Amen, faster and more frequent news is certainly broken. However, I worry that we are fighting against human nature.
The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less. People will naturally gravitate towards (thus pushing the market towards) easy methods of getting a little dopamine rush.
The consumption of fast and frequent journalism is just a symptom of human nature and I have my doubts that there will be a unilateral disarmament by apps and companies to use such tools.
I personally try to recognize this and cut myself short when i keep scrolling, keep refreshing on my phone, etc. However, I am not that good at stopping myself and I am aware of when I do it and work on it. What about people who are unaware of their habits? Looking down at your phone and refreshing likely has become second nature for billions of people.
How can industries fight against this human nature?
(I did not cite any sources I know, if I'm dead wrong on any points please let me know!)
The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less.
The way this has been resolved in the past, is that the "trash" news is relegated to the riffraff, and more reliable sources of news are used by the wealthy. The problem, is that even the mainstream news was of the trashy click-bait variety, even in the past going back many decades, if not hundreds of years. Even the news sources that are supposed to be higher end will succumb to the greater speed and greatly accelerated news cycle.
How can industries fight against this human nature?
Industries need to have faith in basic human nature. They need to let everything go viral and stop picking winners and losers. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, after all. We need to have faith that the truth will eventually win out. In 2019, when there has been suppression of speech, that has merely given ammunition to the toxic voices. This also takes the form of bad actors pretending to be on the side of the angels, acting in bad faith by using emotional tactics which act to hide the truth.
Contrarian voices need to be protected. This is precisely what Freedom of Speech is for. Lots of those are going to be toxic, but some of them are going to turn out to be valuable. In the past, Freedom of Speech meant that bad messages could be discredited on their merits. The problem in 2019, is that people are trying to do end-runs around Freedom of Speech not through argument, but through reputation smearing and de-platforming. Basically, short circuiting Freedom of Speech by hacking the right to hear. Do this for a good message, and it only de-legitimizes the good message and gives ammunition to the bad ones.
So, I had never heard this phrase until maybe a year or so ago. Now it seems like (on this site particularly) someone parrots this exact sentence in any thread at all related to news and/or social media.
Where is this coming from? Especially since it is... Emphatically untrue. It's just another one of those turns of phrase that asks you to believe it purely because it's so pithy.
People have studied this. A lot. It's just not true.
Or that the figurative meaning is wrong - that "shining a light" on shady or immoral acts and behaviors is not "the best" for some sense of that word, and there are better options?
As far as I can see, people like the KKK and other White Supremacists have been and still are thoroughly discredited. The only countervailing force to that in 2019 is outrage driven media, produced by other extremist counterparts. If one's business is based on outrage, then you want an enemy to play off of, to generate a vicious circle of outrage and reaction and counter-reaction.
Do most people actually think of the "Ok" hand sign as a Nazi signal? Absent the media spamming this idea, I highly doubt this would ever have been considered anything more than a stupid joke by the mainstream. The reason it spreads, is precisely because it acts perfectly as viral outrage clickbait.
Also, the counterparts on the Far Left also seem to demonstrate the truth of this, through their use of smearing tactics and de-platforming. If anything, they seem to fear the disinfecting qualities of sunlight, the most!
'Sunlight' from the press doesn't necessarily do anything in a court of law, which is the actual thing that is supposed to disinfect society.
A bomb-shell story which drags a corporation or white collar criminal through the mud won't necessarily lead to successful prosecution.
And using sunlight to simply damage a reputation has been used as well. It depends if you believe it's sunlight or not, so we just go back to old-hat media problems.
And using sunlight to simply damage a reputation has been used as well. It depends if you believe it's sunlight or not, so we just go back to old-hat media problems.
So let there be a "Free Marketplace of Ideas." This is again, precisely why we need Free Speech! It's when our society lets someone be the arbiter of what's allowed to be said and heard, that we run into problems.
Well, we can't uninvent the technology of the day, so that's likely to end up like unregulated social media, but we know there are issues with disinformation easily reaching a large number of people (again, old-hat propaganda, just we don't have to throw pamphlets out of planes now).
This isn't an easy problem to solve and I certainly don't have the answers.
Wow, I had no idea that the "Ok" hand sign was supposedly co-opted as a white-power sign until you mentioned it here. I guess I'm still in the shadows, thankfully!
> The problem in 2019, is that people are trying to do end-runs around Freedom of Speech not through argument, but through reputation smearing and de-platforming.
This is absolutely not a new phenomenon. "Red scare" anyone? Free speech has never protected an individual from social consequences only government/state consequences. We probably agree that it's not a good thing, but it's definitely not new nor has it ever not existed.
Jewish people being excluded from clubs is one example of "social consequences." Women being excluded from the clubs other executives attended was another.
Sure. I see how you are using "free speech". I was just objecting to your conceit that this is somehow a new thing which you clearly, with your examples, realize is not true. A misreading on my part I think.
Not sure what you mean here. If Jewish person were allowed into restricted clubs, and people could talk to them and evaluate them on their character, then the true spirit of Free Speech would have been served by this. If a woman would be allowed into the old boy circles, allowed to succeed on her own intelligence and merits, then the true spirit of Free Speech would have been served by this.
Free Speech is important on a purely Epistemological Basis. Sometimes, it's the unpopular ideas which turn out to be the important ones. So long as we can protect Free Speech and the Right to Hear, the unpopular ideas can have a chance to be heard.
> How can industries fight against this human nature?
They don't but in fact, monetize. As you've pointed out this constant need for refresh/dopamine has become second nature for billions. This is a fabulous opportunity for industries to monetize this attention.
This is really not a new fight.
It used to be tabloids vs "real" news - I'm not sure how different today's online battle is. Except for some reason, most of the "real" news are becoming tabloids when moving online.
It may be that now editors and journalists get instant feedback about number of clicks, shares, ad impressions and so on, so that they can chase dopamine hits just as much as the audience can.
Interesting view. With respect to the news industry: the TV format seems to have evolved. Have you seen HBO's Last Week Tonight? In a half-hour, John Oliver (and his writing team) recap the key news in 5-6 minutes and then finish by investigating one topic in depth. That is quite a model. It looks like shows similar to this are being made now, such as Netflix's Patriot Act.
But the print industry hasn't changed much. I wonder how they will evolve?
The use of smartphones has demonstrated, I believe, that people will blindly chase their dopamine hits coming from a variety of formats because it is ingrained in human nature. The dopamine reward pathway gives a good feeling and people are naturally inclined to follow the path of least resistance to more hits. If an organization or app tries to fight this, then people will simply use it less. People will naturally gravitate towards (thus pushing the market towards) easy methods of getting a little dopamine rush.
The consumption of fast and frequent journalism is just a symptom of human nature and I have my doubts that there will be a unilateral disarmament by apps and companies to use such tools.
I personally try to recognize this and cut myself short when i keep scrolling, keep refreshing on my phone, etc. However, I am not that good at stopping myself and I am aware of when I do it and work on it. What about people who are unaware of their habits? Looking down at your phone and refreshing likely has become second nature for billions of people.
How can industries fight against this human nature? (I did not cite any sources I know, if I'm dead wrong on any points please let me know!)