I feel like this is general knowledge for the past 5 or so years, but the real question is "What do we do about it?". Personally, I put real effort into not spending time being outraged online, but this is a societal ill that's bigger then I am...
"What do we do about it?"<p>Shut down the behavior with regulations or shut down the companies. Meta and TikTok have no natural right to exist if they are a net negative to society.
"Make the drug less good" likely isn't the answer. Nor is banning it.<p>What caused Gen Z to drink less than millenials? Maybe Gen Z has the answer.
You're only allowed to drink as an adult. We're talking about letting those companies rot our brains in those first 18 years.
yeah, it's called "smoking weed".
Technology, culture, legalization of pot, adtech, covid, there are a metric ton of factors that all had significant impact on both decreasing socialization and reduction in drinking. And lowering the birth rates, and the number of healthy relationships, healthy friendships, etc.<p>I'm for legalizing all drugs, regulating the sale, ensuring quality and purity, and educating the public. Cognitive liberty is sacred - but the dip in drinking has a whole lot of causes.<p>A healthier society would be more social and get out and drink more, I think.
Decades of science communication and real life examples of knowing (of) alcohol addicts
Real life experience with alcoholics would at-best be constant over time, or be diminishing (since gen Z drinks less).<p>Also seems like the science on whether science communication actual changes behavior doesn't point towards it being much of a cause here.
I'd wager how expensive it has gotten plus a year or two of lockdowns which lead to a whole generation of people not going out to get wasted as soon as they're legally allowed to had <i>way</i> more effect.<p>Oh, and weed being increasingly legal to consume.
Make it legal and expensive?
The people who were voted to power (across the globe, not just the US) to do something about it are stuck getting their dopamine kicks posting garbage on the same platforms.
It’s truly a terrible timeline we are in.
Regulate it. Laws, consequences, etc.
Laws appear to have fallen out of fashion. And a disturbing proportion of the loudest people like it. Then you have those who ought to know better but are attention-seeking, selfish assholes who somehow find it «interesting» or think they adhere to «principles».<p>The latter category know who you are. You downvoted this comment.
I recently provided guidance to state legislators, with that guidance making its way into law in regards of balcony solar. If you don’t think that making law works, I would encourage you to get involved somewhere that means something to you.<p>It turns out that if you present as an honest, non-interested party, people will call you and ask you for your advice. I do admit that the ease of this is going to be a function of the people you are up against and the subject being regulated. My point of this comment is: default to action. “You can just do things.”
It’s like asking how do you get people to stop drinking alcohol<p>As long as there are people who don’t acknowledge or care about the health effects it will exist. If that’s a plurality of your population then you have a fundamental population problem IF you are in the group who thinks it’s bad.<p>Aka every minority-majority split on every issue ever.<p>So the answer is: live in a society governed by science. Unfortunately none exist
> So the answer is: live in a society governed by science. Unfortunately none exist<p>Science is a lagging indicator of reality. It is by definition conservative (in that it requires rigorous, repeatable data before it can label something as true). Because of that, there's usually a pretty substantial gap between human discovery and scientific consensus.<p>Mindfulness was discovered, as an example, to be beneficial as far back as 500 BCE. It wasn't "proven" with science until 1979.<p>Sometimes we just need to rely on lived experience to make important decisions, especially regulation. We can't always wait for science.
We handled smoking pretty well by making it cost more and banning it in public places. If tiktok was banned from official app stores it would essentially go away.
Not a fan of conflating personal enjoyment of a vice with promoting hatred.
It's like how do you get people to stop letting their kids drink alcohol.<p>Everyone knows what the dangers of alcohol are now. We need to get reliable data one can base policy on and then let the public health system do their thing. Maybe not every health authority but enough of them to protect the species at large. Then we'll get social media out of schools, away from young people, vulnerable folks, etc.
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>"What do we do about it?"<p>nothing. if it isn't illegal, it isn't illegal.<p>previous generations of neurotics objected to many current (at the time) things we don't bat an eye about. when was the last time you saw anyone campaign against satanic music, violent video games, or hardcore pornography?
You in the 90s: "Leaded fuel isn't illegal guys, stop your campaigning, let's keep huffing it"<p>How about coming up with an actual defense of social media rather than an ad hominem about "neurotics"?
>You in the 90s: "Leaded fuel isn't illegal guys, stop your campaigning, let's keep huffing it"<p>people who raised alarm about such things could easily be branded as conspiracy theorists. even now, at this very website, so full of well-educated folx, people who speak out against xenoestrogens, for example, are being downvoted to hell.
Nothing is inherently illegal. Laws are created in response to an undesireable outcome - murder wasn't illegal until it was made illegal.
> >"What do we do about it?"<p>> nothing. if it isn't illegal, it isn't illegal.<p>Are you suggesting that because something isn't illegal, it <i>shouldn't</i> be illegal?<p>Are you perhaps a representative of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory?
I'm not suggesting that it should be illegal, I'm just seeing this monetization of bad vibes and wondering how we can have less bad vibes. Pump the brakes a little.
Things that are not illegal can and should be made illegal if need be.<p>Many things were not illegal before they became illegal.
Dupe? <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47403929">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47403929</a>
I can't say I'm surprised and I think most people wouldn't be surprised either. But it's always good to have evidence.
Is this unavoidable? I mean it does generate clicks and views and user engagement so if one platform is doing it, doesn't that automatically mean that the other has to do it? Otherwise they will continuously lose market share.
I think the burden to curate your feed so that you do not have such content is now resting with the user and they cannot rely on the platform to do it for them.
> I mean it does generate clicks and views and user engagement so if one platform is doing it, doesn't that automatically mean that the other has to do it? Otherwise they will continuously lose market share.<p>Why? User engagement isn't the same thing as market share.<p>If McDonald's trained its cashiers to insult you while taking your order, engagement would go up, and market share would go down.
I look at people who use fb or tiktok, or x, the same way I look at smokers or alcoholics. With sadness and pity. The fact that we let children use this is hard to accept. The fact that fellow hackers and engineers, some of the brightest minds, have contributed to this is extremely disappointing. Shame on you.
Of course they did. As long as they're legally allowed to do so and profit from doing so they will continue.
British people complaining about free speech and trying to censor the internet. America needs to keep standing up to British censorship interests.
Given how TikTok "trends" seem to consist mostly of "get teenagers to do stuff that causes huge expenses for US society":<p>* "eat tide pods"
* "stick a fork in electrical sockets in your school"
* "destroy your school's shit" aka "Devious Licks" - bathrooms, chromebooks (jamming stuff into the charging ports to start fires...)
* "drink a shitload of Benadryl to see what happens"
* "steal a kia/hyundai and drive 80mph, run from the cops, etc"<p>...convince me that this is not a purposeful attack on US society by the CCP?
I remember <i>The Social Dilemma</i>’s entire premise was basically this headline minus TikTok, and that came out what? 7 or 8 years ago?<p>Not saying “well duh” I just think at this point I have to ask “are we going to do anything about it?”<p>We’ve known about the financial incentives to promote anger and outrage online for at least a decade now. So what are we going to do about it?
Drugs.