Social Media Algorithms and the Cultivation of a "Look-Away" Culture

Chao Tse-Tung

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Hey folks, long time no post. Anyways, this is an idea that came to me in a bout of introspection (mild foreshadowing, that big introspection post is still coming some day), and I'll fully admit that it probably says a lot more about me than it does about the population at large. Nonetheless, I think some of you might relate to an extent or be able to expand on the idea.

I admit, I'm still a user of some normie social media, mostly on the basis of keeping up with friends. I've noticed recently, that as I scroll more, I've gotten significantly less pessimistic and angry about the world. I've realized this and taken steps to correct it, but I've wondered why it seemed to happen. The answer, is, of course as always for Chao Tse-Tung, to direct/deflect the problem outwards!

The crux of the idea goes something like this, laid out in entirety:
  1. Social media algorithms exist
  2. The basic function of these algorithms are to keep us scrolling
  3. They do this by showing us more of the posts that we look at for longer and engage with more
  4. This function is now essentially layman's knowledge for anyone who's been on the internet for more than 10 minutes
  5. Users will, therefore, purposefully direct their habits towards looking and interacting with things they like, and blatantly ignoring things they don't like
  6. Social media users then have a framework in their mind to ignore things that they don't like and emphasize the good, resulting in the creation of somewhat of a "forced optimism."
What do you guys think? Is it something that people can keep entirely to the realm of their internet habits? Is this something that anyone else even does? It seems to me like a very simple, low-cost mass social engineering towards the "everything is fine, don't be so negative :)" mindset.

This isn't even to mention the addiction aspect of it all, either. It's like bread and circus to the umpteenth level combined with subliminal propaganda, wherein everyone can tailor their own specific bread and circuses which both distract them from a majority of the world's ills and convince them to look away from the ones they do notice. Combining that with the actual media propaganda, and you can see why despite how bad it all is how nothing is being fucking done. I'm gonna sign this off before it turns into a socialist rant, but I'd like to get some feedback on this.

I'm sure this is nowhere near an original idea, and apologies for the shitty phone attempt at formatting.
 
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bnuungus

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Your reaction to more scrolling is that it makes you calmer? If I spend too much time on the internet I will slowly become very restless and anxious in general. I don't interact with things I don't like either, I usually stick to chill entertainment. But if I do it too often then I start feeling weird.
 
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Chao Tse-Tung

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Your reaction to more scrolling is that it makes you calmer? If I spend too much time on the internet I will slowly become very restless and anxious in general. I don't interact with things I don't like either, I usually stick to chill entertainment. But if I do it too often then I start feeling weird.
Not calmer in the short term, but I found myself looking less and less at the overarching big bads of the world and becoming more complacent.
 
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Orlando Smooth

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but I found myself looking less and less at the overarching big bads of the world
What do you define as the "big bads" here?

The reason I ask is because it's not uncommon for people at later stages of their maturation process to realize things like: a lot of bad stuff is entirely out of your control so there's no point in overly worrying about it, apathy/ineptitude is far more common than malice which means a that although problems are real it's not as though everything is an evil orchestration, certain groups are incentivized to keep you afraid which means they will overstate the severity of a real problem, and a lot of the most vocal people also know the least about what they're talking about. This is of course not a universal experience of revelation, but it's not uncommon either. Not to mention that before the mid-2010's politics and other sorts of fear mongering narratives were simply one aspect of people's lives, not all-consuming. A rhetorical cooling down and allowing that not every single thing is some form of political expression is a regression to the mean, but there are a lot of people who are too young to have experienced what a less polarized time felt like.
 
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LostintheCycle

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I admit, I'm still a user of some normie social media, mostly on the basis of keeping up with friends. I've noticed recently, that as I scroll more, I've gotten significantly less pessimistic and angry about the world. I've realized this and taken steps to correct it, but I've wondered why it seemed to happen. The answer, is, of course as always for Chao Tse-Tung, to direct/deflect the problem outwards!

The crux of the idea goes something like this, laid out in entirety:
  1. Social media algorithms exist
  2. The basic function of these algorithms are to keep us scrolling
  3. They do this by showing us more of the posts that we look at for longer and engage with more
  4. This function is now essentially layman's knowledge for anyone who's been on the internet for more than 10 minutes
  5. Users will, therefore, purposefully direct their habits towards looking and interacting with things they like, and blatantly ignoring things they don't like
  6. Social media users then have a framework in their mind to ignore things that they don't like and emphasize the good, resulting in the creation of somewhat of a "forced optimism."
What do you guys think? Is it something that people can keep entirely to the realm of their internet habits? Is this something that anyone else even does? It seems to me like a very simple, low-cost mass social engineering towards the "everything is fine, don't be so negative :)" mindset.
I think that social media algorithms act like amplifiers for whatever goes in. Think about the people who engage with social/political bullshit online, they relentlessly eat up that crap, and its because social media feeds them as much of it as they can. They certainly aren't calm, they certainly aren't trying to ignore the worlds issues; either way the desired outcome is distraction, and that is what is achieved.
Also, are you really scrolling to keep up with your friends, or is that what you tell yourself? :BigSmoke:
 
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MacchyMacchy

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you speak of "forced optimism", because in your case you probably have interests that lead you to follow positive content, but the action of algorithms can also translate into "forced pessimism".

Let's say I'm interested in topics such as the environment and global warming. The algorithms of social networks and content platforms will continue to suggest information about these issues, which will sometimes be exact, but it will also be easy to come across exaggerations and mystifications that aim to generate more interactions. So I would risk falling into a radicalizing pessimism thinking that the world is ending and that in a few years we will all be dead
 
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moral ambiquity -and-
normalization/bagetelization/"one death is a tragedy a million a statistic"/numbing down (reactions) - they are all very similar
FvEgd_5WIAkYp0K.jpg

- the cowardice tactic:
it's not happening, and if it is,
it's not that bad,
and if it is, it's not our fault,
and if it is, there's nothing we could've done,
and if there still is, it's too late,
and if it's not, change the topic
 
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alCannium27

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Users will, therefore, purposefully direct their habits towards looking and interacting with things they like, and blatantly ignoring things they don't like
My experience is the oppsite, as I find it steering people to engage with both, views expressing any distinctive position attract both supporters and opposers in droves, both sides seeking to reinforce their own by arguing with faceless randos on the internet. I've been guilty of that, I probably will continue to be guilty of that -- it's my view or the blind view, Jimmy!
"Engagement" driven systems all work like this -- it cares not for what one engages, so many under-handed tactics that encourages "engagement" is viewed as good. IMO if the society is really as closely tied to the world of social media as the media want us to believe, than it's not at all odd that kids raised in this environment seems out of control, after all, in their view, all underhanded tactics are fair game, in their view, as long as they garner them attention, or, "engagement".
 
Read Guardian article how lib politics get "prime-pipe" in changing sides to them, liberals, thru memes. (Obvious, even w/o memes, and also, you like the stuff you look after the most (mostly)), (surprised Pikachu)
 
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4d1

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Read Guardian article how lib politics get "prime-pipe" in changing sides to them, liberals, thru memes. (Obvious, even w/o memes, and also, you like the stuff you look after the most (mostly)), (surprised Pikachu)
memes are genuinely more dangerous than most people realise - once you start looking into memetics the world becomes so scary. every meme has a form of influence, and depending on the memes you consume, your ideology shifts. i notice that the people who look at stupid/surreal memes are quite harmless, innocent, and or weird. those who look at racist memes, eventually end up racist themselves, even if they deny it. schizo memes cultivate people who end up becoming schizos, and so on. its the ideas

its unironically like that tweet by elon; "he who controls the memes, controls the world"
 
memes are genuinely more dangerous than most people realise - once you start looking into memetics the world becomes so scary. every meme has a form of influence, and depending on the memes you consume, your ideology shifts. i notice that the people who look at stupid/surreal memes are quite harmless, innocent, and or weird. those who look at racist memes, eventually end up racist themselves, even if they deny it. schizo memes cultivate people who end up becoming schizos, and so on. its the ideas

its unironically like that tweet by elon; "he who controls the memes, controls the world"
he who controls the meaning, does too
 
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4d1

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although the layers of "irony" do sort of get lost eventually, especially with the young audiences of the internet to whom the memes is all they know lol
loss of meaning. "everything is relative" "you can be/define as X" ...
loss of boundaries.
echochambers and moralization, politization, generalization of things that should be given...

you rarely know, only when you step outside, that you can pick what of-from those values, ideologies, you can pick to be your own, - without accepting or denying whole pack. dont throw baby with water out of tub for easy-given (that is THE problem) Pretty-Prince/ss-Points :TM: !

if you cut people only to A-B groups, then, you will miss out. you will be in stagnation. or in infinite fight. but yeah. it is easy. "everybody who is against me is my enemy..." - ha! stupid!
i want my "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." !

see here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/freedom-of-speech - similar quotes and ideas...
 
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although the layers of "irony" do sort of get lost eventually, especially with the young audiences of the internet to whom the memes is all they know lol
oh. thats why i saw the discussion once somewhere, about that you shouldnt joke about that types of things which affect irl sitautions, because it doesnt matter if you meant it or was joke, at-in the end, you meant it...
 
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Orlando Smooth

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although the layers of "irony" do sort of get lost eventually
Exactly, because even if it's genuinely ironic (which is a big "if") exposure to [thing] over and over and over again, day after day, for years, inevitably desensitizes you to [thing]. So you then end up in a situation where the people who are actually creating the message are themselves desensitized and making increasingly extreme versions of the message, and shielding themselves in the claim that it's "ironic" to talk about [thing] in such extreme terms. Just another form of echo chamber.
 
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Exactly, because even if it's genuinely ironic (which is a big "if") exposure to [thing] over and over and over again, day after day, for years, inevitably desensitizes you to [thing]. So you then end up in a situation where the people who are actually creating the message are themselves desensitized and making increasingly extreme versions of the message, and shielding themselves in the claim that it's "ironic" to talk about [thing] in such extreme terms. Just another form of echo chamber.
bfc0ef54e491aa443a9dbf1f781d8589.jpg
 
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mt.kailash

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  1. Social media users then have a framework in their mind to ignore things that they don't like and emphasize the good, resulting in the creation of somewhat of a "forced optimism."
What do you guys think? Is it something that people can keep entirely to the realm of their internet habits? Is this something that anyone else even does? It seems to me like a very simple, low-cost mass social engineering towards the "everything is fine, don't be so negative :)" mindset.
i think you are living in a parallel dimension, or maybe you are becoming a normie after all.
 

Brapuccino

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I admit, I'm still a user of some normie social media, mostly on the basis of keeping up with friends. I've noticed recently, that as I scroll more, I've gotten significantly less pessimistic and angry about the world. I've realized this and taken steps to correct it,
This is such a funny way to phrase it. "WTF I feel good about the world, I must correct this now!"
I get what you mean but at the same time this seems like an odd one. Not sure it works quite as you describe.
I say this because it would certainly vary according to each individual person using those specific apps like twitter/facebook/instagram what have ya, there's in my opinion no shortage of people out there using those that are also attracted to "sensationalist" media, or that in general simply find some sort of satisfaction in feeling outraged at something. In this way, something like twitter for example, would promote to you even more schizo content if that's what you like to interact with.
However, I think it's a lot more complex than that, Facebook themselves have been exposed by their own employees as to having had explicitly experimented with their users by manually altering their algorithms in order to suppress or otherwise manipulate content shown to their users on their feeds, and this isn't just talking about news articles or politically charged content, but they have also toyed with the interactions between users and their friends. For example, say you make a post about how you seem to have hit a low point in life and you're feeling down. The Big Zucc slides in and hits the "hide this stupid post from all his friends' feeds lmao" button, your post goes unseen by everyone forever and you suddenly feel ignored and alone. These are real experiments they conducted for a long time and for which there was documentation, and a trial was had.
Elon Musk claims Twitter was actively suppressing certain political content as well as just anything that didn't align with the previous management's views, and while I'd take anything he says with a grain of salt, I think I believe this one and in fact I feel this is one of those "open secrets" that everyone really knew about but was never addressed by them and they just kept taking down accounts they didn't like.
What I'm saying is basically, I don't think "optimism" is what's being pushed, and I don't think it's directly related to an algorithm that shows you what you want to see, because a lot of people want to see blood. Otherwise there'd be no news, and there would've been no colliseum back in the good old days. I do think, however, that each social media giant probably has their own particular agenda when it comes to what they want their userbase to think or behave like, and as such each goes about manipulating them in a specific way.
It's not that they don't want you to be angry, perhaps they'd just like a say in what you're angry about.