Sean Parker said in a speech that they knew Facebook would turn into an addiction, and created it anyways. We discuss a few points of that statement: did they really know? Is Facebook, and social networks in general, addictive? What can be done, if anything, about it? Pay attention because this is important.
Download #313: Facebook Wants To Consume As Much Of Your Attention As Possible
Subscribe to the Furlo Bros Tech Podcast ( iTunes Google Play Music )
Watch #313: Facebook Wants To Consume As Much Of Your Attention As Possible on YouTube
Become a Patron
This podcast is sponsored by listeners like you. Become a Fanboy starting at $1 per month. You can also be a Nerd, Junky or Maven; where each have their own level of reward. Learn More & Donate
Attention Show Notes
A video Of Sean Parker’s Interview Erica Pandey, Axios
Some important excerpts:
- “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 awhile, 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 … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
- “The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.”
Can You Get Addicted To Social Media? It’s Hard To Tell Leslie Walker, Lifewire
Suicide Rates Among Teenage Girls is Rising Maggie Fox, NBC News