5d ago

Former tech executive explains how Silicon Valley designs products

From Billionaire Sean Parker:

The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, ... was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'

"And that means that we need to sort of give you a dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you more likes and more comments."

It's a social-validation feedback loop ... This is exactly the kind of thing that hacker like myself would come up with, because it's exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. the inventors, creators — me, Mark, Kevin Systrom of Instagram, all of these people — we understood this consciously. And we did it anyway

God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jar4KgKxs

29 comments

Of course Lemmy and such inherit some of that design even without the money behind it - there's certainly a little dopamine hit when I see that one of my comments has gotten a reply, or when I check and see that it's been upvoted.
Not having the incentive to enshittify is good though.
- Here... you can have a little dopamine... as a treat.
  
  I got you both. Enjoy.
- lucky you, i am just filled with dread
- I upvote the same way like I used to on Reddit, but I have no idea what the hell my karma is
  I don't even think it matters but it's nice to see a post with like 800 upvotes
  We've been bamboozled and conditioned
  Sorry, here's your dopamine 🔼
  🐱
- Take a hit on me friend
  
  Thanks, you too!
- What if, instead of having to doomscroll to get that sweet, sweet dopamine hit, you'd just occasionally, and randomly be sent a message with a funny meme, or interesting story, or whatever it takes to convince your brain to hook you up?
  
  That's basically newsletters, forum digests, podcasts, etc.
- Hell nah. I don't give a damn about your up votes, down votes, replies. Hell I don't even look at my inbox and I'll be damned if I will end up back in this thread.
  I'm just here for the occasional meme and maybe get a bit of news, and I'm all out of good news.
  
  Ok then.
So he’s confirming they knew what they were doing all along, they did it anyway, and now he’s wondering about the impact on children? Fuck outta here bro. What an asshole. He’s also building a 60 foot wide mansion in the west village, mf bought 3 adjacent townhouses. Very easy to find his address.
- Who's this asshole?
  
  Sean Parker
  
  The interviewee is Tristan Harris. I wouldn't call him am asshole by any means.
  Not sure what the other poster is on about, I hope he's taken the guy for somebody else.
If a product makes money on engagement metrics (ads, eyeballs, time), they'll do everything they can do to maximize for that.
The slot machine analogy is apt. There's research out there on how much time to optimize the dopamine hit and how long to go before you dispense the hit.
The trick is, as a consumer, to set limits and step away. Considering we're here, best of luck to us all.
- Here is better. No one profits off us per eyeball hour (at least not on my instance)
  It's all about incentives
  
  Any post you click through on (like the YouTube link in this one) ostensibly profits off us per eyeball hour, regardless of instance.
  Which is why I really appreciate people that mirror the content in their posts or comments (though I sometimes click through anyway to make sure the content isn't editorialized).
Honestly, this isn’t a surprise or really a big surprise. Gamification like this has been a thing since the 90’s or earlier. As soon as the web became ad revenue driven, sites figured how to drive clicks and keep people on them. More engagement == more page views == more revenue. Video games have done achievements for decades. AOL even did this in the 90’s. More “you got mail”, more AIM messages, more things available, more engagement, more likely you’re going to pay that hourly charge for access. It’s the same reason there’s clickbait everywhere and everyone has a newsletter the automatically sign you up for. Here Facebook does it… everyone’s slightly different, but all have the same premise. Gotta keep you hooked, give you that dopamine hit and make you keep coming back.
This goes back to the age old “if we could make the internet monetarily self sufficient without ads, how would that work?”

29 comments