Facebook is the 21st century tech equivalent of cigarettes

http://oznathan.quora.com/Facebook-is-the-21st-century-tech-equivalent-of-cigarettes-And-now-I-can-finally-prove-it

by oznathan • 13 years ago

29 15 13 years ago

oznathan.quora.com

I lost it at the idea that there are more poor souls trying to figure out how you exit from vi[m] than there are alcoholics looking for advice on quitting.

Alternatively, one could argue that using vi[m] is equivalent to a harmful addiction and the only cure is Emacs.

Otherwise, the issue is more accurate when you do 's/Facebook/web/'.

dasil003• 13 years ago

Everything you said here exactly mirrors my response to this article. I understand intellectually how addictive Facebook is, but for me personally it's nowhere near as addictive as HN, or countless other intellectual stimuli on the web.

But the addiction is more like a food addiction than cigarettes, because I need to consume a certain amount for my career. It's just a question of reigning in excess and focus when I need it.

singron• 13 years ago

Google search autocompletions are not a great way to gauge public attitude. To start, they are personalized, which is probably why vim was on the author's list at all. Secondly, they lack context. For instance, when Google auto completes "women shouldn't " with some sexist completion such as "drive", the resulting search is often full of blog articles orating _against_ sexism.

adsche• 13 years ago

Ha, as a long long time vim user, it didn't even occur to me that people meant "how to exit vim". I honestly thought there are people out there, trying to quit their vim-addiction :)

croisillon• 13 years ago

As a non-smoker currently reading Allen Carr's "Easyway" in order to find a solution against my procrastination problem, I completely understand the parallel but I don't agree. Facebook might be OP's habit to kill time but this works equally good with any Twitter, Reddit, or even HN. The problem (for addicts) is that those websites constantly stream some short new items, easily read, easily forgotten. It's the same dynamic indeed as going for a smoke instead of doing some work but it's not exclusive to facebook and facebook is not killing you.

kken• 13 years ago

"How to quit XXX" can mean many things.

* Smoking: How to stop a nicotine additiction

* Alcohol: How to stop an alcohol additiction

* Vi: How to end the program once you have started it out of curiosity. (Hint: Kill process from another console and never look back)

* Facebook: How to find the hidden options to erase your account and data.

The pretense of the article is a bit idiotic, but I am not sure it is to be taken at face (haha) value.

scotchmi_st• 13 years ago

Addiction is quite a vague word, and gets mistreated. It isn't a good word when we're considering whether continue with a particular behaviour. Instead, we should just be looking at whether something has a negative impact on the individual. Smoking is generally thought to have a overall negative impact on a person, and those around them, mostly as it significantly increases their chance of death. To some degree it's possible that someone who spends their whole day on Facebook wouldn't have time for more important activities, and would see some bad outcomes there. But those people aside, using facebook has a lot of very beneficial social effects, such as allowing friends who don't see each other very often to stay in contact. I think the effects of using Facebook are a net positive.

graeme• 13 years ago

This is consistent with my anecdotal experience. People talk about Facebook as something that gives no satisfaction, but they do anyway.

Facebook also has some extraordinary benefits, so it's hard to quit. I meet more people when I travel, I've made new friends in town, and I met my favourite author as a result of his Facebook presence.

But that's 1% of my time on Facebook. The other 99% is pure waste. But something about it makes it very hard to go in, take care of what I intend to, and leave. I don't have the same trouble with most sites.

hornbaker• 13 years ago

He really should have used an incognito browser window for his Google "how to quit..." autocomplete example (facebook, smoking, vim, drinking), as it's apparently biased from his own browsing habits.

Going incognito in Chrome, the list is quite different (smoking, a job, your job, smoking weed): http://i.imgur.com/wsH60zm.png

Which makes me curious: does everyone else see the same list in Chrome incognito, or is Google doing some tracking by IP / browser fingerprint?

(Someone should build GoogleCounselor.com, an automated service to tell you what your bad habits are.)

pedrocr• 13 years ago

They're definitely targetting other things than users. I get "snoring, smoking, hiccups, coughing".

oznathan2• 13 years ago

I have never googled anything related to quitting facebook, cigarettes, drinking nor vim. I don't even know what vim is.

But it would have been better to search in incognito mode.

Atroxide• 13 years ago

And this article is the 21st century article equivalent of cigarettes.. Both will give you cancer.

First off, he uses his personal google results, in incognito mode you wouldn't get these results (and you don't get anything related to facebook at all with this search query). Second, the term "How to quit facebook" isn't the same as "How to quit smoking" since "How to quit facebook" could be asking how to delete an account (which has nothing to do with addiction.) Third, there is a bias towards technology when using google search, things dealing with technology and especially the web will ALWAYS be higher up than searches relating to physical things, you can't use frequency of web searches as any type of statistic when comparing between a web based search and a physical based search.

So basically, this article is just as cancerous as cigarettes. Take it with a (HUGE) grain of salt.

teebrz• 13 years ago

The Google search is only mentioned once in passing in the text, and in the image.

Their argument is based on the number of users/groups on lift. This is of course, also pretty flimsy - but I don't think its being presented as scientifically rigorous; just as an observation that many people are trying to give up Facebook (and apparently having some trouble).

oznathan2• 13 years ago

I think that your reply is a bit extreme.

The Google argument is mentioned once, and is not what led me to the conclusion. I found it while I was searching for an image to add to the post.

Most people that I know who deleted their Facebook account did it because they were wasting too much time on it. This is my subjective experience and opinion.

Sorry for giving you cancer.

thewarrior• 13 years ago

Its become fashionable to bash Facebook but comparing it to cigarettes is a bit extreme.

People need something to waste their time. Real life can get very bland at times. If Facebook didnt exist its not as if people would suddenly start self actualizing , writing novels and building companies. They'd probably be watching TV. We all need to turn our brains off for a few hours every day.

Till recently it was television and now its Facebook. But its way better as it is interactive and ties into the basic human need to gain the approval of others.

Those who profit are the ones who recognize these basic human needs and tap into them.

HN is the same thing but targeted at nerds. But the basic flow is the same. Its mindless and effortless , offering just enough novelty that you don't get bored.

People criticize things like Facebook and Farmville for being mindless and dull. But thats precisely why they're popular. Its an endless stream of slight novelty for very little effort. We need novelty and creating it ourselves can take too much effort. At the end of a long day our brains are just too tired.

Thats why we have Michael Bay Movies , Chick Lit and Twilight.

In the days before TV and electricity, alcohol and drugs may have been one of the ways to unwind and maybe in a weird way that validates OPs thesis.

I use Facebook mainly for the chat feature. Facebook turns acquaintances into friends and though some people dislike this ,for me its a big plus. It keeps me in touch with people who share common interests whom I wouldnt get to meet as often in real life.

Also Facebook is a gateway drug to participating in other online communities and realizing the power of people forming groups over the internet.

Facebook is the 21st century tech equivalent of cigarettes

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