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'

[vux984]

But if you come back to /. to see if any one replied you'll get your little dopamine hit. Same shit.

PS: Your welcome.

Facebook is getting boring

[i286NiNJA]

It might have been addictive for awhile but it's getting pretty dull and feels more like myspace every day. I have a feeling the culture will eventually become dumb and toxic enough that the thing implodes an people will move to some other format for social media. Given Zuckerberg's interest in other social media platforms I have to wonder if he feels the same way.

I don't have much proof but it's happened to every similar service and website before it.

The Oppenheimer Moment

[Rick Schumann]

A distillation of what Sean Parker had to say about Facebook:

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Yes, Mister Parker, you have. Facebook is a cancer to humanity, a virulent disease. It should never have been created in the first place, and I for one am glad that I have nothing to do with it.

..and NO, you can't find anything about me on Facebook. I don't have an account there, no one I know is allowed to reference me there, and I defy anyone who says different.

Re:The Oppenheimer Moment

[forkfail]

I would be willing to bet a significant amount of money that if were you to sign up with Facebook right now that you would have at least a few dozen friend recommendations that were accurate and reflective not only of your current life, but also, of your associations of several years ago.

Much ado about [null]

[cellocgw]

So it (maybe) changes children's brains. So does everything. So did letting them learn to read, or to use a telephone. Just because social dynamics are changing again, just as they did when cities were invented, and then suburbs were invented, and then TV was invented, doesn't mean this (Facebook / social media) is suddenly the Work Of The Devil.
Heck, we may be moving towards a society where interaction is primarily online rather than meatspace. So what? Who are we hurting?

Then perhaps Sean Parker...

[Khyber]

...should pay the social and monetary costs for the damage he's done to society. He knew the consequences, and took the action any goddamned way. Full responsibility lies on him and Mark and they should pay dearly. Slam them straight back to middle class.

This is a bigger problem

[schweini]

This is a huge problem - advertising, marketing and shadier news outlets are systematically exploiting the innate cognitive biases we all have.

They have always done this, but instead of an artform, this has become scientific. And it seems to work quite well (for them)

It's similar to Casinos, which also exploit well-known human mental defects - which is why casinos are usually heavily regulated. But you obviously can't do the same for communication.
The only kind-of protection against these assaults on our mental defects is education, and a change in the mind-set. But noone really has a short-term incentive to change either of those.

Giving themselves too much credit

[Dan East]

I think they are giving themselves too much credit. Let's strip away the advertising machine that is FB and distill it down to the most basic fundamental. A person can post information, and others who are connected to that person can see that information and react to it. That's it in a nutshell. The fact that people get a "little dopamine hit" when someone they are connected to reacts to something they did is not something Facebook engineered. It is human nature. It is why we like to sit around talking to one another, or why we like to see a person smile when we do something. This is nothing FB engineered or calculated or anything like that. For any virtual social network to be compatible with human nature and be accepted it must provide a way for people to provide feedback with one another. Calling it a "like" or letting someone comment on it is not exactly the height of software or social engineering.

Methinks he is giving Facebook way too much credit to stoke his ego that he had a hand in reshaping people's "relationship with society". Facebook was inevitable, and in fact had existed in many, many different forms in the past (Usenet, America Online dialup, MySpace, Slashdot commenting system, ad infinitum). Facebook was nothing more than a simplification of existing social networks to the point that anyone could use it. It hit a critical mass, like MS Windows, the iPod, etc, where it had to resources to outgrow the competitors.

Re:Its your fault

[Cajun Hell]

No, it's We The People's fault, for being drug addicts. Don't blame the dealer.

Cow Clicker!

[s_p_oneil]

Cow Clicker! IMO this was a much better commentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Seriously though, what about WoW? What about EverCrack (as its own players referred to it half-jokingly)? What about the new e-Sports games like LoL, Dota2, or any multiplayer game that does its best to avoid falling into obscurity? What about TV shows that do their best to try to keep viewers hooked? What about Hollywood trying to keep people coming back in to see movies?

What company goes out of their way to make a product that no one likes very much (and that will fail as a result of it)? He'd be better off blaming people for being sheep than for blaming a company trying to provide the best possible service/product. It's what companies do. No one is forcing them to sign up, to spend all their time on it, to get hooked on "likes" (or people clicking their cows).

Re:Its your fault

[gnick]

I've never felt the need to join FB or other social media to date.

That fix that users get from "Likes" and "Replies" on FB is very similar to the fix you get from "Mods" and "Replies" on /. . A lot of my interaction on FB is discussion of news articles, similar to my interaction on /. . (Yes, some actual headlines make it to FB. On my feed it's CNN, BBC News, or whatever sources my friends post.) I see you post on here all the time - You've got the same bug as the FB users. You just feel superior because you're on a different platform (doing the same thing) and FB bashing is popular here.

Re:You are still on facebook.

[DarkOx]

^^THIS^^

I resisted facebook for a long time, but ultimately I signed up and created a basic profile, with information about me that is already mostly public and things I would generally want the world to know about me. I keep it pretty impersonal and rarely post about being anywhere or doing anything that isn't documented elsewhere publicly, but at least I get to bring the attention to those things as opposed to attention being on everything else for lack anything else being there.

Its nice to ask your friends not to tag you in stuff but sooner or later someone forgets, making an honest mistake, after that facebook's photo recognition will start to suggest you everywhere you appear. Combine that will all their other data mining and yes they know a lot about you and publish a lot about you whether you like it or not.

At some point you have to make a decision do YOU want some control over the message about you that gets put out by facebook or do you want to continue you protested at the cost of not having that control? If you do you have to create an account, and play some of their game. You can ignore facebook all you like but others don't and you can't make them, because of the that facebook has you and I over a barrel.

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

[HornWumpus]

Old discussion, long settled.

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

Re:Its your fault

[AuMatar]

I worked at Facebook. We had graphs of ages of users. Basically, it stayed low until a spike at 18 (when people went to college) and a huge spike at 22 (graduating college). Facebook isn't so much for old people, as it is for people who want to keep up with old friends. Until you're old enough to have those it has lower value.