Here's an anecdote about what happens when you design a product in the opposite way.
I own https://www.executeprogram.com, which has interactive in-browser courses on various software development technologies. Currently they all cover languages, more or less: TypeScript, SQL, various JS topics, regexes. (Disclosure: it costs money after you finish your 16th lesson.)
Almost all (maybe literally all) of our competitors are amenable to binging. It's true of books, video learning platforms, and most/all other interactive learning platforms.
Execute Program is very intentionally non-bingeable. When you start a course, you get 5 lessons on the first day, then it stops you and tells you to come back tomorrow. On the next day, you get some brief reviews of yesterday's lessons, then a few new lessons, then it stops you again until the next day. That cadence repeats until you finish the course. You can't binge/cram even if you want to.
(A bit more technical detail: it's a spaced repetition system with exponential review intervals, similar to those used for language learning in e.g. WaniKani and Anki. But it also has a lot of fine-grained knowledge of its own course structure, so it can use reviews to intelligently unlock different lessons depending on how the user performed on their reviews.)
Occasionally, we get support email from new users who don't like this. They want to cram a whole course in a day. But cramming is a very time-inefficient way to learn, so this is self-defeating! Since launch, we've had good success adjusting the app's behavior and internal explanations to reduce these complaints.
However, we still get emails from long-term users who appreciate the time limitations. Generally these fall into two categories:
1. Users like that an enforced break before the reviews provides tangible evidence that "yes, I genuinely understood yesterday's lessons". If we allowed cramming, that reassurance wouldn't exist; it's too easy to succeed at a review when you just finished the lesson 30 seconds ago.
2. Users like that the usage limits remove a source of anxiety and worry. You do your reviews and lessons, you finish, and then you wait until tomorrow. There's no temptation to think "I really should've done 10 lessons today instead of 5; I'm so lazy".
It's still possible for a very dedicated user to do all of our courses in parallel within their first monthly billing cycle. (Median course start-to-finish time is 8-18 days depending on the course.) So this scheme doesn't make users pay us more than they would otherwise. And they're spending the same amount of wall-clock time that they'd spend if they crammed all of the lessons in one day. That makes it pure win: they memorize the topics more deeply, they worry less, and they get those benefits for no extra time expenditure. The only exception I can think of would be people who think "I must get exposure to all TypeScript syntax and semantics before tomorrow morning, even if that significantly reduces my ability to remember what I learned."
Obviously I'm very biased here, and the goals that we're optimizing for don't even exist in most other product spaces. But I thought it would be nice to have a counterexample to "engagement at all costs".
Just because there are spaces, it doesn't mean something isn't "addictive." I was addicted to WaniKani when I first started it even if I wasn't binging it. Optimizing your product so users come every day (and hence every month paying for a subscription) you care that users engage every day more than the amount that they engage every day. Advertisement monetization streams care about how much time users are on the platform where subscriptions just care that users continue to use the platform.
Uh, it's interesting that you see the design of your product as a counterexample, because to me it looks exactly like what mobile games have been doing as a mechanism for maximizing engagement.
You want to stop them from playing through too much of the game's content and burning themselves out on it. So you lock them out with a timer, forcing them to come back later. Then you reward them for coming back every day. This encourages them to turn the game into a habit and integrate it into their routine.
Looks to me like you've accidentally stumbled onto one of the very tactics games use to turn people into addicts.
Unrelated to original thread - I find it interesting the way you approach this comment. You mention pricing almost as if you're apologizing. Your competitors, even if they are binge-focused, don't apologize for charging customers. They would never have a an advert that says "we've got this great course, but before you go check it out, I'll warn you, it costs money".
I like your thinking of non-binge learning, and think you could really use that as a differentiator, in your marketing.
Your site looks great, and I really like the way you approach it, or describe it here, but that isn't coming through in your branding. Think Salesforce's "no software", they showed who the enemy was, and put them squarely against it, and if you really look at it, they were selling a CRM, not selling "no software", you're even closer to your product.
If you haven't yet, you may want to check out the book Play Bigger and category creation.
I don't know if I'd like that. I grabbed some of Maximilian Schwarzmüller's courses off Udemy a couple years ago and, by far, my favorite thing was being able to blast through the simple concepts that I already understood and to slow down on the new stuff.
I think a recommended pace that's easy to achieve would make a nice goal, but I would balk at the idea of it being enforced if I were paying money for it.
Ah, that looks really neat! I have a couple minor pieces of feedback after looking at the homepage. The graphic for "Review Exponentially" [1] was a little difficult to grok initially. My first thought was that time was flowing downwards. I think a labeled arrow indicating the flow of time would be helpful, perhaps also a label to indicate that the numbers at the bottom represent days (instead of relying on me to understand that implicitly because one of them is labeled "Day 4: Lesson".
Also in the "Course" section I think you should include a link to "All Courses" because I almost bounced because none of those three courses were interesting to me (but I eventually found the list at the bottom, and SQL is a topic I'm interested in solidifying further).
Lastly I think it would be great to have a sign-up list to be notified of new courses (I do realize that perhaps if you sign up for a free account you _might_ also get information about new courses, but that's doesn't seem fully certain).
Your product has a feature that curtails 'addiction' for the benefit of the user - ie to improve knowledge via spaced repetitions. A knowledgeable customer will recommend you and come back for more. Great!
Social media requires time from those users - they want to know you, crack you open psychologically, so they can then be better at selling you stuff (and, incidentally, pass all that info on to 3 letter agencies for their population modelling etc). That is a different model. They want you to be deeply engaged for a long time. The longer the better.
Interesting. I was recently recently reminded about the "Pomodoro" method ("Pomodoro" = 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off, 1 "set" is 4 Pomodoros followed by an additional 30 minute break) - it might be interesting to have a learning platform with a Pomodoro timer baked right into the site.
I don't like the current trend of social media apps burying users under push notifications, calls to action, and other engagement hooks.
However, there's a second, parallel problem adding fuel to the fire: The more we talk about overindulgence in social media (or Netflix, or video games, or fast food) as an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals, the less sense of individual agency we give ourselves. I'm not suggesting that we let social media companies off the hook, but battling this problem is going to require more than simply shaming them in Medium posts. We have to start reminding people that they are in control of their decisions, and that they can take steps to reduce their social media usage to healthy levels.
I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see. We also need to encourage people to take control of their feeds, muting users and topics who draw them into unproductive discussions.
> I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see.
I see it more akin to the opioid crisis. Just like drug manufactures shouldn't be pushing opioids as a way to deal with minor pain and depression because they know it hooks users. Maybe social media companies shouldn't be pushing hateful and outrageous content to hook their users.
You can sing about personal responsibility all you want. But these companies pay scientists millions of dollars a year to come up with ways to keep you hooked. The only way to win is not to play the game. Normal people are seriously outgunned here.
> the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see
To this list I'd add the concept of epistemic hygiene. Just as crowding together in metropolises re-wired our culture to value hygiene, these informational metropolises of social media will eventually cause us to greatly value epistemic hygiene. Seeing a rage-inducing headline would then evoke a kind of "ew..." response. At least, this is what I hope will happen. Maybe it will require a generational turnover.
It's less about screen-time or self-control and more about toxic, malicious software used for communication.
A lot of the calls-to-action used to generate "engagement" are the same calls to action used for legitimate communications, and the only way to tell is to "engage" with the product.
There's nothing wrong with people opening their social media app if they receive a real message from a friend. The problem is when the platform is incentivized to "manufacture" messages even when there aren't any.
>I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education
Not at all; its more like breaking up with a toxic, manipulative, dishonest partner. There's many more fish in the sea and there's many more ways to heathily socialize than just Facebook. Though I suppose people in abusive relationships often have a sort of Stockholm syndrome where they see no alternatives.
> We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see. We also need to encourage people to take control of their feeds, muting users and topics who draw them into unproductive discussions.
This is going to make a world of difference the first time people try it. I started monitoring screen time/configuring notifications about a year ago, and made me feel a lot better about the time I spent on my phone.
But, all of this assumes that social media should (and will) stay the same as it currently is with addictive never ending feeds and endless notifications.
At the end of last year I sat down thought of what social media could look like if it was designed to be used less, and in a way that would add value to people.
For me, that looked like intentional written reflections, shared with a small circle of close friends and family. To keep me from scrolling, there would be no feed. To keep me from checking my phone, content would rarely be surfaced.
This ended up becoming Sundayy, a mindful social network that you can only check once a week (on Sunday): https://www.sundayy.app
Each day you're prompted to slow down and reflect, but there is no feed of reflections. They're all kept secret, for now. At the end of the week, on Sunday, reflections are revealed. It's a more intimate insight into how people close to you lived their week - day by day and in their own words.
We should definitely bring more awareness to monitoring screen time and curating feeds, but we should also question whether we should have to do any of that at all :)
> The more we talk about overindulgence in social media (or Netflix, or video games, or fast food) as an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals, the less sense of individual agency we give ourselves.
If it's done well, it should have the opposite effect. Describing all the ways that companies are trying to get you addicted will help inoculate people against their tricks. In order to psychologically defend yourself, you first need to understand exactly what you're defending yourself against.
>We have to start reminding people that they are in control of their decisions, and that they can take steps to reduce their social media usage to healthy levels. I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see.
I couldn't agree more, and to add to that I think it's usually a foolish approach to treat people as hapless automatons without any agency if you're trying to convince them that your point is worth listening to. If you look at two of the worst political failures in the UK recently (the Remain campaign for the Brexit referendum in 2016 and Labour's election campaign in 2019), I think what they have in common is that they essentially told people "you're a downtrodden proletariat buffeted about by forces well outside your control, but we can make things better for you" which is such a foolish approach in my opinion. Regardless of whether they actually do or not, the average person likes to think they're in control of their own destiny so blaming everything on Facebook being manipulative bastards will never work if your aim is to change the public's relationship with social media.
This is all just personal anecdote. It might be wrong for you; maybe it doesn't apply to everyone, but it has worked for me...
The options seem to be:
1) Delete your social media account
2) Set up timers (OS-level, account-level, etc)
3) Filter you feed to only the people who matter
The first two options didn't work for me. I created a new account and deleted the timers. The first option left me feeling excluded. The second option just turned SM into a drip-feed, making me check whenever the timer was up. If they work for you, great!
The option that worked was to filter facebook and snapchat to only show people who personally mattered to me in the physical world. I only see things about people I come into contact with and care about. I know them well enough to know the whole story rather than just what they post at face value. Their posts can encourage conversations rather than make me feel bad about some cool thing I'll never do or know more about.
Social media is a tool which, used effectively, can benefit you. But used ineffectively it can harm you. I hope schools of the future or some people/institution teach effective social media use. Or hopefully we can enforce social media companies to follow some regulations regarding user wellbeing.
We’re just witnessing advertising’s race to the bottom. Eventually everything published is questioned because all forms of media are incentivized to push drivel for eyeballs.
The optimist in me see’s how ridiculous and blatant the drivel is becoming and suspects we’ll achieve some sort of collective enlightenment before we extinct ourselves. A smarter media then emerges (timing is everything here) eschewing advertising dollars in favour of a more consumer friendly model.
Abstinence-only education fails for sex, because a) sex is a built-in human drive b) sex is beneficial in lots of ways, and c) there are lots of ways to have sex safely.
Abstinence as a strategy is not in and of itself flawed. The way lots of people cope with the dangers of heroin is simply by never trying it their whole life. Lots of addicts adopt a strategy of permanent abstinence, forever.
Some things are very harmful. I don't think we all need to try all to them, just to make sure.
> We have to start reminding people that they are in control of their decisions
Exactly. I not a big FB user, but last year I was on a lot more than normal b/c I was home. Then one day I realized I was just either arguing with family or reading things that left me disappointed, and wondered why am I subjecting myself to this? I didn't delete my account because I still use messenger to communicate to a few people, but I haven't been on FB proper for months.
> I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see.
Isn't this also denying people their individual agency, though? Using Facebook is not like sex is for teens, who are faced with the rather unavoidable biological realities of puberty. There are many ways to achieve the things people seek from Facebook, some technological and some not.
We don't need to start under the assumption that people will not be able to commit to having more healthy media consumption habits. These tools offered by Apple, Facebook and Google you mention are not things we should be encouraging. If these companies had the user's best interests at heart, their products would not need these kinds of sub-features in the first place. But when you study the gambling and nicotine industries to figure out how to better hook your users to your mobile apps, you didn't start out from the right place. So I would reckon the answer to that would be to abstain from the product entirely.
I think our built environment and lack of engaging community is the main reason we are disadvantaged against self control. We need trust and support of others, we need it daily, and we dont get enough of it to make significant progress against many addictions. A change in our built environment is a start to improving our connections to our local community, and subsequently continued accountability when facing addictive influences.
It's shockingly easy to delete Facebook. I haven't used it in years, and it almost never comes up. They have done a masterful job of making you feel like you cannot live without them through the careful application of dark patterns, but I assure you that not only do you not need it, but once gone, you also will not miss it.
> I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see. We also need to encourage people to take control of their feeds, muting users and topics who draw them into unproductive discussions.
Those tools are provided by exactly the same companies that were manufacturing the addiction in the first. The tools can be revoked or changed the second they show signs of actually being effective.
Sorry, but this is like asking your drug dealer to help you with becoming clean.
I'm not sure empowering users in this way would be all that effective. It would be like trying to empower people to avoid opioid addiction. It's hard to set and stick to limits on something that is designed to addict you.
| the less sense of individual agency we give ourselves
In aggregate, the population is at the mercy of material forces. Turning a social problem into an individual moral failing has never managed to solve anything at scale.
A tangential point about the horrifying power of euphemism: I've done some consulting work with some large biopharmaceutical companies in the past and found myself consistently shocked at how effective euphemism was at making people comfortable talking about, and doing, very questionable things. E.g. "Maximizing treatment" = "extend how long a patient requires our medication". This was at a senior level and these were, on the face of it, warm, caring people having a very comfortable and open conversation. I had always assumed decisions that directly disadvantaged the consumer would look different, with some sense of secrecy or at least awareness. Nope, one level of language abstraction is apparently all it takes.
There are countless other examples out there. I just finished "Cruel Britannia" regarding the torture practices of the British over the last century. They were particularly adept at it. Euphemism is such a powerful tool for doublethink and systemic abuses of power.
I feel like there's basically two business models in the world - you can be a baker, in which you try to create a product that customers will want on its merits, and work to make the best possible customer experience, or you can be a crack dealer. I think a lot of people think they're bakers, but you gotta realize, the moment you start sprinkling crack in the cookies, you're not selling cookies anymore.
Social media is a perfect example of where this is used. I know countless people that are literally addicted to it. They want to see every new update continuously and the social media apps are designed to do this through notifications.
I saw this clear as day when I was at jury duty. We were waiting for the court to get back into session. There was a girl sitting next to me on the bench and I noticed about every 5 minutes she would open up her phone and go through her routine. First pull up facebook, scroll through it. Close the app then pull up instragram, scroll through. She did this consistently for the entire 2 hours we were sitting there (the court was delayed). If that isn't addiction, I don't know what is.
Then look at all the mental health problems young people are having these days - bullying, depression, suicide etc. and I would say a big part of that is influenced by social media. People see other people living the "good life" and they get depressed because they can't have the same. Young women see "pretty" women on Instagram and they know they can never compete with that, so their self esteem drops to nothing. Then you have all the bullying that goes on as well. Completely toxic environment.
If a service is monetized with ads, then the user is the product. We say that a lot but I think a lot of people still don't understand it, especially outside the tech sphere. "Engagement" isn't about building a better service; it's about serving more ads. "Driving user engagement" should be seen as synonymous with "psychologically manipulating users to use the service so they see ads".
If you water down the meaning of "addiction" enough then you can say that anything is "addictive" and with that, you can carry over all the connotations of the word.
Then people start saying "I'm addicted to coffee" and "I'm addicted to bread" and before you know it people saying "I'm addicted to heroin" are met with "well, why don't you just stop, like I did with coffee for a week that time".
Since the dawn of time people have tried to make things that people want to use. Making "addiction" a synonym for "success" is just stupid.
"User Engagement" is now indeed code for "Addiction," but not because user engagement has changed in any meaningful way. It's because society has been transforming terms that used to have medical/clinical definitions to mean something completely different. PTSD and OCD are two more examples.
Posts like this completely misunderstand how companies like Facebook think and operate. As a result, they cause people to fight boogymen instead of working toward positive change.
Yes, using Facebook instead of doing something like talking in person or reading a book is probably worse for you in the long run.
But most people don't do those things instead of Facebook. Instead they use Tiktok. Or watch TV. Or read Teen Vogue. Or get drunk and watch reality TV. Or sit alone in their nursing home with no real connection to any other human.
Facebook doesn't want you to be addicted, addiction is bad for user retention in the long term. Facebook wants you to be a happy, healthy Facebook Family of Apps™ user. I know this because I oversee ML launches on some of the highly controversial/addictive surfaces on a certain Facebook property.
Very much so. It's something we're trying to push back on at https://sendmemo.app
But how do you measure success, we're a messaging app.
- Total messages sent
- Number of conversations.
Measuring any of this will mean we optimise keeping users on the platform.
We're trying active conversations, where to be active means only at least one message per week. We'd love to find a metric which went up as each individual user spent less time on memo. A "time to solution" metric
The word “addiction” is overused in my opinion. Bad habits are not addictions. An addiction is something which actively harms you, but you can’t stop doing it.
Yes, you can argue social media is harmful, but it generally does not cause people to lose their jobs or spend all their money.
Yes, a small number of apps have very addictive properties. But those addictive properties occur almost entirely by luck.
This idea of app makers as dealers of crack is incredibly self-aggrandizing. It's like someone saying every time they move to new city, they have to register their hands as deadly weapons. Let's take it down a notch, buddy, you're not that powerful.
99% of the time, makers of one addictive app find themselves completely unable to make a new one (exhibit a: Facebook) and just use their profits to buy up that tiny 1% apps that happened to get lucky and strike oil.
Apps can be addictive. Everyone is trying to make addictive apps. But let's also be clear that nearly everyone who tries, fails.
Now, amp that all up with even more colorful light shows and sound effects, and you have loot boxes. Also, amusingly enough, referred to as "user engagement" by game studio heads (also known as "recurring revenue", as if it's a reasonable subscription and not a fucking slot machine).
The other side of this is how these companies build engaging products that thousands struggle with. May be a solo developer could learn some lessons. Can anyone shed light on how to build engaging products and make users come back? What methods are these companies using that small dev can utilize and learn?
Imagine how different social media would look if it were subscription based and required much, much less investment and revenue could grow linearly with the userbase.
The incentive of an ad-supported, vc-funded social media is to addict you.
The incentive of a subscription service is to be useful enough that you stay subscribed. If you log in once a week but never cancel, that's the ideal situation for a subscription service.
What I wrestle with is whether consumers will ever accept a small subscription fee (and I mean VERY small) after they've been given everything for free, even if it meant less psychological manipulation, no ads and strong privacy.
This hits the nail on the head while also missing one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle. Marketing and sales people are trying to equally play the system to further addict people not only to the platform but to purchasing/ using their products off the central platforms.
It's shocking how much material on social networks is really just marketing disguised as grassroots. Or worse marketing specifically designed to tickle our other addictions, especially sensual addictions.
So now you get a double hit and these companies love it because the marketers pay the bills.
I don't doubt that in many cases developers are actively optimizing for addiction, but I wonder if "User engagement" is also sometimes code for "we made our site hard to navigate, and it takes twice as long to find what you're looking for". I mean, how do you distinguish between users spending more time on your site because they find it fun or useful or whatever, versus users spending more time on your site because it's just badly designed?
That’s a timely article and it has some good points.
I myself would say instead of “you should quit social media”, you should quit particular platforms that have too many toxic users (trolls and just rude people) and you should quit platforms that are run by companies with whose vision you do not agree. I am not saying we should quit Deviant Art or even Twitter, for example.
But yeah, quitting Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp seems like a good idea at the moment. And I did so myself some time ago.
[+] [-] gary_bernhardt|5 years ago|reply
I own https://www.executeprogram.com, which has interactive in-browser courses on various software development technologies. Currently they all cover languages, more or less: TypeScript, SQL, various JS topics, regexes. (Disclosure: it costs money after you finish your 16th lesson.)
Almost all (maybe literally all) of our competitors are amenable to binging. It's true of books, video learning platforms, and most/all other interactive learning platforms.
Execute Program is very intentionally non-bingeable. When you start a course, you get 5 lessons on the first day, then it stops you and tells you to come back tomorrow. On the next day, you get some brief reviews of yesterday's lessons, then a few new lessons, then it stops you again until the next day. That cadence repeats until you finish the course. You can't binge/cram even if you want to.
(A bit more technical detail: it's a spaced repetition system with exponential review intervals, similar to those used for language learning in e.g. WaniKani and Anki. But it also has a lot of fine-grained knowledge of its own course structure, so it can use reviews to intelligently unlock different lessons depending on how the user performed on their reviews.)
Occasionally, we get support email from new users who don't like this. They want to cram a whole course in a day. But cramming is a very time-inefficient way to learn, so this is self-defeating! Since launch, we've had good success adjusting the app's behavior and internal explanations to reduce these complaints.
However, we still get emails from long-term users who appreciate the time limitations. Generally these fall into two categories:
1. Users like that an enforced break before the reviews provides tangible evidence that "yes, I genuinely understood yesterday's lessons". If we allowed cramming, that reassurance wouldn't exist; it's too easy to succeed at a review when you just finished the lesson 30 seconds ago.
2. Users like that the usage limits remove a source of anxiety and worry. You do your reviews and lessons, you finish, and then you wait until tomorrow. There's no temptation to think "I really should've done 10 lessons today instead of 5; I'm so lazy".
It's still possible for a very dedicated user to do all of our courses in parallel within their first monthly billing cycle. (Median course start-to-finish time is 8-18 days depending on the course.) So this scheme doesn't make users pay us more than they would otherwise. And they're spending the same amount of wall-clock time that they'd spend if they crammed all of the lessons in one day. That makes it pure win: they memorize the topics more deeply, they worry less, and they get those benefits for no extra time expenditure. The only exception I can think of would be people who think "I must get exposure to all TypeScript syntax and semantics before tomorrow morning, even if that significantly reduces my ability to remember what I learned."
Obviously I'm very biased here, and the goals that we're optimizing for don't even exist in most other product spaces. But I thought it would be nice to have a counterexample to "engagement at all costs".
[+] [-] charcircuit|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixelbro|5 years ago|reply
You want to stop them from playing through too much of the game's content and burning themselves out on it. So you lock them out with a timer, forcing them to come back later. Then you reward them for coming back every day. This encourages them to turn the game into a habit and integrate it into their routine.
Looks to me like you've accidentally stumbled onto one of the very tactics games use to turn people into addicts.
[+] [-] pedalpete|5 years ago|reply
I like your thinking of non-binge learning, and think you could really use that as a differentiator, in your marketing.
Your site looks great, and I really like the way you approach it, or describe it here, but that isn't coming through in your branding. Think Salesforce's "no software", they showed who the enemy was, and put them squarely against it, and if you really look at it, they were selling a CRM, not selling "no software", you're even closer to your product.
If you haven't yet, you may want to check out the book Play Bigger and category creation.
Just a thought, best of luck to you.
[+] [-] donmcronald|5 years ago|reply
I think a recommended pace that's easy to achieve would make a nice goal, but I would balk at the idea of it being enforced if I were paying money for it.
[+] [-] bostonvaulter2|5 years ago|reply
Also in the "Course" section I think you should include a link to "All Courses" because I almost bounced because none of those three courses were interesting to me (but I eventually found the list at the bottom, and SQL is a topic I'm interested in solidifying further).
Lastly I think it would be great to have a sign-up list to be notified of new courses (I do realize that perhaps if you sign up for a free account you _might_ also get information about new courses, but that's doesn't seem fully certain).
[1] https://www.executeprogram.com/images/diagram-lessons-over-t...
[+] [-] feralimal|5 years ago|reply
Social media requires time from those users - they want to know you, crack you open psychologically, so they can then be better at selling you stuff (and, incidentally, pass all that info on to 3 letter agencies for their population modelling etc). That is a different model. They want you to be deeply engaged for a long time. The longer the better.
[+] [-] JetAlone|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcelerier|5 years ago|reply
who are you to judge how I learn ?
[+] [-] teraku|5 years ago|reply
Great approach, Kudos!
[+] [-] torgian|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cesarvarela|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|5 years ago|reply
However, there's a second, parallel problem adding fuel to the fire: The more we talk about overindulgence in social media (or Netflix, or video games, or fast food) as an act perpetrated by evil corporations on us helpless individuals, the less sense of individual agency we give ourselves. I'm not suggesting that we let social media companies off the hook, but battling this problem is going to require more than simply shaming them in Medium posts. We have to start reminding people that they are in control of their decisions, and that they can take steps to reduce their social media usage to healthy levels.
I know the common refrain is "Delete Facebook!" but that's the equivalent of abstinence-only education. We need to start talking about how to configure Screen Time on iOS, or how to use Facebook's built-in tools to hide content you don't want to see. We also need to encourage people to take control of their feeds, muting users and topics who draw them into unproductive discussions.
[+] [-] mywittyname|5 years ago|reply
I see it more akin to the opioid crisis. Just like drug manufactures shouldn't be pushing opioids as a way to deal with minor pain and depression because they know it hooks users. Maybe social media companies shouldn't be pushing hateful and outrageous content to hook their users.
You can sing about personal responsibility all you want. But these companies pay scientists millions of dollars a year to come up with ways to keep you hooked. The only way to win is not to play the game. Normal people are seriously outgunned here.
[+] [-] _greim_|5 years ago|reply
To this list I'd add the concept of epistemic hygiene. Just as crowding together in metropolises re-wired our culture to value hygiene, these informational metropolises of social media will eventually cause us to greatly value epistemic hygiene. Seeing a rage-inducing headline would then evoke a kind of "ew..." response. At least, this is what I hope will happen. Maybe it will require a generational turnover.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|5 years ago|reply
A lot of the calls-to-action used to generate "engagement" are the same calls to action used for legitimate communications, and the only way to tell is to "engage" with the product.
There's nothing wrong with people opening their social media app if they receive a real message from a friend. The problem is when the platform is incentivized to "manufacture" messages even when there aren't any.
[+] [-] loveistheanswer|5 years ago|reply
Not at all; its more like breaking up with a toxic, manipulative, dishonest partner. There's many more fish in the sea and there's many more ways to heathily socialize than just Facebook. Though I suppose people in abusive relationships often have a sort of Stockholm syndrome where they see no alternatives.
[+] [-] jillianschuller|5 years ago|reply
This is going to make a world of difference the first time people try it. I started monitoring screen time/configuring notifications about a year ago, and made me feel a lot better about the time I spent on my phone.
But, all of this assumes that social media should (and will) stay the same as it currently is with addictive never ending feeds and endless notifications.
At the end of last year I sat down thought of what social media could look like if it was designed to be used less, and in a way that would add value to people.
For me, that looked like intentional written reflections, shared with a small circle of close friends and family. To keep me from scrolling, there would be no feed. To keep me from checking my phone, content would rarely be surfaced.
This ended up becoming Sundayy, a mindful social network that you can only check once a week (on Sunday): https://www.sundayy.app
Each day you're prompted to slow down and reflect, but there is no feed of reflections. They're all kept secret, for now. At the end of the week, on Sunday, reflections are revealed. It's a more intimate insight into how people close to you lived their week - day by day and in their own words.
We should definitely bring more awareness to monitoring screen time and curating feeds, but we should also question whether we should have to do any of that at all :)
[+] [-] mumblemumble|5 years ago|reply
If it's done well, it should have the opposite effect. Describing all the ways that companies are trying to get you addicted will help inoculate people against their tricks. In order to psychologically defend yourself, you first need to understand exactly what you're defending yourself against.
[+] [-] AdmiralGinge|5 years ago|reply
I couldn't agree more, and to add to that I think it's usually a foolish approach to treat people as hapless automatons without any agency if you're trying to convince them that your point is worth listening to. If you look at two of the worst political failures in the UK recently (the Remain campaign for the Brexit referendum in 2016 and Labour's election campaign in 2019), I think what they have in common is that they essentially told people "you're a downtrodden proletariat buffeted about by forces well outside your control, but we can make things better for you" which is such a foolish approach in my opinion. Regardless of whether they actually do or not, the average person likes to think they're in control of their own destiny so blaming everything on Facebook being manipulative bastards will never work if your aim is to change the public's relationship with social media.
[+] [-] ckosidows|5 years ago|reply
The options seem to be: 1) Delete your social media account 2) Set up timers (OS-level, account-level, etc) 3) Filter you feed to only the people who matter
The first two options didn't work for me. I created a new account and deleted the timers. The first option left me feeling excluded. The second option just turned SM into a drip-feed, making me check whenever the timer was up. If they work for you, great!
The option that worked was to filter facebook and snapchat to only show people who personally mattered to me in the physical world. I only see things about people I come into contact with and care about. I know them well enough to know the whole story rather than just what they post at face value. Their posts can encourage conversations rather than make me feel bad about some cool thing I'll never do or know more about.
Social media is a tool which, used effectively, can benefit you. But used ineffectively it can harm you. I hope schools of the future or some people/institution teach effective social media use. Or hopefully we can enforce social media companies to follow some regulations regarding user wellbeing.
[+] [-] rapind|5 years ago|reply
The optimist in me see’s how ridiculous and blatant the drivel is becoming and suspects we’ll achieve some sort of collective enlightenment before we extinct ourselves. A smarter media then emerges (timing is everything here) eschewing advertising dollars in favour of a more consumer friendly model.
Then again, I’m probably being naive.
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|5 years ago|reply
We are so outgunned it's almost ridiculous to try. The game is rigged.
[+] [-] antwerpz|5 years ago|reply
Abstinence as a strategy is not in and of itself flawed. The way lots of people cope with the dangers of heroin is simply by never trying it their whole life. Lots of addicts adopt a strategy of permanent abstinence, forever.
Some things are very harmful. I don't think we all need to try all to them, just to make sure.
[+] [-] matwood|5 years ago|reply
Exactly. I not a big FB user, but last year I was on a lot more than normal b/c I was home. Then one day I realized I was just either arguing with family or reading things that left me disappointed, and wondered why am I subjecting myself to this? I didn't delete my account because I still use messenger to communicate to a few people, but I haven't been on FB proper for months.
[+] [-] AndrewUnmuted|5 years ago|reply
Isn't this also denying people their individual agency, though? Using Facebook is not like sex is for teens, who are faced with the rather unavoidable biological realities of puberty. There are many ways to achieve the things people seek from Facebook, some technological and some not.
We don't need to start under the assumption that people will not be able to commit to having more healthy media consumption habits. These tools offered by Apple, Facebook and Google you mention are not things we should be encouraging. If these companies had the user's best interests at heart, their products would not need these kinds of sub-features in the first place. But when you study the gambling and nicotine industries to figure out how to better hook your users to your mobile apps, you didn't start out from the right place. So I would reckon the answer to that would be to abstain from the product entirely.
[+] [-] scsilver|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] santoshalper|5 years ago|reply
Seriously, give it a try. Shockingly easy.
[+] [-] reaperducer|5 years ago|reply
I have my home router configured to not allow any social media-capable devices to connect on Sundays.
After a few weeks, the FOMO cycle is broken and you realize that there's more to life than scrolling.
[+] [-] xg15|5 years ago|reply
Those tools are provided by exactly the same companies that were manufacturing the addiction in the first. The tools can be revoked or changed the second they show signs of actually being effective.
Sorry, but this is like asking your drug dealer to help you with becoming clean.
[+] [-] ummonk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heterodoxxed|5 years ago|reply
In aggregate, the population is at the mercy of material forces. Turning a social problem into an individual moral failing has never managed to solve anything at scale.
[+] [-] mumblehat|5 years ago|reply
There are countless other examples out there. I just finished "Cruel Britannia" regarding the torture practices of the British over the last century. They were particularly adept at it. Euphemism is such a powerful tool for doublethink and systemic abuses of power.
[+] [-] roughly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HNfriend234|5 years ago|reply
I saw this clear as day when I was at jury duty. We were waiting for the court to get back into session. There was a girl sitting next to me on the bench and I noticed about every 5 minutes she would open up her phone and go through her routine. First pull up facebook, scroll through it. Close the app then pull up instragram, scroll through. She did this consistently for the entire 2 hours we were sitting there (the court was delayed). If that isn't addiction, I don't know what is.
Then look at all the mental health problems young people are having these days - bullying, depression, suicide etc. and I would say a big part of that is influenced by social media. People see other people living the "good life" and they get depressed because they can't have the same. Young women see "pretty" women on Instagram and they know they can never compete with that, so their self esteem drops to nothing. Then you have all the bullying that goes on as well. Completely toxic environment.
Social media is the cigarette of our generation.
[+] [-] CivBase|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewla|5 years ago|reply
If you water down the meaning of "addiction" enough then you can say that anything is "addictive" and with that, you can carry over all the connotations of the word.
Then people start saying "I'm addicted to coffee" and "I'm addicted to bread" and before you know it people saying "I'm addicted to heroin" are met with "well, why don't you just stop, like I did with coffee for a week that time".
Since the dawn of time people have tried to make things that people want to use. Making "addiction" a synonym for "success" is just stupid.
[+] [-] hector_vasquez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgraczyk|5 years ago|reply
Yes, using Facebook instead of doing something like talking in person or reading a book is probably worse for you in the long run.
But most people don't do those things instead of Facebook. Instead they use Tiktok. Or watch TV. Or read Teen Vogue. Or get drunk and watch reality TV. Or sit alone in their nursing home with no real connection to any other human.
Facebook doesn't want you to be addicted, addiction is bad for user retention in the long term. Facebook wants you to be a happy, healthy Facebook Family of Apps™ user. I know this because I oversee ML launches on some of the highly controversial/addictive surfaces on a certain Facebook property.
[+] [-] crowdhailer|5 years ago|reply
But how do you measure success, we're a messaging app. - Total messages sent - Number of conversations.
Measuring any of this will mean we optimise keeping users on the platform.
We're trying active conversations, where to be active means only at least one message per week. We'd love to find a metric which went up as each individual user spent less time on memo. A "time to solution" metric
[+] [-] Nbox9|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teh_infallible|5 years ago|reply
Yes, you can argue social media is harmful, but it generally does not cause people to lose their jobs or spend all their money.
[+] [-] kgin|5 years ago|reply
This idea of app makers as dealers of crack is incredibly self-aggrandizing. It's like someone saying every time they move to new city, they have to register their hands as deadly weapons. Let's take it down a notch, buddy, you're not that powerful.
99% of the time, makers of one addictive app find themselves completely unable to make a new one (exhibit a: Facebook) and just use their profits to buy up that tiny 1% apps that happened to get lucky and strike oil.
Apps can be addictive. Everyone is trying to make addictive apps. But let's also be clear that nearly everyone who tries, fails.
[+] [-] falcolas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jointPrb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heterodoxxed|5 years ago|reply
The incentive of an ad-supported, vc-funded social media is to addict you.
The incentive of a subscription service is to be useful enough that you stay subscribed. If you log in once a week but never cancel, that's the ideal situation for a subscription service.
What I wrestle with is whether consumers will ever accept a small subscription fee (and I mean VERY small) after they've been given everything for free, even if it meant less psychological manipulation, no ads and strong privacy.
[+] [-] kjrose|5 years ago|reply
It's shocking how much material on social networks is really just marketing disguised as grassroots. Or worse marketing specifically designed to tickle our other addictions, especially sensual addictions.
So now you get a double hit and these companies love it because the marketers pay the bills.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] elihu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beyondcompute|5 years ago|reply
I myself would say instead of “you should quit social media”, you should quit particular platforms that have too many toxic users (trolls and just rude people) and you should quit platforms that are run by companies with whose vision you do not agree. I am not saying we should quit Deviant Art or even Twitter, for example.
But yeah, quitting Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp seems like a good idea at the moment. And I did so myself some time ago.