Popularity

One very common pitfall for naive implementations of discovery, ranking or status is to inadvertently stop newcomers from “breaking in”.Any social experience will typically have attention or display mechanisms that need to take relative status into account. A naive implementation of a “suggestions” feed or a “top users” might be to rank content bas... See more

For the first time, they can type in any thought they dare say aloud and see how many likes and comments it receives. While limited, this ability has shown people, for the first time, what others think is worthy of sharing and what is not. They are exposed to their own success, or lack thereof, quickly and painlessly, allowing much more feedback th

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we’ve turned everything in life into a giant popularity contest–everything you say, everything you experience, everything you see, and even everything you feel–is a product of a giant worldwide counter of likes and follows. It’s a planet-wide exercise in objective convergence, a giant narcissism amplifier that cynically assumes that competing for m... See more