Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78oMjNCAayQ

by waytogo • 9 years ago

207 71 9 years ago

sarreph• 9 years ago

This was posted over a month ago [0] — and has been discussed in numerous ways since then.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk

EDIT — Thanks to cpv (below), this is the discussion I should've linked to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15900551

waytogo2• 9 years ago

This is not entirely true. Your link leads to a 56 minutes video while my linked video is just 4 minutes and providing the relevant discussion point.

Moreover, I couldn't find any larger discussion: I searched HN with the link you gave and found only two postings, one with 1 point and another one with 7 points and only 2 comments.

cpv• 9 years ago

Probably this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15900551

andy_ppp• 9 years ago

I hadn’t seen this yet, I think we can all agree using machine learning to brainwash people is bad and probably more effective that you might think given Cambridge Analytica’s and Russia’s recent successes.

tanilama• 9 years ago

He has no proof of that

paulcole• 9 years ago

Talk is cheap after you got rich off of it.

jabgrabdthrow• 9 years ago

Can you explain your point more clearly? Are you saying that he’s not credible because he got rich off of it?

beachy• 9 years ago

Perhaps that he could have done more, earlier, but choose the money instead.

rublev2• 9 years ago

He's just another rich asshole working a new angle now that he made his billion. At no point in time during his time at FB did he have a conscience? He could have done more earlier.

Just seems like he's working a new angle now to grow his billion into two.

baq2• 9 years ago

Yes it is, it's still better to listen than not.

marricks• 9 years ago

He provides good examples and reasoning for his fears, but still it'd be great to have a larger book/discourse on this.

One of Facebook's defenses of this is that they hire psychologists etc, but it's to better train this system.

More people coming out against this sort of thing after they've had first hand experience is good!

callesgg2• 9 years ago

I have been saying that for a while now.

Social media is great for the individual but horrible for society.

gaius• 9 years ago

Great for the individual in the very short term but any longer than that, the society in which the individual exists is degraded enough to impact them too.

touristtam2• 9 years ago

It's just a tool, thought. It doesn't preclude the capacity for any individual to have a critical thinking about news and events.

baq2• 9 years ago

Brexit and Trump are two examples of a nation state actor using the... tool... for their purposes and succeeding. It's like vaccination: if you don't use it, you're still feeling the effects of others using it even if you're living far away and never knew them.

oblio• 9 years ago

We do regulate many tools because not all members of society can be trusted to operate them properly (the young, elderly, those temporarily vulnerable due to mental issues, etc.).

callesgg2• 9 years ago

It does not preclude it but it certainly does not make it easier.

I think you suffer from the delusion that the human mind is rational and logical. It can be, under certain limited conditions. But under most circumstances it is a complete mess.

lerie822• 9 years ago

Oh get over yourself, this video is disgustingly egotistical. "ripping apart the social fabric", I absolutely doubt that. This is getting way out of hand. Social media isn't ripping any core values apart, and nothing he has said in this video proves it.

superbrama• 9 years ago

Just curious if you’ve any anecdotes about behavior of nouveau generation. While not a parent myself I’ve heard many times from parent and youth peers that the new generations are entirely lacking IRL social skills, instead deferring their social lives entirely to their digital presence. As a result, basic conversational skills development is limited.

lerie822• 9 years ago

I work with many people who are still in high school or right out of high school and none of them seem to be lacking social skills.

meddlepal• 9 years ago

Maybe it's just another case of the new generation just isn't like the old generation. Jazz music, rock music, drugs, cars, fast women, violent video games, porn... You name it and every generation has something the previous generation thinks is destroying society.

Social media is the new rock n roll.

sumeno• 9 years ago

I'm shocked that older generations are complaining about younger generations! Shocked!

dang2• 9 years ago

Oh get over yourself, this video is disgustingly egotistical

Please don't post rage rants to HN. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hkmurakami• 9 years ago

For those winding who the exec is, it's Chamath, who iirc was FB's first heat of growth.

rwnspace4• 9 years ago

Tristram Harris [1][2] is worth listening to on these points, I'm sure many on HN are already aware.

Without rambling too much, I'm one of those over-sensitive, slightly aspie types that reads SSC and gets carried away with over-analysing the zeitgeist. Uncharitably, you might say 'smart but weak-minded'. The longer I spend in front of social media, the more and more in tatters I feel. I spent a week entirely disconnected from the 'net a month ago and I can't stress how restorative it was for me. Though, alarmingly, I was back in full swing soon after I returned.

For those of you who have problems with self-control and sustaining your attention, and think it has something to do with your browsing habits, I highly recommend you - I urge you - to disconnect in a significant way. Of course it's up to you what that means.

In September I gave up smoking, and the physical and psychological changes I underwent were pretty surprising. I felt more present and in-the-moment (and other barely-describable-but-definitely-nice feelings) than I had done in years. Despite smoking 25 a day, I have found quitting Reddit much, much harder; despite being convinced it's as bad for my mental health as smoking was for my physical.

I think there's something to be said about identifying addiction patterns in your life and exorcising them. The small amounts of progress I've made recently have certainly felt as though they've increased my net level of agency and free will. I wish that flowery metaphors about demons were more readily acceptable, because software is a lot like wizardy - and it really does feel like dark sorcery has been cast to possess the West.

[1] http://www.tristanharris.com/essays/ [2] https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/what-is-technology-do...

Mouse472• 9 years ago

Can you elaborate on how you felt after you took your week off? In particular I'm interested in differences in sleep requirements & quality, difficulty handling eye contact (the 'slightly aspie' stuff), and general cognition. "In tatters": can I get a description of that also?

Only reason I ask is because I've had a similar experience...twice. Once when moving into an apartment (no power, close proximity to roommates) and again when on a trip (golfing all day, close proximity again). My "symptoms" include pretty serious social anxiety and an inability to think during conversations, inability to focus on non-interesting work, and just a general feeling of being dumber.

tetraca• 9 years ago

My "symptoms" include pretty serious social anxiety and an inability to think during conversations, inability to focus on non-interesting work, and just a general feeling of being dumber.

Well, I guess I'm not alone. I feel like I've struggled with that for many years.

avtar• 9 years ago

My "symptoms" include pretty serious social anxiety and an inability to think during conversations, inability to focus on non-interesting work, and just a general feeling of being dumber.

That hit really close to home. I've attributed my symptoms to lack of exercise and perhaps not reading enough long-form but this all conjecture at this point.

rwnspace4• 9 years ago

I felt more socially confident (perhaps not confident exactly, though that was an aspect -- more strident). My sleep was at healthy times, for slightly longer, but the difference between being 'asleep' and 'awake' was, well, night and day. Rather than the slow, drawn-out waking, for which there's a gateway to very negative appraisal of the world. When I came back, I binged, heavily.

'In tatters', hmm... My self-regulation is poor but I'm desperately trying to claw upwards, so I have erected a lot of barriers between me and my lovely but drug-addicted friends, which gives me a lot of free time. I spend a lot of time purposefully and sanely researching things I want to learn, where I should learn them from, then feeling pooped out and gawping in front of YouTube or Reddit, then blaming myself for wasting time etc etc. It's hard to summarise, to be honest. Feeling 'locked-up' and 'scattered', maybe? I'm often exhausted by reading Reddit, it really feels like work. Honestly, I feel like I spend most days working intensely and not sleeping enough to manage it. Despite spending most of my time gaining weight on a desk chair, and not actually working.

I'm very gullible. I tend to remember a lot of what I read, and I'm naturally full of doubt, and over-analytical. So reading a thousand conflicting opinions on subjects makes me... A little loopy and conflicted. Like I'm always in last place, trying to catch up with the 'right' opinion on everything. There was a Reddit thread for the OP's link just today, where someone mentioned arguing with their girlfriend like an anonymous Redditor - I also definitely empathise with that one.

I have problems with eye contact, for sure, I tend to 'fall into' it if I look too long, as it seems to me to be a remarkably intense thing to hold eye contact for longer than an instant.

I was diagnosed with ADHD-PI in September, and haven't gotten on medication for it just yet (I've been disorganised...). I think reddit-like media is particularly bad for people like us. They say ADHD is more of a working memory disorder than anything, and I think we need our cache clearing regularly, let's say. A Reddit addiction tops it up at every opportunity.

agumonkey• 9 years ago

I recently put some money on bitcoin, I don't think there's much difference to the neverending stream web of today and gambling money. It's true you're rushing for something exciting. A new info, a new tweet, new joke, it's zapping web scale. I gradually tried to disconnect but I think I should just go full stop for a week.

300bps• 9 years ago

Despite smoking 25 a day, I have found quitting Reddit much, much harder

I started using BBS systems in 1985 and reddit in 2006. Left reddit several times, deleting my account(s) each time. Finally left it for good about a year and a half ago and am so glad it's gone. I've replaced it with some similar things like HN but reddit is such a particularly addictive and destructive site it's worth singling out for avoidance.

_xgw• 9 years ago

You mention that you replaced Reddit with some similar things like HN. If you don't mind me asking, what are they? I've failed to find content with the quality of discussion that can be found here.

koenigdavidmj• 9 years ago

Can you expand the SSC initialism? Google and Wikipedia don't seem to be very helpful.

ASipos• 9 years ago

Slate Star Codex, probably

folksinger2• 9 years ago

What your life is missing is meaning. Meaning is action. If a word means anything at all it is because it is in reference to some kind of actual experience.

Blogs, books, and media of all kind are basically meaningless. Vanity of vanities and all that jazz.

You need to experience life. You need to find meaning through action. You need to become a poet by becoming the poem.

Help your neighbor with his hobbies. Cook dinner for your family. Sing a song for a friend. Do something, anything, for someone else.

Realize the inaction and the meaningless nature of sitting in one place and searching for answers on screen or in print.

If you must read, read all text as a poem, or at least read poetry itself!

The darkness that you see is just a fiction. How could it be anything else? The magic spells are just words on a page. Belief is what makes them seem real.

Go outside. Go for a walk. There is no darkness. It is boring and peaceful and that should put your mind to rest.

winter_blue• 9 years ago

Wow, that was really spot on, and good to read.

Thank you for writing that.

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

Consuming media without further participation in life may be meaningless, but to assert that they're inherently meaningless is nonsense. Many people are perfectly capable to grasping ideas in the abstract and then implementing them in reality.

rwnspace4• 9 years ago

Thank you.

sibeliuss• 9 years ago

I would always worry that if I permanently deleted (not deactivated -- deleted) my Facebook account something would be lost, but this just wasn't the case in practice. Once it was gone it felt like nothing was ever there to begin with, and I feel _so much better_. I highly recommend that others take a leap of faith and do the same.

taway20171214• 9 years ago

the same goes for real life stuff that you don't use on a daily or weekly basis. just get rid of it if you haven't used it in a year.

Danihan2• 9 years ago

My issue with replacing something like reddit is... what exactly to replace it with?

Reddit is entertaining and free. Every time I quit, I end up still seeking out entertainment, but it's no longer free. Movies, gambling, restaurants, bars. TV is free but even less entertaining, imo. Books feel like mental masturbation and very few change my worldviews at this point.

My overall conclusion has been that reddit is not that bad of a habit, comparatively.

jwatte• 9 years ago

The whole problem of the main thread is that people seek entertainment (dopamine.) This is mindless and not constructive. If the alternative was watching TV, yeah, Reddit isn't that bad. But if the alternative is exercise, or serving homeless, or inventing a new way of cleaning air, or having deep conversations with your family, or creating art, then that Reddit habit deprived your life of meaning and impact.

isodude• 9 years ago

I can relate with the fact that taking a longer break from connectivity is very healthy. I found that as I sat on a bus my first instinct was to call a friend. That is not a problem per se, but this I did for every ride. With enough friends I was be able to keep that up all the time. The same pattern was present in everything I did, sitting home alone was not an option.

In the end I lost my phone and felt that I shouldn't get a new one, at the same time my computer was at a friends place. All of a sudden my appartment was without mobile and computer connectivity (not a even a clock!). All of a sudden I could here myself again and I felt stronger and more filled with energy than in a long time.

Later on I have seen talks on precisely the same thing where they talk about how we end up skipping those small breaks we need to take during the day.

It was just a couple of days ago I heard about people who build dark rooms in their home where they can retract and replenish. Munks being the extremes.

I think it's great to find the things you can't handle, IRC, Reddit or Facebook, it's all the same if it steals those small breaks from your schedule. A compact schedule without those will eventually make you break.

Oddly enough I find that Hacker News is totally fine since it's easy to surf in on the most upvoted , read through the headlines, read comments for the interesting parts and be done with it. In the end that's basically the only site I read now a day since my life is busy enough with family and work.

I too have problems with controlling how much I do stuff, obviously. But taking note that it is actually an issue and doing it in controlled doses are really empowering. Choose platforms wisely :) Meditation helps.

Also, quitting IRC was about the hardest thing I've done (but I got my life back), but taking away part by part, channel by channel, i.e. stop gaming since that was why I used chats, made it so much easier to just walk away. Did the same with facebook recently and it was awesome.

eyeareque• 9 years ago

He stated what I have felt for years, in words much better than I could.

If you struggle to disconnect from social media because you feel like you’ll miss out on friends, remember this: If social media is the only thing connecting you to a friend, they aren’t that good of a friend anyway. Your true friends will not disappear if you delete Facebook.

hateduser2• 9 years ago

Your potential true friends will. Also, it’s not just about your true friends anyways, is it? There’s more to why we like social media than just that (although granted you qualified your statement). Anyways I don’t want to make it harder for you to quit but I don’t think misleading yourself (intentionally or not) and others is the right way to do it.

watwut• 9 years ago

Even people without true friends need acquitances and social contact. The consequence for many is not knowing about social activities at all and thus not being able to participate at all because they tend to get organized over facebook. Moreover, there is such a thing as being special snowflake that refuses to use same practical tool as everyone and demand that others do out of way especially for him.

Lastly, not everyone has super rich social life that would make it easy to make and keep friends. Many people work a lot of hours in companies that change every 2 year, limiting opportunities for friends time. Others have children they already feel they spend too little time with. The loose connection when you react to each others posts is much better then comelet cut off.

ryandrake• 9 years ago

That’s the usual objection whenever I advocate getting off of Facebook: “But I will lose contact with all my friends!” So, how did you contact them before Facebook?

The fear is unjustified. Your actual friends will keep in contact, just like they did before Facebook. I left FB 5+ years ago and by some great miracle I still have a robust social life, and as a bonus am not wasting hours a day scrolling through useless information about the lives of remote acquaintances.

notacoward• 9 years ago

What's true for you is not necessarily true for others. Are you still in touch with the people you knew in kindergarten? How many years ago was that? Consider that some people might have two or three times that many adult years of changing cities, changing jobs, changing life circumstances, each change resulting in more people with whom staying in touch is not automatic as it is with current classmates or coworkers. Some of them might have less free time because of family and other obligations. Some of them might have disabilities. Some might be more introverted than you are, which does not mean that they need human contact less but that it might take more effort to sustain it. Many people who are not exactly the same as you might find great value in having a lightweight way to maintain those tenuous contacts. Deriding them as not "true friends" or assuming that only "true friends" matter is very egocentric and privileged.

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

If social media is the only thing connecting you to a friend, they aren’t that good of a friend anyway.

Sure, I have friends like that. I also have friendships that began on social media and endured for years, including both people I've never met in real life due to geographic separation/difficulty of travel and people that I have met and got on with equally well in person. Perhaps you haven't experienced that yet, but I've been hearing this clicheed dismissal of virtual relationships for ~25 years now and it's getting pretty old.

thinkcomp• 9 years ago

https://twitter.com/AaronGreenspan/status/945716138939269120

snvzz• 9 years ago

This reminded me of Reciprocality/The Programmers' Stone, which I hadn't heardf about in a while.

https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/

md2242• 9 years ago

Just want to make a couple points:

- I think everyone understands this, but it bears repeating: dopamine isn't the problem here, as it will be involved in any rewarding behavior. The real claim being made is that we have created technologies that give us too much and/or the wrong kind of pleasure.

- We should consider that "junk food" pleasure (the internet, TV, drugs, actual junk food, etc.) can be useful as a coping mechanism for individuals facing trauma, stress, depression, or other psychological issues. We should consider the possibility that healthier coping mechanisms might be insufficient or unavailable in certain situations. It might actually be a good thing that we've come up with a portable technology (the smartphone) that can be used on the go for short bursts of dopamine. In terms of addictions, you could do worse.

All that being said, I agree that people can develop unhealthy relationships with technology, and we should be working (as always) in the direction of harm reduction.

ben_jones• 9 years ago

The problem is when necessary human coping mechanisms combine with capitalism.

That's when you get children's advertising for junkfood. Facebook pushing controversial shock stories to stir up users. And the War on Drugs leading to environments like the Opioid crisis.

I wonder if this is even avoidable - exercise for example is a huge industry and whether you're paying for a gym membership, exercise classes, or a new bike, you're paying...

dgudkov• 9 years ago

Every new massively successful technology requires a new kind of social education. When cars became popular people had to be educated to respect pedestrian signals and not jaywalk. With the mass adoption of credit cards and ATMs people had to be educated to keep their PINs secret and not write them right on credit cards.

Social networks require new social education that should start with realizing their potentials downsides which I believe is still the most difficult part.

monksy• 9 years ago

I think this was evident on porn's impact on relationships, and you're just seeing it hit mainstream via facebook (wider audience).

Noos• 9 years ago

Amazing how Facebook is the new Dungeons and Dragons, corrupting people's minds through (now scientific) invisible demons.

pwaai• 9 years ago

This is what a lot of us have figured out and stopped using facebook. I briefly checked in last year and was overwhelmed by the number of engagements, marriages, newborns, relationships. The eerie thing is everybody's life looked very similar from one another, happy, smiling instagramed filters where they momentarily pose for selfies.

Then it hit me. I know what makes me disappointed about society today. It's that we consider the image of success more important than reality. For example, the mainstream collectively considers steve jobs as the ideal entrepreneur, when when we knew he made billions off the backs of children and women in horrible working conditions in an authoritarian government. How about Bill Cosby, Mel Gibson, Lance Armstrong, Trump, Weinstein? How great did you think those people were before revealing themselves to be a complete hoax? Especially when society has been reduced to spamming a running commentary of bullshit masquerading as insight, our social media faking as intimacy. Or is it that we voted for this? Not with our rigged elections, but with our things, our property, our money. I'm not saying anything new. We all know why we do this, not because Hunger Games books make us happy but because we wanna be sedated. Because it's painful not to pretend, because we're cowards.

whamlastxmas• 9 years ago

Trump is a hoax? People overwhelmingly enjoy working for him and he's made tremendous progress on his campaign promises.

anigbrowl3• 9 years ago

Wait, you mean people 'keep up with the Joneses' online as well as in real life? Social media ia new venue for an old behavior. People who are shallow online are shallow in real life, it's just more 3d. Likewise, people who are thoughtful and interesting online tend to be similarly so in person.

I also have a jaundiced view of society, but it's naive to think it was great and than got completely wrecked by social media (or TV, or jazz music, or dancing, or...). Going down that path will just lead to being a bitter reactionary. Instead, examine your prior premise of what you thought society was or should be, and consider whether that was a historical actuality or a frustrated desire. A good deal depends on whether you conceive of people to 'naturally' be good or bad and whether/how they are shaped by society or vice versa, so your consideration should include some philosophical reading since this is a fundamental question philosophers struggle with.

Read some history too. If you're American, I suggest 'American Nations' by Colin Woodard, which offers a sweeping overview of the competing forces that have shaped US society and makes for an interesting contrast to the increasingly dysfunctional idealogical monomyth.

Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

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