My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook. Google has a giant attention platform in YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram are attention platforms. I think YouTube will decline a bit as a result of this, but the rest of Google - and the data collection of Android are untouched. If people become less addicted to their phones, they're still going to have their phone when they go to restaurants and take photos of things on their phones, they're just not going to post about it on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter. Google will still know everything they do now, they'll still be the default photos experience and search experience and maps experience for Android, you'll just spend less time in attention apps like YouTube and Facebook.
The real genius is that it fits Apple's brand really well, way better than Google's. If they can make this a serious digital wellness campaign, I could easily see Apple joining in. It won't affect their bottom line and it'll make them look good. And with that, both mobile platforms and ~all of Facebook's user base get nudges to become less addicted to and pay less attention to Facebook.
There was already a campaign - humanetech.com started by no suprise a former Googler a while back.
Through internal studies, they already knew quite a few years ago that Google engineers where as likely as to get addicted and waste time on cat videos, the kardashians and whatever else as much as the people the platforms end up hooking. Those results produced some internal 'what about my kids' outrage.
What they then discovered is deaddicting ppl is much more complicated and takes a whole lot longer than getting them to turn into screen touching addicts. It was so complicated not to mention the opposite of what generated rev that it got quietly shelved and ppl left No big diff between Google and Big Tobacco in this regard.
What you are seeing today is them dusting off the cobwebs on that project as the unintended social and psychological consequences are finally taking a serious unignorable toll.
I don't see Google or Facebook contributing to the solution. They will play the same game Exxon Shell Philip Morris et al play. And that game remains empire defense.
"Shush" and "Wind Down" are already on Samsung phones, and FB is in good relations with Samsung (see oculus), so doubt this would be Facebook killer.
Additionally, Facebook already turn down video in newsfeed (it decreased time-spent), and changed goals to 'meaningful social interactions'. Long term, being useful is more important than grabbing attention (and FB plays long-term game). The fact that FB, Instagram, Youtube, are "grabbing attention", is only byproduct of thinking that time-spent like metrics are good proxies for usefulness (and they were really easy to optimize), which turns out not to be true (or at least they don't tell the full story). Hackernews is grabbing my attentions the most for me, should I blame the ranking model?
Most engineers, managers, designers, ... in these companies are people who want to build useful stuff, rather than maximizing short term gains for share holders (additionally none of these companies are paying dividends, so if you maximize value for share holders, you should play mid to long game). If you can make these engineers realized that what they are building is harmful, they will change it.
Disclaimer: I worked at Facebook and it from inside, so have different "trust" model for these companies, and expectations how they work internally. I don't believe that there sinister master-plan behind every feature they release, instead, they are complex organisms with many players that are optimizing for different goals (sometimes sometimes seemingly opposite).
> My cynical read of this is that it's an attack on Facebook
Yah, and hooray. Google may be more powerful and invasive even, but there's tons of reasons they have a less-manipulative, less-awful business model overall. Any successful attack on Facebook is a good thing.
All these companies are bad, but Facebook is the worst of them. I'd say Facebook < Google = Amazon < Microsoft < Apple < FLO (free/libre/open).
All these companies are shitty in certain ways, but some are shittier than others. Apple's walled-garden censorship of copyleft software on iOS is what led me to embrace GNU in the first place, but the level of dark-patterns they do is nothing like Facebook.
Another possible cynical angle is that they are getting out in front of a major PR problem. The rumblings about the addictive nature of tech have been getting louder for years. I just talked to a startup that was just going to replace the whole Android launcher to help solve this. And there are plenty of HNers who have their own custom solutions to this, some going as far as downgrading to a dumbphone.
If they can shift the discussion from "phones are bad" to "some apps are bad", suddenly it's not their problem anymore. People looking to collect scalps will be focused on the ones creating the most exploitative experiences. Which is not only good for Google, but good for everybody, in that's putting pressure closer to the right place.
Except that Facebook has also stated they too want their products to be less addictive. But let's be real, Google is also very much talking only about real addiction, the negative kind that negatively effects people's lives, like alcoholism does. They absolutely have every incentive to keep you glued to YouTube and Google Maps. ($$$)
Plus, you mention Facebook, maybe because it's popular to shit on them here, but it's really not just them, this is systemic problem across our entire industry.
Netflix has created an environment where people can spend an entire 3 day weekend watching just one show, and barely leave the couch. It works for the brand, but is it healthy? Amazon has built a model that searching for one problem leads you down a rabbit hole of product reviews and other suggestions where you most definitely can waste hours and end up buying tons of junk along the way.
Those are just 4 big brands, but for us, Github keeps iterating to make its platform more addictive. I've spent hours in there finding novel projects and reading code. Or let's not forget about Reddit, I've spent an entire day at the park on Reddit instead of reading the book I went to the park to read.
Cynically, they’re playing from big tobacco’s book, and this is like putting filters on a Lucky Strike. The product is the same, it can still be used the same way, and they only make money when it’s used that way. But now they have a shred of deniability and some PR. If this holds, they’ll have “Lite” experiences next, and other “healthy options” that still don’t change the underlying nature of the product.
> The real genius is that it fits Apple's brand really well, way better than Google's
Agreed. Of course, Apple would hate to look like they’re late to the party, but it’s probably too late for this to be introduced st this years Apple Developers Conference, right? Or perhaps it doesn’t need to be introduced there and could just be rolled out on the next version of iOS this fall?
Regardless, I wonder what will be the fate of apps like mine (BeeLine Reader), whose entire purpose (making reading on-screen easier by using line-wrapping color gradients) would be thwarted by Wind Down. We’ve already seen implications from Night Shift, which is especially annoying for our users who use our app for accessibility reasons and have to toggle the mode just to use our app.
Of course, you wouldn’t want apps to be able to unilaterally exempt themselves from the greyscale mode. But if you let users choose which apps to exempt, then would they just end up whitelisting (“colorlisting”?) Facebook and other addictive apps — defeating the purpose?
Corporation's are made of people and people don't only have the direct interests of the company in mind.
I don't understand the commenters responding negativepy to these proposals; by all means be circumspect, but don't criticize a company for making a positive change just because you think it doesn't go far enough.
Agreed. Plenty of people struggle with the problem they're solving here. Especially at Google, where they a) think of themselves as a nice, mission-driven company, and b) they do a lot of user-focused stuff that doesn't immediately contribute to quarterly revenue, and c) they have a workforce that can easily switch jobs, there's plenty of reason to think that they're sincere here.
It's surely true that execs looked at this and made sure the ROI wasn't blatantly large and negative. And there's definitely another level of analysis where a lot of good behavior turns out to be useful to the organism, in the same sense that moms love kids because genes need new meat-robot bodies to run around in. But that complimentary to your frame of analysis, not contradictory to it.
I hate it, and my personal biggest gripe is we the people should be making the rules to protect ourselves through laws, cheeringng on a company for doing this is just encouraging and enabling “self regulation”.
They’ll also hold shareholder value above “product values” (as google users are their product). It encourages half measure and ineffective solutions.
The company, as a company, would not move forward with these measures if it didn't help their bottom line or hurt their competition in some way. They aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Sure, it may have started as a well meaning thing by a few workers, but it's pretty clear that it's to hurt their largest advertising rival, Facebook. If Google can make their advertising and data more valuable than their alternative they will grow. Does that mean that what they are doing is inherently bad, and won't benefit society if it's successful? Not at all.
I responded with apprehension and gave an example of a similar initiative that Nintendo has already shipped [0], which has been widely mocked, and I explained why these sorts of nagging notifications are a tricky balancing act (the product doesn't know the context of your use, but can only guess, and it is grating when it gets it wrong).
So, you clearly don't understand the hypocrisy behind Google's efforts? How naive can you possibly be? People at Google are having a job which is essentially having only the interests of the company in mind!
No-no-no, do not try to spin it like that! Corporations are made of jobs. People have obligations working those jobs. Sure, they are people, but only in the sense that they have human rights as well.
What Google is trying to do is not "positive change", it is an effort to make the user responsible for their addictive behavior instead of being responsible selling addictive tech themselves.
It's clearly a contradiction. Companies like Google thrived on addictive behavior of users online. Now that Google basically is the Internet for consumers they want to crack down on online and tech addiction? Really?
What I've read in the article means to me that Google will toss away the responsibility to users by making them aware of their usage patterns. "We told them they need a break from consuming our apps, but they won't listen! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" Well, good luck with that, I guess? Consumers will buy anything, even that joke about "making consumer tech less consume-ry".
It's only a contradiction if you think short term. Long term, it's clearly in Google's interest to engender sustainable consumption. People who are comfortable with the role their smartphones play in their lives are much more valuable consumers than addicts who are apprehensive over it. They are also much less likely to seek radical action which may damage Google in hard to predict ways.
It's called balance. They made it an official notion and released a few things. It's a tangible effort. I give them a bit (a bit) of trust regarding the wisdom needed to make a good "business".
I don't subscribe to the responsibility shift. Unless they make their notification and metrics bogus, hard to notice etc it's a good measure. And yes, let's make user "responsible" or IMO.. in control. The system informs me, I decide. You see this as a trick to get away with murder, personally I don't.
Also, unless they decide to retire from business I don't see how Google can improve the life of their users.
I disagree. Youtube might thrive on user's addiction. But not Google Search. I know plenty of people who the first step to answer a question is to check out Google Search, but I don't know anyone who's addicted to searching for the sake of searching. Compare that with people who check twitters, facebook or instagram the second they get a bit bored.
Google is just optimizing, instead of trying to attract the most eyeballs, they are trying to attract the most eyeballs without you realizing that you are being attracted.
Internet companies, but Google especially, thrive on high numbers of short interactions that end in an ad click. Someone spending an hour in Gmail and then clicking an advert is less profitable to Google than someone spending 15 minutes in Gmail and then clicking an advert on 4 separate occasions. The ideal for Google is for people to spend less time on their site, but to keep coming back more often.
If Google really wanted to help here, why don't they just, you know, make every part of YouTube less optimised for maximum view time. Remove autoplay, turn down the recommendations. Nah, we're gonna throw some optional, possibly ineffective shit into our mobile OS instead so we can say we did something.
Those features you listed seem like quite useful ones for day to day usage. Many things won’t have a bright line “this makes the product useful” vs. “this makes the product addictive” feature classification.
The first two features are nice, but the cynical side of me thinks this is all about the third feature. They will simultaneously appear concerned and helpful, easing the growing negative sentiment against them while introducing even more pervasive tracking.
Don't get me wrong, I truly think Google wants to be the good guy here if possible. But if they can combine that with even more tracking (= more money) they won't hesitate for a second.
I am feeling cynical because none of the announcements mentioned notifications or random reward content. Nor am I familiar with research that shows grayscale reduces addictiveness.
I like the put down gesture silencing phones, but there's two things wrong with it. 1) it encourages you to leave the phone easily accessible instead of turning it off 2) its exactly the kind of corporate move to give just enough control to the individual to make it seem like Google's business model is that person's own moral failings.
Well, look I don't have data at google scale but my mobile scale info suggests people do not turn their phones off and they won't.
You might say, "You should" and I'll say, "And if my family needs to get ahold of me for some emergency? Should I just ignore them calling about some emergency with my three year old daughter for dubious performative gestures?"
As for 2, once can imagine a world where Google doesn't want to have such revenue concentration in ads. Destroying the industry as they leave it is not a bad idea, if it gets them where they need to be. But of course, I'm skeptical.
I like all the 3 features mentioned, good they're coming. They really should have been something implementable as an app though. I guess I'll get to test them in 2 or 3 years.
(Yeah, this is annoying - Android versions come out really fast, but their support in most phones lags couple of years, even if you just throw away your current one and go buy a flagship.)
Buy an Android One phone. I think some pretty good ones will come within the next 10 months with Android P built in, just like thry had Android O built in. The fragmentation problem is now being solved. Its effects will be visible by 4th quarter of 2020.
Google is not the only company that is trying to optimize both profits and user experience/benefits, that is a priority where I work also.
I have been trying to live in Apple’s walled garden because they are more of a privacy company. But, I periodically turn Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Gmail on - largely turning my iPhone temporarily into a Google device as far as tracking goes. I do this when travelling or when I need the better ‘AI’ experience that Google provides. Google Assistant really is very useful, and sometimes turning over my life event data is worth it.
I tried that and my kid hacked the phone (and PC). So now I just take the keyboard in the evening and return it the next day. I think Google and Apple have an opposing interest to parents.
Having better default notifications on Android would be a start. Everything off(bar calls & messages) unless turned on by user.
every app now wants to notify you about everything.. so every phone i get, i need to go in and turn off notifications for everything bar calls & text messages.
Pity they don't sync your preferences when you get a new phone.
I have a similar feeling about this to how Comcast/Xfinity and Disney promote their services to help reduce screen time for kids. It's hogwash, since they are actively trying everything (including AI) to maximize screen time / watch time and any other metric. Their efforts seem token.
"It will even display what you did inside various apps–and on this front, third- party developers will be able to specify trackable metrics inside their software."
Well, that sounds like a totally disinterested move that has nothing to do with Google's strive to track every single thing you do.
Not quite, I think the more accurate rephrasing would be maximize profits, maximize profits, maximize profits. That plus a lot of other employee and customer stuff you that wan to keep their jobs.
It's good tech companies are pushing for open access.
Which just means that someone else will step in. People will move towards where they needs are met. People dont want the addiction but they want what they are addicted to and you can't just put the genie back in the bottle again.
I view this is a political / strategic positioning to guard against legislation I don't see it having any real effect or being of any significance just as I don't consider addiction the fault of clever algorithms but rather human nature. Instagram is probably the best example of that. It's the one considered to pushing most people into depression yet it's mostly based around people sharing images not clever algorithms (yes I know they use algorithms on instagram)
> Which just means that someone else will step in. People will move towards where they needs are met. People dont want the addiction but they want what they are addicted to and you can't just put the genie back in the bottle again.
You're not wrong, but this is more nuanced, because it's the moral scapegoat many use when addressing this issue.
Someone at Youtube trying to optimize for watch time might be aware that making people watch more videos might not the best thing to do. Yet, if it's not Youtube "someone else will step in"-- people will always watch more videos no? Might as well be us who make money out of it.
I am inherently suspicious of these types of nanny-tech initiatives. Nintendo did something similar recently in many of their games — warning you that you've been playing for X amount of time, mayba take a break? — and it came off very grating and presumptive, to the point that there were many popular memes created to make fun of it.
It's hard to do these types of warnings with a naive implementation because the system doesn't know the context in hich you are using the progress, it can only guess, and when it guesses wrong, it leaves a bad impression.
Maybe Google can do a better job with its execution, and maybe making it 'opt-in' will solve that disconnect. I guess we'll find out.
Regardless of how serious google is about this (their main customers are advertisers not android users), I don’t find the measures convincing
- shush: if you place your phone on the table you’ll pick it up from time to time anyways, it won’t be out of sight
- colors: I’ve turned my smartphone screen B&W, I haven’t noticed a big difference yet, but maybe there is some research out there
- monitoring: I installed a monitor app a while back. While I was observing my usage in the beginning regularly, today, I just don’t care about the numbers anymore
I highly doubt that these measures will be effective
Kind of like how soda companies encourage people to exercise. They don't want you to stop buying their product, but cut back just enough to stop people complaining.
I'd have to dig it out, but I remember reading an article that showed that just having phones on the table seriously interfered with ones ability to follow a conversation.
I insist on removing phones from sight when eating since.
I wonder if the people that implemented this face down feature know that?
I do not agree with any of this. It is a personal choice. I am old and spent much of my day behind a screen my entire life. Do not need anyone to tell me to take a step away.
Google really just needs to do their own thing and stop listening to all the chatter about this and that.
[+] [-] mcintyre1994|7 years ago|reply
The real genius is that it fits Apple's brand really well, way better than Google's. If they can make this a serious digital wellness campaign, I could easily see Apple joining in. It won't affect their bottom line and it'll make them look good. And with that, both mobile platforms and ~all of Facebook's user base get nudges to become less addicted to and pay less attention to Facebook.
[+] [-] obelix_|7 years ago|reply
Through internal studies, they already knew quite a few years ago that Google engineers where as likely as to get addicted and waste time on cat videos, the kardashians and whatever else as much as the people the platforms end up hooking. Those results produced some internal 'what about my kids' outrage.
What they then discovered is deaddicting ppl is much more complicated and takes a whole lot longer than getting them to turn into screen touching addicts. It was so complicated not to mention the opposite of what generated rev that it got quietly shelved and ppl left No big diff between Google and Big Tobacco in this regard.
What you are seeing today is them dusting off the cobwebs on that project as the unintended social and psychological consequences are finally taking a serious unignorable toll.
I don't see Google or Facebook contributing to the solution. They will play the same game Exxon Shell Philip Morris et al play. And that game remains empire defense.
It's up to you to keep your kids safe.
[+] [-] mic47|7 years ago|reply
Additionally, Facebook already turn down video in newsfeed (it decreased time-spent), and changed goals to 'meaningful social interactions'. Long term, being useful is more important than grabbing attention (and FB plays long-term game). The fact that FB, Instagram, Youtube, are "grabbing attention", is only byproduct of thinking that time-spent like metrics are good proxies for usefulness (and they were really easy to optimize), which turns out not to be true (or at least they don't tell the full story). Hackernews is grabbing my attentions the most for me, should I blame the ranking model?
Most engineers, managers, designers, ... in these companies are people who want to build useful stuff, rather than maximizing short term gains for share holders (additionally none of these companies are paying dividends, so if you maximize value for share holders, you should play mid to long game). If you can make these engineers realized that what they are building is harmful, they will change it.
Disclaimer: I worked at Facebook and it from inside, so have different "trust" model for these companies, and expectations how they work internally. I don't believe that there sinister master-plan behind every feature they release, instead, they are complex organisms with many players that are optimizing for different goals (sometimes sometimes seemingly opposite).
[+] [-] quadrangle|7 years ago|reply
Yah, and hooray. Google may be more powerful and invasive even, but there's tons of reasons they have a less-manipulative, less-awful business model overall. Any successful attack on Facebook is a good thing.
All these companies are bad, but Facebook is the worst of them. I'd say Facebook < Google = Amazon < Microsoft < Apple < FLO (free/libre/open).
All these companies are shitty in certain ways, but some are shittier than others. Apple's walled-garden censorship of copyleft software on iOS is what led me to embrace GNU in the first place, but the level of dark-patterns they do is nothing like Facebook.
[+] [-] wpietri|7 years ago|reply
If they can shift the discussion from "phones are bad" to "some apps are bad", suddenly it's not their problem anymore. People looking to collect scalps will be focused on the ones creating the most exploitative experiences. Which is not only good for Google, but good for everybody, in that's putting pressure closer to the right place.
[+] [-] jarjoura|7 years ago|reply
Plus, you mention Facebook, maybe because it's popular to shit on them here, but it's really not just them, this is systemic problem across our entire industry.
Netflix has created an environment where people can spend an entire 3 day weekend watching just one show, and barely leave the couch. It works for the brand, but is it healthy? Amazon has built a model that searching for one problem leads you down a rabbit hole of product reviews and other suggestions where you most definitely can waste hours and end up buying tons of junk along the way.
Those are just 4 big brands, but for us, Github keeps iterating to make its platform more addictive. I've spent hours in there finding novel projects and reading code. Or let's not forget about Reddit, I've spent an entire day at the park on Reddit instead of reading the book I went to the park to read.
[+] [-] cfadvan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|7 years ago|reply
Agreed. Of course, Apple would hate to look like they’re late to the party, but it’s probably too late for this to be introduced st this years Apple Developers Conference, right? Or perhaps it doesn’t need to be introduced there and could just be rolled out on the next version of iOS this fall?
Regardless, I wonder what will be the fate of apps like mine (BeeLine Reader), whose entire purpose (making reading on-screen easier by using line-wrapping color gradients) would be thwarted by Wind Down. We’ve already seen implications from Night Shift, which is especially annoying for our users who use our app for accessibility reasons and have to toggle the mode just to use our app.
Of course, you wouldn’t want apps to be able to unilaterally exempt themselves from the greyscale mode. But if you let users choose which apps to exempt, then would they just end up whitelisting (“colorlisting”?) Facebook and other addictive apps — defeating the purpose?
[+] [-] jules|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wkmeade|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gustavmarwin|7 years ago|reply
I think most people don't know and/or don't care, but you can get the best of both world with CopperheadOS.
Note: CopperheadOS is not for everybody though, I suggest reading this before trying it: https://copperhead.co/android/docs/usage_guide
[+] [-] eutectic|7 years ago|reply
I don't understand the commenters responding negativepy to these proposals; by all means be circumspect, but don't criticize a company for making a positive change just because you think it doesn't go far enough.
[+] [-] wpietri|7 years ago|reply
It's surely true that execs looked at this and made sure the ROI wasn't blatantly large and negative. And there's definitely another level of analysis where a lot of good behavior turns out to be useful to the organism, in the same sense that moms love kids because genes need new meat-robot bodies to run around in. But that complimentary to your frame of analysis, not contradictory to it.
[+] [-] marricks|7 years ago|reply
They’ll also hold shareholder value above “product values” (as google users are their product). It encourages half measure and ineffective solutions.
[+] [-] partiallypro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostcluster|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/997614-nintendo-3ds/747...
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/does-nintendos-oh-youve-been-...
[+] [-] dschuetz|7 years ago|reply
No-no-no, do not try to spin it like that! Corporations are made of jobs. People have obligations working those jobs. Sure, they are people, but only in the sense that they have human rights as well.
What Google is trying to do is not "positive change", it is an effort to make the user responsible for their addictive behavior instead of being responsible selling addictive tech themselves.
[+] [-] dschuetz|7 years ago|reply
What I've read in the article means to me that Google will toss away the responsibility to users by making them aware of their usage patterns. "We told them they need a break from consuming our apps, but they won't listen! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" Well, good luck with that, I guess? Consumers will buy anything, even that joke about "making consumer tech less consume-ry".
[+] [-] mseebach|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|7 years ago|reply
I don't subscribe to the responsibility shift. Unless they make their notification and metrics bogus, hard to notice etc it's a good measure. And yes, let's make user "responsible" or IMO.. in control. The system informs me, I decide. You see this as a trick to get away with murder, personally I don't.
Also, unless they decide to retire from business I don't see how Google can improve the life of their users.
[+] [-] fwdpropaganda|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psibi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speedplane|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gant|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yellow_postit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xBA5ED|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WildGreenLeave|7 years ago|reply
Don't get me wrong, I truly think Google wants to be the good guy here if possible. But if they can combine that with even more tracking (= more money) they won't hesitate for a second.
[+] [-] jadedhacker|7 years ago|reply
I like the put down gesture silencing phones, but there's two things wrong with it. 1) it encourages you to leave the phone easily accessible instead of turning it off 2) its exactly the kind of corporate move to give just enough control to the individual to make it seem like Google's business model is that person's own moral failings.
[+] [-] KirinDave|7 years ago|reply
You might say, "You should" and I'll say, "And if my family needs to get ahold of me for some emergency? Should I just ignore them calling about some emergency with my three year old daughter for dubious performative gestures?"
As for 2, once can imagine a world where Google doesn't want to have such revenue concentration in ads. Destroying the industry as they leave it is not a bad idea, if it gets them where they need to be. But of course, I'm skeptical.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
(Yeah, this is annoying - Android versions come out really fast, but their support in most phones lags couple of years, even if you just throw away your current one and go buy a flagship.)
[+] [-] sharcerer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siempohn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anpago|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|7 years ago|reply
I have been trying to live in Apple’s walled garden because they are more of a privacy company. But, I periodically turn Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Gmail on - largely turning my iPhone temporarily into a Google device as far as tracking goes. I do this when travelling or when I need the better ‘AI’ experience that Google provides. Google Assistant really is very useful, and sometimes turning over my life event data is worth it.
[+] [-] amelius|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] visarga|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sloxy|7 years ago|reply
every app now wants to notify you about everything.. so every phone i get, i need to go in and turn off notifications for everything bar calls & text messages.
Pity they don't sync your preferences when you get a new phone.
[+] [-] ddtaylor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ldorigo|7 years ago|reply
Well, that sounds like a totally disinterested move that has nothing to do with Google's strive to track every single thing you do.
[+] [-] Toine|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speedplane|7 years ago|reply
It's good tech companies are pushing for open access.
[+] [-] ThomPete|7 years ago|reply
I view this is a political / strategic positioning to guard against legislation I don't see it having any real effect or being of any significance just as I don't consider addiction the fault of clever algorithms but rather human nature. Instagram is probably the best example of that. It's the one considered to pushing most people into depression yet it's mostly based around people sharing images not clever algorithms (yes I know they use algorithms on instagram)
[+] [-] aylmao|7 years ago|reply
You're not wrong, but this is more nuanced, because it's the moral scapegoat many use when addressing this issue.
Someone at Youtube trying to optimize for watch time might be aware that making people watch more videos might not the best thing to do. Yet, if it's not Youtube "someone else will step in"-- people will always watch more videos no? Might as well be us who make money out of it.
[+] [-] ghostcluster|7 years ago|reply
It's hard to do these types of warnings with a naive implementation because the system doesn't know the context in hich you are using the progress, it can only guess, and when it guesses wrong, it leaves a bad impression.
Maybe Google can do a better job with its execution, and maybe making it 'opt-in' will solve that disconnect. I guess we'll find out.
[+] [-] baxtr|7 years ago|reply
- shush: if you place your phone on the table you’ll pick it up from time to time anyways, it won’t be out of sight
- colors: I’ve turned my smartphone screen B&W, I haven’t noticed a big difference yet, but maybe there is some research out there
- monitoring: I installed a monitor app a while back. While I was observing my usage in the beginning regularly, today, I just don’t care about the numbers anymore
I highly doubt that these measures will be effective
[+] [-] ducttape12|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teknopaul|7 years ago|reply
I wonder if the people that implemented this face down feature know that?
[+] [-] jacksmith21006|7 years ago|reply
Google really just needs to do their own thing and stop listening to all the chatter about this and that.