability. That's one reason why it's so
| hard for people with food addiction to lose weight.
| Developing self control is a lot harder than you make it
| seem.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| But developing self control isn't impossible, else
| EVERYBODY would be "addicted" to all manner of things -
| alcohol, smoking, food, sex, shopping, hoarding - all of
| them.
|
| As these things aren't experienced by everybody, there must
| be a possibility that self control can be cultivated. It
| also is supported by laws that punish you for lack of self-
| control: murder in the case of rage, stealing in the case
| of greed etc.
|
| In all cases I am sure the addiction-help courses encourage
| you to not use/take the thing you are addicted to. They are
| pushing towards self control, else it'd be a pointless
| thing to undertake.. In this case it's totally possible to
| just not use the app - uninstall it, or don't launch it, or
| don't pick up your phone.
|
| Buy a cheap smart wristband and only enable important
| notifications to cut out the noise?
|
| I wonder if lack of notification lights is anything to do
| with it? About 20 years ago the Nokias etc. had
| notification lights and even the early Android phones had
| them, which meant you knew to look at it as it gently
| flashed. They seem to have fallen out of popularity and so
| people now look at their phone all of the time just in case
| there is something they have missed, and then develop a
| habit of looking, which only gets worse and worse. You end
| up training yourself to do the habit, just like biting your
| nails, or a nervous tick where you scratch your head at
| certain times.
|
| If the phone was off all of the time until something
| actually important happened (ie a notification light), or
| you developed the skill to only look at it at set times
| throughout the day perhaps that'd help.
|
| If not, then surely ALL apps need a "take a break" feature
| built in. I mean, I could be spending way too much time
| inside Notepad... or YouTube... or VLC...
|
| Is Notepad, YouTube and VLC to blame if I spend all the
| time looking at them??
|
| Or is it my fault?
|
| Perhaps I should take responsibility for constantly using
| Notepad, YouTube and VLC instead of blaming the app.
| papito wrote:
| I don't think we are blaming the apps. The point is that
| I don't _want_ to be addicted. The solution is not "just
| be stronger".
| terminalserver wrote:
| "Cigarette companies allow smokers to choose not to smoke
| cigarettes"
| nipponese wrote:
| Just add parental controls: No like count, no comments, no @
| mentions. The kids can still express themselves creatively and
| they can't be bullied through features.
| nacho2sweet wrote:
| They had disabled showing likes here in Canada for a couple of
| years it seemed like then I got a message when I opened the app
| "would you like to see like totals?". Anyways the app is almost
| completely unusable now with the amount of ads it shows.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| In my view this is Instagram providing platitudes in an attempt
| get ahead of a growing consensus that social media is bad for
| people and society overall
|
| The harm inflicted by social media is infinitely more complex and
| sinister than a simple count of likes on posts.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I'll give it another 5 years before social media is viewed on
| the same level as cigarettes. The best thing I've ever done for
| my mental health was deleting social media. I realize I'm not
| significant enough to argue of other people about my own life.
| As long as you're not harming anyone else you're free to do
| whatever you want. Social media says no you have to shape your
| entire life around what people you'll never meet find cool.
|
| I stopped begging for approval from the masses, I stopped going
| to Reddit to get "advice" from people who only seek to chastise
| me.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Yep, same boat here. Deleted FB/Insta and avoiding altogether
| as it made me incredibly anxious.
|
| Still lurk on Reddit but no account there so I can't wade in
| to the comments.
|
| HN is the only forum I actively participate in.
| durovo wrote:
| And now you hang out at HN which is totally different from
| social media. Where people never seek approval from the
| masses. Chastising other people as a concept does not exist
| on HN.
|
| HN, the not-social media, does not even have a concept of
| likes.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I get that HN is still social media, but the level of
| sludge here is at least an order of magnitude less than
| general reddit, and probably way better than twitter (I
| could never get into twitter despite trying my best).
|
| To me HN is the final hold out of the old social news
| sphere. Geeky computer nerds with inflated egos having
| (mostly) geeky computer nerd discussions. That doesn't
| sound like much, but at least the average IQ is higher than
| room temperature and knowledgeable discussion is more
| popular than puns.
| offtop5 wrote:
| But you're not chastising me, or my physical appearance.
| Having people call you ugly all day is probably one of the
| worst parts of Instagram.
|
| You're merely chastising a few of my opinions. There's so
| much detachment from the rest of me.
|
| In the early days of Facebook I actually screwed up a
| relationship as I was worried my first girlfriend would
| post the wrong thing on my wall, and oh no all my friends
| would see.
|
| Hacker News isn't really a social media site since there's
| no concept of followers or friends here.
|
| If in any case you decide to go through my post history to
| make fun of me, I can just create a new handle. I can do
| this without even adding an email address.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > Hacker News isn't really a social media site since
| there's no concept of followers or friends here.
|
| I'm not sure that matters all that much, it's just one
| way of doing things.
|
| Would HackerNews be a different beast if it gave you the
| option of viewing the most recent 40 comments from your
| 10 favourite commenters? I don't think so. Someone could
| even build this as a third-party UI if they wanted to.
|
| > If in any case you decide to go through my post history
| to make fun of me, I can just create a new handle.
|
| HackerNews is well moderated. I imagine the mods would
| view that kind of thing as harassment and put a stop to
| it, especially if you contacted them about it.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Having people call you ugly all day is probably one of
| the worst parts of Instagram.
|
| That's not at all typical for Instagram. In fact, anyone
| being called "ugly" would do well to block whoever is
| making those comments, which is very easy on the
| platform.
|
| > Hacker News isn't really a social media site since
| there's no concept of followers or friends here.
|
| Hacker News is absolutely a social media. The comments
| section is all about social discussion and we have
| upvotes and downvotes.
|
| You may like it more than other forms of social media
| because it lacks pictures, allows usernames instead of
| real names, and replaces likes with upvotes (and
| downvotes, arguably more toxic than likes). However, it's
| still social media.
| nashalo_nighly wrote:
| I disagree with the part on the ugly comments. It is very
| typical and blocking every single nasty comment on your
| appearance can be a mentally taxing effort that you can't
| quite put under a << just block them off it's easy >>
| assertion.
| lottin wrote:
| Upvotes and downvotes on HN only give you hint about the
| popularity (or lack thereof) of the views that you have
| expressed as an anonymous commentator. This can never be
| interpreted as a popularity rating of your physical
| appearance, lifestyle or of your worth as a human being,
| whereas in other social media this is often the case.
| cronix wrote:
| > HN, the not-social media, does not even have a concept of
| likes.
|
| Call em what you want, but upvotes/downvotes are in the
| same sphere as likes. Being downvoted into oblivion has the
| same mental effect as no likes or dislikes on other
| platforms, despite not being a 1:1 algorithm (1 upvote on
| HN does not necessarily equate to +1 in your karma) and
| even if you're the only one that can see them.
| feudalism wrote:
| I think the person you're replying to may have been
| sarcastic in their comment because all those things they
| mentioned do exist in some form on HN.
|
| Without those things, HN would not have the same allure
| as it does now. Of course upvotes/downvotes are a core
| part of HN; they even have a leaderboard. At least one
| particular "eccentric" character tends to boast about
| being on it as if it's a status symbol (which it may very
| well be, particularly if you're frequent on HN).
|
| One advantage with HN over reddit is that buffoonery is
| generally not rewarded.
| codyb wrote:
| This is the only social media I use anymore and while I
| still may drop it, and while I still do occasionally check
| my karma after posting, it's easily the most rewarding
| social media experience I've dealt with given the
| concentration of talent; and the emphasis on quality,
| interesting content.
|
| You're not wrong of course, but it feels a bit exaggerated.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| The way scoring works on HN is importantly different
| though. Highly downvoted comments get greyed, but when a
| comment is highly upvoted, only the author sees. I can't
| see what your highest-scoring comments are.
|
| There's also a publicly visible total karma associated with
| each account, but it's not displayed prominently.
|
| I don't think submission scoring is particularly
| problematic.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I think HN is actually worse, as the "approval" you get
| here is ostensibly from peers and folks that one may think
| are "just like them". It's easy to brush off not being
| approved by random Karen's on Facebook but far harder to
| accept PG or someone like him calling you a loser...
| offtop5 wrote:
| I'd be a bit honored if a billionaire took the time to
| insult me.
|
| Most successful people tend to be a bit above that.
|
| I enjoy HN since the discourse here tends to be fairly
| intelligent. I've already gained a great deal of very
| valuable information from this site
| mumblemumble wrote:
| For my part, HN is the only thing like social media I still
| use. (Though I'm deliberately not counting things like irc
| and discord.) And now that I've been off social media long
| enough for my baselines to shift, I'm realizing I have some
| similar problems here, too. There's a difference in
| magnitude, of course, but not so much in form.
|
| So, yeah, you're absolutely right. And lately I've been
| actively considering canceling my subscription and spending
| more time just reading books.
| drunkpotato wrote:
| I realize you're being sarcastic and that hacker news is a
| social media, however there is a difference in degree and
| what behaviors the site encourages. For me, personally,
| using HN and a very limited set of subreddits is an
| enjoyable waste of time, and doesn't feel like an
| addiction. I would also credit HN as exposing me to
| technologies I might otherwise not have seen, and enriching
| my life in some small way.
|
| As for other social media, I deleted my Facebook and
| Twitter and feel like a mentally healthier person for it,
| and I think it's a choice everyone has to make for
| themselves, but we should be providing information and
| support to people who quit. I would liken it more to
| alcohol use: many enjoy it in moderation, it's an addictive
| problem for some. I strongly dislike the semi-compulsory
| nature of Facebook groups for activities that _only_
| organize on Facebook.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| At the very least it'd help with the US's vanity complex. My
| whole life as a kid prior to social media was just "live." Post
| social media, now I borderline need to make a post here and
| there to prove I'm not a schizoid.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Screw that - don't let the people on the Internet live rent
| free in your head. You don't have to post to prove anything.
| defaultname wrote:
| I recently created a Twitter account after ignoring the
| platform for years. I'm pretty well known and have had several
| significant presences online, but I didn't try to leverage any
| of that and wanted to see if the network had matured to the
| point that it is decaying (where it is just cemented into a
| core).
|
| I commented on various tweets. Left thoughtful tweets of my own
| on a variety of topics. Zero political tweets, but rather
| participated in the tech sphere including some niche realms.
|
| Zero engagement after months. I realized later that some of my
| comments were hidden under "see more" for other users -- even
| where I added a helpful comment to a person who themselves had
| double-digit followers, and where there were only a tiny
| handful of other comments. My tweets would get hundreds of
| views (maybe all scrapers), but no one is going to be the first
| to like some comment by some tiny account with a handful of
| "followers". So it sits there in Pathetic Valley.
|
| It's the curse of social networks. They get their long tail
| cemented in and pretty soon it's better for everyone else to
| wait for it to die and join something new. I deleted my twitter
| account and moved on. When Twitter's replacement comes along
| I'll get in on day one, copy some jokes some other people make
| and leave trite cynical comments and by month 2 I'll be a
| superstar.
|
| I feel like Instagram might be taking a stab at dealing with
| that, rather than some concern over mental health. When
| everyone new faces Pathetic Valley (unless they're going to buy
| followers, or go on a desperate campaign outside of the
| platform to foment engagement), it's the inevitable decline of
| the platform.
| zelon88 wrote:
| I must've been in the testing batch because in 2019 my Instagram
| simply stopped telling me how many people had liked my post and I
| could not for the life of me figure out how to fix that.
|
| I just checked and for the first time since I can remember I can
| see how many people like my posts again.
|
| I feel like a quick notification informing me that I was part of
| a study would have been appropriate.
| Nagyman wrote:
| IIRC, it was a permanent change for everyone. This most recent
| change re-adds the ability to see counts.
| patorjk wrote:
| I've always been able to see my like count. I've been waiting
| to see if it'd disappear, but it never did. I post regularly
| too.
| saos wrote:
| This is an app I happily deleted years ago and life has been so
| good ever since
| headmelted wrote:
| Or.. and hear me out here..
|
| Just close your account completely?
|
| We've seen a great many of the people that built these systems
| come forward to explain that not only do they regret their role
| but that the harm being caused is worse than most people believe.
|
| I've also not seen or heard anyone (even people that currently
| work there) argue that these networks are in any way a net
| positive for society or the vast majority of participants. This
| should be a red flag to you as a user.
|
| Maybe we could do something similar to what goes on cigarette
| packs.
|
| BROWSING STAGED AND MANIPULATED PHOTOS ON SOCIAL MEDIA MAY BE
| HAZARDOUS TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH.
| Tenoke wrote:
| As a counterpoint I use Instagram maybe 2 hours a week total
| and get some minor value at little cost. I dont really see a
| benefit in closing my account.
| whatever_dude wrote:
| Like anything, if you know how to moderate your experience
| and balance your time and energy, you can derive something
| positive getting it. Speaking from personal experience, my
| Twitter experience got much much better once I got diligent
| about adding muted words for anything political or the
| outrage du jour.
|
| The problem is that not everybody does, or want to do that.
| Teenagers, for example, are highly influenceable (sp?) but
| their peers, so they get controlled by social media rather
| than the other way around. Same with people following
| celebrities/influencers. It's easy to build a collective
| consciousness that people compare themselves too, to their
| loss.
| moksly wrote:
| I get a lot of positive experiences an connections out of both
| Instagram and Facebook. I use them solely for hobby purposes
| though.
|
| I'm part or the largest Danish Blood Bowl 2 league and it's all
| organised through Facebook. So is almost all our table top
| tournaments, and it's really an wonderful community, even when
| you branch out into the warhammer general community in Denmark.
| I use Instagram solely for painting miniatures, finding
| inspiration, sharing experiences and connecting with other
| people to learn from or teach them tips and tricks.
|
| This is all very anecdotal of course, but I think SoMe is just
| what you use it for. I share your worry, but I wonder if we'd
| get rid of the pressurised competitive society without the
| platforms, or they just made that part of modern western
| society very easy to share.
|
| I do wonder why people post pictures of themselves, or why
| people look at them. I get that there are a lot of beautiful
| people on platforms like Instagram, but there are so many that
| you sort of expect them to drown each other out. I don't get it
| at least, but for hobby and creative purposes, I do think these
| platforms are kind of great.
| headmelted wrote:
| I can respect this, but then is it the case that SoMe is
| adding value to the community, or that you've just found a
| positive community that happens to use that service to
| communicate?
|
| What I mean by that is, if your community was in touch via
| some other platform would it still be the same positive
| community? (My guess is, yes it would - but maybe there's
| some specific value from these tools that I don't see).
| MajorBee wrote:
| > Mr Mosseri said there had been a "polarised" reaction from
| creators - accounts which make money through brand partnerships
| and advertising on the platform - but that the new feature didn't
| affect revenues.
|
| Considering how many people make a living directly or indirectly
| on Instagram and/or other social media platforms, I wonder what
| shape the opposition will take to these steadily growing measures
| of user "protection". I understand Instagram/Facebook, at the end
| of the day, will not take actions that will harm their expected
| growth or revenue, however, that does not mean influencers won't
| get shafted in some way.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Instagram can actually be a nice place, if used as a platform to
| look at cool pictures and not at all as a social network. I never
| added any friends or family, I just follow accounts and topics
| I'm interested in. So my feed is almost entirely pixel art, cool
| architecture, and retro console mods, and it's very pleasant.
|
| Considering they're Facebook-owned, I see surprisingly little
| effort to cram low-effort garbage down my throat. I've even
| bought a couple of things via ads, as they seem to be pretty
| aligned with my interests (as you would expect from that level of
| data collection).
|
| The only real issue I've had is that a weirdly large number of
| people seem to tag their family photos with the #architecture
| hashtag.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| When you run a Pi-Hole you see how much telemetry is being sent
| back with the DNS requests to many different domains.
|
| Insane, simply for scrolling through pictures. I think it tells
| you a lot.
| forinti wrote:
| Same here, I don't seek out anyone on Instagram. I follow
| accounts that interest me, such as Museums, Ministry of
| Culture, language teachers, etc.
|
| The Hermitage Museum, for example, posts excellent content.
| SamBam wrote:
| I think there are a few different modes that people use it in
| (and I'm sure the folks at Instagram have this down to a more
| precise science):
|
| * Consumer-only: simply following artists/whatever and not
| contributing anything
|
| * Family and friends: Sharing pictures of your
| holiday/kid/cat/food with people you know
|
| * Influencers and wannabe influencers: Actively seeking to grow
| an audience
|
| I don't think between 1 & 2 anyone can say one is better than
| the other, they're two quite different modes of using the app.
| Number 2 obviously _can_ lead to people wondering why their
| 15th funny picture of their cat didn 't get as many likes, and
| it's for this group that I think turning off likes altogether
| can help the most.
|
| I would expect, though, that if everyone in a family-and-
| friends circle were turning off their likes, comments would
| become a proxy for likes, and there would be an expectation to
| add " _nice!_ ", " _beautiful!_ " " _how funny!_ " to posts,
| and then a similar feeling when posts don't get any response.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| I only use Instagram to send messages to a single person who
| won't get back to me through text messages. We had serious
| issues seeing responses to each others' communication until I
| gave in and made an Instagram account for messaging.
|
| But I don't believe I ought to criticize them over this.
| Instagram is _their_ normal, and the place where a significant
| portion of their social life converges, and I never had any
| control over that from the beginning. Facebook did.
|
| When I see them in real life, our interactions are positive, so
| I really believe our usage of Instagram is simply what works
| out the most practically for them. I don't use Instagram for
| any other purpose. But because of the network effect, I can
| easily see how Instagram can redirect the attention of other
| people this way, and make the app their new normal, repeating
| the vicious cycle.
| sneak wrote:
| Mind you, your being on Instagram, via the network effect,
| makes the platform more valuable and attractive to other
| users, such as your friend or other people who know you.
|
| If you delete your account, Instagram becomes less useful to
| your bad-at-SMS friend.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| The problem I see with this is that, to my friend, choosing
| to delete my Instagram account indicates that my principles
| for social media are more valuable than our friendship. In
| my case, the friendship wins out.
|
| Irrespective of whether or not I choose to be on Instagram,
| they want to have an audience they will post for. They
| choose to play the social media game where I don't. That is
| their decision. In my mind, judging them based on the value
| of that decision sounds petty to me, and is probably
| futile. I do not think that imposing my morals on anyone
| who disagrees with me is the right option, and our attempts
| at moving the conversation off the platform have not
| succeeded anyway. If that's the platforms' defense
| mechanism, that making the users believe the networks are
| beneficial for them shuts out opinions to the contrary,
| then so be it.
|
| I could think, "but if they were a _true_ friend, they
| would put up with the inconveniences caused by interacting
| outside Instagram. " I want to believe this is true, but I
| don't think how my friend spends their time or what
| platform they're motivated to use is a major indicator of
| the quality of our friendship. Legitimate best friends can
| still have Instagram accounts, the same as the "friends in
| name only" the networks would define. And if by this
| definition we are not actually true friends, then maybe
| that's a valid statement on my ability to find and maintain
| the correct friendships, or maybe it's just excess
| paranoia.
|
| Also, they are the only person I've felt comfortable
| talking to, and they aren't part of a compensated or
| therapeutic relationship. That relationship is the value
| that Facebook supposedly holds. That is what they lend out
| to me when I ask for it.
|
| And this is the very mechanism which Facebook uses to
| capture so many people's attention. I can go on and on over
| how I believe that social media is a net negative on
| society, and how it destroys my attention span if I give
| its other features enough credence, and yet I _still_ have
| to use Instagram to have a chance at interacting with this
| person who has legitimately made a significant impact on my
| life elsewhere.
|
| About all I can ask is what would incentivize them to stop
| using the platform if their usage has not reached
| pathological or mentally damaging levels, and I don't have
| an answer to that question.
| sneak wrote:
| > _I could think, "but if they were a true friend, they
| would put up with the inconveniences caused by
| interacting outside Instagram." I want to believe this is
| true, but I don't think how my friend spends their time
| or what platform they're motivated to use is a major
| indicator of the quality of our friendship._
|
| If they were a true friend, they wouldn't subject your
| 1-on-1 friend communications to constant Zuckerberg
| surveillance and censorship. There are links that
| Facebook has decided that you're not allowed to send to
| or recieve from that "friend". Any serious conversation
| about real shit that matters (life, death, the universe,
| hopes, dreams) is going to be logged for all time and
| turned over to the cops whenever for the asking.
|
| That's not how friendship works. That's the same as
| telling a friend a secret and them writing it down and
| mailing it to a third party.
| kuu wrote:
| > The only real issue I've had is that a weirdly large number
| of people seem to tag their family photos with the
| #architecture hashtag.
|
| Because for most people hasthags are a way of getting people to
| view their picture than to label the content
| alistairSH wrote:
| Same.
|
| On IG, I follow a minimal number of family/friends (basically
| people I see in meat-space at least monthly, plus a very few
| childhood friends who I still see when we're in the same town).
| Beyond that, I follow a few cycling and car feeds.
|
| On FB, I actively unfollwed or defriended everybody but family.
| 99% of my FB use today is marketplace groups and that's 2-3x
| week.
|
| I've been much less stressed after making those changes. No
| more anxiety-porn in the feeds. No more politics. Etc. Just
| close friends, bicycles, and sometimes cute animals my wife
| forwards.
| samuelizdat wrote:
| It's not likes giving people anxiety, it's the gaze of the
| panopticon.
| hdsmsk wrote:
| Will Instagram allow users to hide the explore/reels pages which
| are algorithmically designed to be addicting?
| rchaud wrote:
| Remember all the way back to 2013 when FB switched to the algo-
| driven Timeline instead of the Facebook wall newsfeed? A lot of
| people hated that update, as it fundamentally changed the user
| experience of FB permanently. But not me.
|
| With Timeline, the wall post counter was no longer displayed on
| your profile. That had long been a source of embarrassment for me
| as so few people posted on my wall. It didn't matter IRL, but in
| college, you do feel that you're not doing something right if
| your page is so inactive compared to those of your peers. Was I
| really that uninteresting?
|
| It was a proxy measure of my relative social popularity, and it
| sucked, because I had no interest in juicing these numbers. So
| they stayed low for years until the metric was finally hidden
| from view.
| xg15 wrote:
| Do I understand this correctly, that you can only make likes
| invisible to _yourself_?
|
| This seems about as useful as the "if you don't like it, just
| pretend it isn't there" school of moderation - namely not useful
| at all.
|
| Humans are social beings and acutely aware of status indicators.
| A like count is a status indicator, even if a stupid one.
|
| By hiding the count for everyone, the indicator would be removed,
| which I imagine could actually make some change. But if a user
| can only remove the count for themselves, fully knowing that
| everyone else is still seeing it, I don't see how anything more
| is archieved than putting thrm as a disadvantage and potentially
| causing even more anxiety.
| Haunted_Cabbage wrote:
| Sprout Social - Please ignore.
| subpixel wrote:
| To be clear, this is a _per post_ selection, that defaults to
| off. So, any potential impact here seems to be throttled,
| intentionally.
| antirez wrote:
| It requires a very high amount of naiveness to think this could
| solve the issue. Only thing that will help is education of
| children, so that they understand their place in the world, to
| accept themselves, that the aesthetic standards provided in
| social networks are very high (but yet, as a central European my
| sensibility is a bit different than the one in other places -- I
| would suggest that this must be a stimulus to avoid gaining
| weight, to train, and so forth), that random appreciation in
| terms of "likes" is not a sensible measure of how much a person
| is worth, and so forth.
| passivate wrote:
| You must have missed it, the article itself says its not going
| to solve the problem.
|
| >In its testing and research, Instagram said that removing
| likes had little impact on behaviour or wellbeing - after
| concerns that using the platform could be linked to insecurity
| and poor mental health.
|
| >Despite this, Mr Mosseri said Instagram - which is owned by
| Facebook - introduced the feature to make "people feel good
| about the time they spend" on the platform. "I do think there's
| more to do in this space," he added. "The more we can give
| people the ability to shape Instagram and Facebook into what's
| good for them, the better."
| antirez wrote:
| My comment was referring to the feature itself, I see that
| the article kinda try to put the things in perspective, but
| not as strongly and sharply I think should be done.
| passivate wrote:
| Ah okay, your comment sounded like someone claimed it would
| fix the problem - but the article didn't say that - so I
| don't quite know who you were referring to!! In any case,
| no biggie. :)
| vikiomega9 wrote:
| I wonder if that education should also explicitly include how
| likes, ads and attention are correlated. Making them understand
| their place in the world is good but SM is a different take on
| that age-old problem.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Have the kids make a post to see who can get the most likes
| over a week, the teacher does a lame one as well ("read books
| this summer!"). Nobody likes the teachers post, until the
| last day when teacher buys 1000 likes for the post, blowing
| everyone away for $5.
|
| Now the kids know its all made up and the points don't
| matter.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Now the kids know its all made up and the points don't
| matter.
|
| Careful, they might start questioning whether standardized
| testing can be gamed as well.
| fooker wrote:
| That will be a fantastic outcome.
| enterdev wrote:
| It's not just children that are negatively affected by these
| apps. It's everyone. The only way not to be affected is to not
| use them.
| obiShawnKenobi wrote:
| The only winning move is not to play
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I doubt that the only thing that will help is education.
| Education cannot win over something where other, more educated
| people are putting full-time careers in psychological hijacking
| of children. A 12 year old doesn't stand a chance no matter how
| much they accept themselves.
|
| This stuff needs to be regulated like cigarettes.
| antirez wrote:
| I don't agree because the contact with real teenagers at
| school and other places where children meet was as brutal as
| it is today even in the past. Now there are new elements,
| that is, the fact you have to confront yourself with a lager
| audience of people and you can see unreal standards. But even
| at school with 400 children there will be the extremely
| pretty, the extremely good at sports, and so forth. And what
| is likes in social networks, in the real world translates to
| certain folks getting all the attention and other being
| regarded as trash. I think that certain problems that are
| _embedded_ in being humans in a modern society are now all
| attributed to social networks, but this is not the case.
| Similarly people already used to vote for crazy folks: we in
| Italy had Berlusconi in '90s. Before there was Hitler and
| Mussolini. Similarly to think that US got Trump because
| social networks is a simplification that fails to capture
| reality.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Now there are new elements, that is, the fact you have to
| confront yourself with a lager audience of people and you
| can see unreal standards.
|
| You nailed it here. Social media heavily rewards extreme
| outliers.
| lupire wrote:
| School bullying is bad, but scaling it up to global
| bullying is worse.
| anthk wrote:
| Also you bullied teens can get potential help from late
| bloomers who were bullied in early years; thus, placing
| the bully in from of their moronic supporters as a big
| loser.
| electronica wrote:
| More regulation is the silliest answer I've heard to this
| issue. Thank you.
|
| A 12 year old who self accepts to its truest form isn't
| concerned with the baseless issues of 'likes'. As with any
| other adult who self accepts.
| pedro1976 wrote:
| I agree. SM operates on a subconscious level by exploiting
| all kinds of cognitive biases. Rational thinking won't solve
| this issue for the majority
| ______- wrote:
| > that random appreciation in terms of "likes" is not a
| sensible measure of how much a person is worth
|
| I suspect many of the so called 'influencer' accounts buy likes
| and followers. A quick Google for 'buy instagram followers'
| leads you down a rabbithole of merchants willing to sell you
| followers and likes. The thing to notice is: when you've gained
| traction and are over 10,000 followers, the followers that you
| do buy, become un-noticeable, because there's so much noise on
| the platform (no-one notices).
|
| This is why new accounts that suddenly have 1000 followers in 7
| days is a red flag.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > called 'influencer' accounts buy likes and followers
|
| An entire cottage industry exists of boutique firms that
| specialize in creating bullshit content for influencers. You
| can see it in spades when you look at "Tagged" photos, and
| see fan accounts for people with 10k followers with video and
| image collages. There's also the big "agencies" that rep
| larger influencers that practice the same tactics, maybe with
| just a little more finesse.
| Tomminn wrote:
| How exactly does this mechanic work? If I hide likes on one of my
| posts, can no-one who views it see like count?
|
| Does this mean the liker's are also hidden? Or is the information
| about the number of likes just one more click away for the viewer
| or the post?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| This could be considered a landmark that marks the end of social
| manipulative media. Good riddance you won't be missed
|
| (Because hiding/unhiding will be the next social signaling)
| RileyJames wrote:
| We've had likes on Instagram hidden in Australia, and maybe NZ
| for quite some time. Maybe it's not everyone, but I know my
| account no longer shows likes on any posts. I was unaware it
| could be turned off.
|
| I don't really use it much now anyway, but I did like this
| feature. It was one less metric to be distracted by, you either
| thought the photo was good, or bad, rather than agreed with
| others or not. I prefer to make a decision for myself and then
| see the general opinion.
|
| But my Instagram was 80% my friends, unlike some of my close
| friends who have horrible comparative relationships with people
| they don't know on Instagram. And the likes analytics are big
| part of that.
|
| They have since stopped using it, but I feel removing likes
| counts is a factor in that decision.
|
| Instagram story rants are a whole different ball game...
| defulmere wrote:
| Pixelfed (federated network similar to Instagram) made a similar
| move about a month ago:
|
| https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed/106161269947338845
|
| I missed the counts at first, but after a week or so I stopped
| noticing.
| purplecats wrote:
| > A recent Oxford Internet Institute study also found there was
| "little association" between social media use and mental health
| in teenagers.
|
| I thought bbc used to be a credible news source. When did they
| stop being so?
| FlyingSaucer wrote:
| The name of the actual study is 'There Is No Evidence That
| Associations Between Adolescents' Digital Technology Engagement
| and Mental Health Problems Have Increased'[1].
|
| I also personally feel like its incorrect based on my own
| experience, but the OII for now says that there is 'little
| evidence', although 'drawing firm conclusions about changes in
| their associations with mental health may be premature'
|
| [1]-https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702621994549
| martin_a wrote:
| This seems to be some kind of mistake, yes.
|
| Having a look at what younger relatives are doing for likes and
| how important recognition and appreciation by friends in social
| media is for them, I find it hard to believe that there's
| "little association" when things don't go as planned.
| coddle-hark wrote:
| Young people have pretty much always optimised for the
| recognition and appreciation of their friends though. It's
| just more visible to adults now, which is probably a good
| thing.
| martin_a wrote:
| Totally, yes. Just thought about how badly I wanted to be
| one of the cool kids in school. Failed terribly in doing
| that, and I also know how terrible I felt about that.
|
| That's why I'm wondering when the whole "seeking for
| appreciation"-thing has moved from real life to Instagram
| (kind of), are there no bad feelings, feelings of rejection
| and failure involved, when my new post doesn't get the
| likes I'm looking for?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's just more visible to adults now
|
| Its always been visible to adults and has been a perennial
| complaint of adults about the youth.
| have_faith wrote:
| The big difference is opportunity time. Previously you had
| occasional opportunities to impress your peers and evaluate
| their lives against yours giving you gaps to work between.
| Those gaps now no longer exist. The information and
| comparison is 24/7 and real time. I think comparisons to
| previous generations as being equal in goals vastly over
| simplifies vast differences in the landscape they operate
| in.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Having a look at what younger relatives are doing for likes
| and how important recognition and appreciation by friends in
| social media is for them, I find it hard to believe that
| there's "little association" when things don't go as planned.
|
| But...that's how older generations have _always_ responded to
| what younger people do for social approval, and older people
| interpreting what they see that way as a precipitous decline
| since their own youth is one of the oldest cliches possibly
| as old as civilization.
|
| > I find it hard to believe that there's "little association"
| when things don't go as planned.
|
| Maybe, but maybe that is just as true independent of digital
| engagement.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _But...that's how older generations have always responded
| to what younger people do for social approval_
|
| That's a combination of
|
| (a) a relatively modern myth ("It was always that way"),
|
| (b) a cherry-picking from millenia for instances where that
| did happen (which wasn't "always" - many periods, even for
| centuries on end, had almost no change between generations
| regarding lifestyles. For some rural places that was even
| true for millenia.).
|
| (c) from the cherry-picked cases where it did happen,
| ignoring the subset that it was also a totally valid
| criticism (e.g. in the decline of golden-era Athens or the
| fall of Rome, or the Weimar Republic), when the change in
| culture and attitudes eventually killed the
| community/city/republic.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > many periods, even for centuries on end, had almost no
| change between generations regarding lifestyles
|
| Many of the instances where we have records of this being
| a recurring complaint of adults toward the youth were in
| those times of little apparent lifestyle change; part of
| that ia that the distance of our perspective probably
| minimizes changes that were perceived as significant in
| the local context, but a bigger part is that, while
| objective changes in lifestyle or technology can provide
| something to tie the complaint to, the main driver of the
| complaint is not the change in society but the change in
| the observer's position and perspective within society.
| martin_a wrote:
| As already written in the other comment: I find this result
| hard to believe because I think the offline experiences
| former generations had, would transer to online
| generations, too.
|
| But yes, the youth is always terrible. I've read that in
| the Hagakure, but I think it has already been
| mentioned/been a "fact" in ancient Greece, too. ;-)
| Moodles wrote:
| I can't tell if it's the BBC or perhaps just me getting older
| (and wiser, or dumber depending on your perspective) but I'd
| say the BBC has got worse over the last 5 years or so. It's
| usually not factually incorrect, but I've definitely noticed
| the story selection and emotive language choice doesn't seem
| neutral to me. I can tolerate non-neutral news outlets I guess,
| but what I dislike is one that purports to be neutral and takes
| tax payer money for it.
| e17 wrote:
| It's the BBC that is getting dumber, not you my friend. I
| check in with the headlines every now and then and every time
| it's either government propaganda or bullshit Love Island
| celebrity nonsense.
| headmelted wrote:
| Also, why are we being forced to subsidize EastEnders?
|
| Whats the public benefit from that rubbish?
|
| CBeebies, CBBC - cool. Public benefit makes sense.
|
| BBC Science and Documentaries - Public benefit. Fully
| justifiable.
|
| EastEnders - Pay money to make other people less
| intelligent or we'll fine you.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| You're not forced to subsidize it. If you don't watch
| live TV or iPlayer you don't have to pay.
|
| They'll send you threatening letters every 2 years or so
| saying they're going to come round your house but you
| just have to go on the website again and tell them you
| still don't watch live TV.
| headmelted wrote:
| Why is that even necessary?
|
| Essentially you're guilty until you declare yourself
| innocent, and you need to prove innocence if the Beeb's
| minions turn up at your house? What if you didn't realize
| you needed the license because the rules around live
| broadcasts and battery-powered devices are so absurd?
|
| People get sent to jail over this ridiculous situation
| while the government cheers from the sidelines.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Yeah it's extremely messed up and BBC likes to pretend
| it's not really responsible for it by hiding it under the
| guise of a "TV Licencing" body to distance itself [1]. I
| used to be pro-national broadcasting but honestly the
| quality of shows they produce has dropped so dramatically
| and how biased their news coverage has become I refuse to
| ever pay for it again.
|
| [1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_
| in_the_Un...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Why not simply charge for the BBC?
|
| If you want to unlock it pay X$ per month. See how many
| viewers are willing to pay for it. That's what Disney and
| Marvel did, grossing billions of dollar in the process.
| rsgrn wrote:
| I've never thought of EastEnders from that perspective. I
| don't disagree.
|
| In theory, it could be used as a method of creating
| awareness and discussion of important life topics in a
| real life like familiar setting. And you can sort of see
| how they try to do that... but the need to have some new
| dramatic event every six weeks overshadows it.
| headmelted wrote:
| And that's the issue. It's only a lifelike setting if
| your life is like that of a Jeremy Kyle victim (who's
| lives are likely not like they are depicted at all).
|
| Give us money against your will to pay for things you
| don't agree with or we'll take away your access to live
| media from everyone else too.
|
| Now whether or not they can carry out the threats they're
| notorious for or not, I'm just saying if it walks like an
| extortionist and quacks like an extortionist..
| nvilcins wrote:
| The title of the BBC article [1] that references the study:
|
| > Teens, tech and mental health: Oxford study finds no link
|
| What the study actually says, according to the same article:
|
| > We couldn't tell the difference between social-media impact
| and mental health in 2010 and 2019, [..]
|
| > [..] the connection is not getting stronger.
|
| Hence, the title is an obvious lie. (likely to get more clicks,
| push a certain agenda, or both)
|
| Having a title contradicting the contents of the article has
| become extremely common these days. Unfortunately, it's also
| very common for people to only read the headlines (does anyone
| know the stats on this?), and I'm sure media outlets are fully
| aware of that.
|
| Hence, I would argue that articles with titles like these
| should be classified the same was as false information, and
| fought against accordingly. It's not enough to "clarify" the
| meaning in the article, when the title - the false claim - is
| all what most people take away (and disseminate further).
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56970368
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| I'd argue that the BBC got the study wrong. The authors state:
|
| > "Our main goal was to investigate how associations between
| adolescents' technology use and mental health had changed over
| time."
|
| And conclude:
|
| > "Although we found little evidence suggesting that technology
| is becoming more harmful over time, [..]"
|
| There is no need for social media to become more harmful over
| time to it being bad enough already.
|
| The title of the study (There Is No Evidence That Associations
| Between Adolescents' Digital Technology Engagement and Mental
| Health Problems Have Increased) gives away the constraint
| really. Yes, okay it did not become worse, but it might be
| harmful from the beginning.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| It makes me think: why is a successful company which introduced a
| feature to supposedly improve the product beginning to consider
| it's better for some users to remove it instead?
|
| I think we will regret the day when we realize we've innovated
| and revolutionized technology to the point where it can overpower
| our minds. Humans seem to be really good at designing engagement
| traps when they have all the tools, look to the future and see
| all the possibilities before them.
|
| These people pay millions of dollars for you to choose their app
| over writing some words on paper, or going for a hike, or any
| other action you could take.
|
| Also, I don't think Instagram would offer the option to disable
| likes if they didn't believe it would ultimately help them retain
| more users.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| We should probably go the opposite way and increase it to absurd
| like don't stop running or don't eat until you get enough
| likes... /s
| Strs2FillMyDrms wrote:
| This wont change anything.
|
| Social media has made the entirety of humanity aware that
| civilization has been built on its entirety by a discriminatory
| principle, in all aspects, and all of them can be traced back to
| a genetic discrimination.
|
| When this is positioned against humans attempt at transcending
| nature (with laws, politics and science) it becomes a matter of
| choice.
|
| At the degree that our species is able to choose their sexual
| partners, the genetic "gap" of what we deem attractive will
| accelerate the same way dog breeds had been "evolving" since it
| became popular to breed them, which is just a couple hundred
| years.
| halsom wrote:
| The division most significant to Instagram is social class, not
| "discrimination."
| Strs2FillMyDrms wrote:
| I am using the word discrimination in a general sense.
|
| It's not *just* the color or race of someone's skin, but also
| a lot other factors.
|
| If we trace back the repeating attributes of social class and
| wealth they all tend to gravitate to similar genetical
| discriminations (from wikipedia: "ability to distinguish one
| thing from another.")
|
| And once the discrimination crosses the ingroup barrier, then
| the measure keeps "ranking" them among the different
| outgroups.
|
| Before the internet the ingroups were not measured against
| outgroups as much.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| what I don't get about this is it seemed to me across multiple
| accounts that this has been in effect for a year maybe two!
| Gotten used to it, not news etc. I know, wasn't 'global' -- but
| when it's rolled out in major markets like US, Canada, probably a
| bunch of EU, Australia etc..... it's totally a normal thing by
| now. 2 years!
|
| previous discussion about the roll out:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21491648
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(page generated 2021-05-27 23:01 UTC)