Social Media
Essays and more on social media
Packy McCormick and
Social Media
One of the most insidious effects of algorithmic curation is its redefinition of success. In the pre-digital age, greatness was measured by critical acclaim, cultural impact, or historical longevity. Today, it is measured by metrics: views, likes, shares, and subscriptions.
This shift has profound implications for creators. To succeed in an... See more
This shift has profound implications for creators. To succeed in an... See more
Dr. Felix S. Grenwood • Algorithms of Mediocrity — william
His name is Tristan Harris, a former start-up founder and Google engineer who deviated from his well-worn path through the world of tech to become something decidedly rarer in this closed world: a whistleblower.
“This thing is a slot machine,” Harris says early in the interview while holding up his smartphone.
“How is that a slot machine?” Cooper
... See moreCal Newport; • Digital Minimalism
“Journalists are in general a bunch of insecure overachievers, so being in one ‘room’ with your ‘peers’ giving you constant feedback and information creates a truly awful petri dish in which the most terrible forms of groupthink thrive,” says Polgreen. “It can be very hard to resist for reporters, which makes it tough for editors to reorient their... See more
an app where you can see the most similar photos in the network to the ones you’ve taken. sorta amusing for artwork/nature photography
Gamification once promised to create a better society, but it’s now used mainly to addict people to apps. The gamifiers, like Skinner’s pigeons, prioritized immediate rewards over delayed ones, so they gamified for the next financial quarter and not for the future of civilization.
Gurwinder • Why Everything Is Becoming a Game
people think the solution to the web becoming a big performance stage is to have lots of fragmented smaller communities. But finding the right community is really hard. A better way is to use novel technologies and network mechanics to matchmake in real-time. You get a new community every second depending on what you’re thinking.
You might think that bootlicking of this sort is just how you do business in China. But here’s the interesting twist—TikTok doesn’t exist in China.
A similar app, called Douyin, is available in China. TikTok is only for outsiders. And they love it. TikTok has more than 1.5 billion users worldwide.