This is probably the primary reason that I can't get behind the Zuckerberg worship, no matter how much philanthropy he's involved in or how dedicated he is to self-improvement and so on. The man's main contribution to humanity is the spiritual equivalent of cigarettes -- toxic, addictive by design, and marketed to young people. It's gross. FB is gross, and that makes Zuckerberg gross.
Mark Zuckerberg didn't invent social networking. If it wasn't facebook, it would be some other website. Social media doesn't cause people to envy others or engage in behaviors that you don't approve of. Human nature does. The problem here lies in the collective mirror.
I've seen no evidence that Mark Zuckerberg is anything other than a normal ivy league type guy. I'm sure that he hears dozens of positive things about facebook every single day - it helped someone meet their spouse, connect with old friends, solve a problem. It's likely that in his view he's doing something to make the world a better place. Some may focus more on the negative aspects of facebook, and that's fair. But there doesn't seem to be any reason to question his character.
> Social media doesn't cause people to envy others or engage in behaviors that you don't approve of. Human nature does.
That's precisely what's in dispute here.
Different social media applications yield different results. Some of us believe that facebook is designed to cause envy, woe, and want in order to sell.
The thing about Usenet is that it trained you how to discuss things in public. It is a rhetoric laboratory. It's very useful learning to harden yourself to envy, woe and want. Eventually, such things become a mirror and if you don't like what you see, change it.
You can take out Zuckerberg and it would change things only at the margins.
People are constantly trying to figure out how to be attractive, and they constantly look out for who is attractive around them. The embers to produce social media websites like Facebook are already there, Zuckerberg was only the match.
Zuckerberg not creating Facebook doesn't change the fact that we're in an era where singers and socialites are celebrities, as opposed to the previous era, where society was more enamoured with intellectuals like Einstein and Haber, or the era before that where people looked up to generals like Ulysses Grant for unifying the nation.
Facebook is a product of today's decadence, rather than the other way around.
Would Facebook fit in a society with attitudes from (my take):
1. 1700's England? Nope, people are too serious back then.
2. 1000's Baghdad? Yes, in a world singers and celebrities and everyone wants to be attractive.
3. 800's Baghdad? Nope. You'd lose your head.
4. 300's Rome? Why yes, breads and circuses everywhere, why not another distraction?
5. 200BC Rome? Hardy people don't use Facebook much.
Here's a nice short book talking about these cycles.
"1. 1700's England? Nope, people are too serious back then."
I found the perspective in your post interesting, but I have to suggest that you research 'coffee shops' in London in the earlier 1700s. They declined towards the end of that century for reasons that could be quite interesting.
Are you really comparing social media to cigarettes and guns? Even if social media has downsides (virtually everything in life does) it's a silly comparison.
At no point is evidence presented in the link that shows that social media leads to clinical depression and suicide. Once again an awful and incorrect comparison.
hacker news is a form of social media so that makes it just as bad as guns, cigs and heroin. Ycombinator and the people who run it are just as evil as kim jong un.
> Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression. Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some adolescents. As with offline depression, preadolescents and adolescents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.
Clinical depression isn't a requirement. Exhibiting symptoms of depression (as stated) is all that is necessary. Clinical just means it's recurring at a regular interval.
>adolescents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.
How is that remotely the same as actual depression? It's an insult to people who suffer from this medical condition.
Those aren't a list of symptoms, but instead an outcome what happens given typical depression symptoms coupled with teen behavior (and not knowing how to handle the feeling). Actually, social isolation is a fairly typical symptom of depression. Substance abuse and so on are often correlated as well.
Looking for the study itself (which I can't seem to find), but the article says something along the lines of "showing symptoms of depression". Symptoms of depression are often caused by depression.
No, it's not an insult at all. The biggest insult to depression sufferers is not recognizing it as a condition or implying that they are something other than depressed.
Edit: I'm sorry; perhaps you are simply not understanding the article. Is English your primary language?
If it was depression then it would be called depression, not "facebook depression". None of the symptoms you listed are actual symptoms of "facebook depression". Perhaps you forgot your reading glasses?
Yes--Hacker News is a form of social media. I don't want to point out all the differences between the sites.
I can only comment on my own phyche after being on the two sites. I don't feel good after being on FB. I've gotten into the habit of deativating my account Monday-Friday. I keep it open on the weekends--just in case? So far nothing, but I've never been a popular person.
On the other hand, I don't feel bad after being on HN. Yes--like any site, I can only take it in small doses. And yes--if it changed up too much from its current format, I would delete my account.
I use the Internet for information, and enjoyment. FB just brings up too many bad memories, or just puts me in a weird mood. I don't think I've evolved enough to like FB? Were we, as monkeys, ever designed to see so many other monkeys?
He may not have, but just because it's just another and the most dominant flavor of the addiction does not mean it is not as OP described. He's essentially the head of a psychological drug dealing organization.
I'm not saying Facebook couldn't be changed to not serve that purpose, but the whole nature of Fb leads to people envying idealized illusions of people's lives.
It also does not allow people to move forward because you are always reminded of and connected to the past. I don't think that is a topic that has received anywhere near enough attention. The people that are bad for you are and will forever haunt you through facebook. It really needs more study and I would not be surprised on bit if it were shown to facilitate things like substance abuse relapse and poor choices.
Tools shape behaviors and amplify effects, so I don't think tools automatically get a pass.
Further, I think this is bunk:
> If it wasn't facebook, it would be some other website.
This can be used to justify pretty much anything. "Somebody'd be selling this heroin. Might as well be me." Or, less obviously: cigarettes, fossil fuels, and junk food.
If good people to refuse to do something harmful, it will be done less well, hopefully causing less harm. Whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is better or worse than the average ivy leaguer doesn't seem relevant. What matters is that he's the one with the power to change what Facebook is doing, and he's the one who profits most from it.
>But there doesn't seem to be any reason to question his character.
I guess that depends on how you view facebook itself. Advertising is one thing, but I find the model of encouraging people to share their personal information for one purpose, then surreptitiously monetizing it by selling it to others to be downright slimy.
Facebook is in many ways an organically occurring reaction of people.. people doing things the internet enables. Facebook is as led as they are led by their users which is everyone.
I agree that there are some negative consequences of online behavior. COnversing online can get nasty easily, with people feeling little slights and reacting until the whole thing collapses into far worse than normal human interaction. On the other hand it allows us to converse with a much wider group. Would we be talking in Person Mr. Stokes, about Facebook? Facebook didn't choose features for addictiveness, they chose and promoted features because people used them. We're attracted to a lot of things that aren't good for us. People read celebrity magazines, and feel bad. They wallow in jealousy and other negative emotions. They do this on Facebook because they're on facebook.
There's a sense which this reasoning excuses everything. Tobacco companies gave people what they wanted too. But this is way more mixed.
People follow the objects of their envy, a bastard sister of admiration. It's hard to lay that on Zuck.
I'm going to completely bastardize a Douglas Adams Quote I can't find because I don't remember what words he used:
> The man's main contribution to humanity is the spiritual equivalent of cigarettes
It's more like fast food or candy. When consumed moderately or intermittently , they can be relatively fine but when consumed voraciously, they can be very destructive.
I've had mine deactivated for 8 months now an I feel better than I have in a long time. No more jealously over friends having beautiful children, getting new houses, being able to afford cars. The envy is gone and so is the depression.
In a lot of ways I agree, but change doesn't come from attacking people. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" - we live in a place where we don't yet draw clear lines for capitalistic behavior or how it might affect the exploitation of our environment, our friendships, or our life-saving drugs. I'd suggest you help facilitate change by suggesting systemic improvements to how these economic behaviors could evolve and evangelizing ideas in that direction.
It's absurd to say that you shouldn't criticize a person's actions unless you first fix the systemic problems in our entire economic system.
Anyway, change very well can come from attacking people. Publically criticizing actions which are harmful is part of the way that we, as a society, build up the standards and norms by which we judge individuals' actions--and, ultimately, form legislation and other institutions to diminish harm and exploitation. The idea of "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is an attack on morality as such.
You can reason with people, sometimes. Attacking them triggers the competitive urge and it becomes about winning rather than the thing you originally intended to do.
The anti-tobacco movement is a prime example of this, just as were the people who brought you Prohibition.
We have very clear lines for "capitalistic" behavior; people are just disinterested. Not even just the capitalists; people write their own version of the world.
The Vast majority of capitalists struggle with ethical concerns because there's downside risk in behaving badly. It's an iterated version of "all problems stem from Man's inability to sit quietly in a room."
I certainly agree there is nothing noble about Facebook, and the amount of depression and unhappiness around the world from people who don't like 'showing off themselves' and being often brutally judged based on their profile (which is the only mode of Facebook for high school, college, and even 20-something users - and at that age you have no choice but to use it or be ostracized) is astronomical.
Just to add to this, I was talking to a co-worker sitting across me who's a mother of three kids. She says, "we don't sit like a family anymore; chat and discuss like we used to when my kids were growing up. All my kids are on phone 24X7. I like to talk to them but facebook has taken away that family time and I don't think I can get it back".
It's funny - I haven't seen that. Usually it's he does something like give money to charity followed by pages of people saying how iffy that it is. If you google 'smug little shit' Zuck comes up. Who's worshiping?
merely exposing your own feelings. (Is that what you meant?)
Yes, in that case it is. Facebook is forcing us to stare in a mirror of our own mistakes and failings. We should fix them and not avoid them. Unfortunately the mirror is crooked. It only shows the apparent best features of a person, and it doesn't tell who are we supposed to compare to. There are always people who are (or appear) more successful; Facebook makes them visible to anyone as if they were the average case and not the rarity, what they really are.
I find the general accreted ... stuff I've read on facebook simply confirms my bias about confirmation bias. I unfollow people who get too noisy.
I still think the original Usenet - even after the Eternal September* - to be in all ways superior to anything else online. Then came the binaries that killed it.
*I would think that because that's when I found out about it and you could get one a' them dialup Internet connections boy howdy.
Zuckerberg is not responsable for the existence of the Friendship Paradox or our natural instinct to envy, etc. Facebook mission in itself, is good. We have no reason to doubt Zuckerberg honesty to do good. Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?
It's true that social network bring bad side effects, everything does. They can only try to correct them.
> Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?
Yes, here's a study on manipulating the feed of over 600,000 users, in order to elicit an emotional response. Without asking for permission of course, because apparently you agree to FB playing mind tricks on you when "agreeing" to their terms and conditions. Really, it can't get worse than this and they have no justification.
Ah yes, I had forgotten about this unethical chestnut you have brought forth. This is the kind of research which would never (and I do mean literally never-- no chance, zero, nada, zilch) get approved by an institutional review board (IRB) if a scientist wanted to perform a similar experiment. There was no consent process, and the study aimed to effect a tangible and measurable emotional change, for no real greater good/purpose.
You are aware that every advertisement you look at every day has been designed to elicit an emotional response yes? The advertisers in the newspaper, Internet and billboard down the street didn't get your opt in permission either.
They do it explicitly with malicious intent; there is no bones about their goal which is to manipulate you and trick you into spending money on their products based on psychological charlatanry rather than offering you actual value.
It's different when you do 'research', i.e. purport to act like a scientist, not a scam artist.
Actually it does. They did something relatively harmless for science (and maybe, indirectly, for profit). The whole advertising industry is based on doing worse things, all the time, for pure profit. That this Facebook study is a subject of an outrage is, frankly, ridiculous.
That is an appeal to tradition, and it a fallacy. It isn't moral for advertisers to do harmful things to users just because most advertisers do it.
Most scientist do not do harmful things to their subjects. Modern science requires consent. So your fallacious argument, even if it weren't, fails to argue correctly in the first place, because scientists aren't advertisers.
Facebook study was done without consent. It was harmful to their users (subjects) because it interfered with their emotions. It is immoral.
The outrage might seem ridiculous, from the perspective of an advertiser, because, as you said, they do worst things all the time, so this study is hardly appalling for them. But from the perspective of other people, it is.
I hope this gave you an insight into (our) reaction to the study.
Not the same context, though you're right, it's similar-- the context of this was specifically to study the capacity for an effective emotional change controlled by social media only. They didn't have any monetization plans for the emotional change, which could potentially be negative.
I have always been surprised scientific and ethics committees haven't somehow come down on Facebook and its decision makers for this? Let alone, where is all of their data for public review to allow as many third-parties to analyze it as possible to view its impact?
The main problem is the industry has known for almost a century that severe health problems are linked to smoking tobacco, and spent the better part of that time hiding the truth while addicting a nation.
Now they're concentrating their focus on the Third World, getting millions more addicted where they aren't pestered by pesky "laws."
Nor should they be (although they are, IDK what absence of laws you're talking about, there are pictures of dead children in cigarette packs and advertising is illegal in most of LA). Everyone knows the risks, people smoke because they want to. Or do you think we, citizens of third world countries are all illiterate know nothings who got tricked by tobacco companies? I can't understand people wanting so bad to be other people babysitters. If you don't want to smoke don't, don't want your children to, teach them not to. Is that so hard?
No, they probably don't. People don't know that smoking is the leading cause of erectile dysfunction; or that smoking is linked to penile cancer; or what the actual risks of lung cancer are.
People just know that smoking is harmful, but they laugh that off with "I might get hit by a bus tomorrow".
> Or do you think we, citizens of third world countries are all illiterate know nothings who got tricked by tobacco companies?
It's not about citizens of developing world being illiterate know-nothings, it's about tobacco companies being abusive manipulative arseholes who lie and who have millions of dollars to fund those lies.
now don't make people people completely stupid just because they don't have an university degree (or read HN). the fertility/ptence issues are not that famililar (and definitely should be spoken about more loudly, this would have bigger impact than photos of cancerous lungs), but even in very remote and undeveloped places, all know that smoking = potential lung cancer, and that's a very miserable way to die.
but guess what - all sorts of biases step in, we like to lie to ourselves, nicotine addiction isn't neglible either. in 2015, this information is world-widely known for years and years (apart from north korea, maybe), but people like to ignore it. somebody gets cancer from smoking? well man up and blame his own stupidity/weakness.
"... no reason to doubt Zuckerberg honestly to do good."
That is not the way making a claim works. A claim is made, and evidence to support that claim must be brought forward before the claim is to be accepted. We have a claim, but no evidence for that claim in hand, and as such, intellectual honesty dictates that our doubt is 100%.
There is the old yet reliably sourced claim of Zuck calling his users dumb fucks. It is probably that his opinion has changed as he has matured, however the sourness of the original intent remains a part of his Facebook website.
Yes, you are right. Without any evidences, our doubts about any claims is total. I was just transposing my belief that people are generally honest and good. Though, I don't have any proof for that matter.
> Do you have any example where Facebook did something that they knew was bad but still did it?
The long con of Facebook itself -- fooling us all into giving up our privacy. We got here by FB misleading it in incredibly calculated ways. Google "Privacy Zuckering". It's a dark pattern that tricks users into giving up more privacy than they would want to, by making purposefully misleading UI. One trick after another like that is how we got here.
