Sean Parker Unloads on Facebook 'Exploiting' Human Psychology (axios.com)

Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, spoke to news outlet Axios about the ways social networks have made hundreds of millions of users addicted to their platforms. He said, from the interview: When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would say, 'I'm not on social media.' And I would say, 'OK. You know, you will be.' And then they would say, 'No, no, no. I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value presence. I value intimacy.' And I would say, ... 'We'll get you eventually. I don't know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and ... it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other ... It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains. 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 little 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 comments. It's a social-validation feedback loop. He says people like him, and Mark Zuckerberg knew the potential consequences, but they did what they did anyway.

Comments

Re:And I would say, 'OK. You know, you will be'

[CaptainDork]

This.

I don't use the goddam Internet because I knew when it first started that it would be monetized and tell all my secrets and rob me of my powers so that's why I never use the Internet and stuff.

I hope this gets a +1 anything.

I'll check back later and it dam well better not be a -1 or I'll hold my breath and turn blue and pass out and then hit my head and then how would you feel and stuff?

Re:Yes, none of us use social media. Uh huh.

[HornWumpus]

Old discussion, long settled.

/. is antisocial media...you festering malodorous gob.