I don't work on algorithm-driven platforms, but I built a tool [1] to help deal with them.
I'm very glad to see this reaching the mainstream. Like most people in the tech industry with some understanding of how these things work, I've been increasingly worried about the harms it's doing to myself, others and society at large. Once you've seen the damage it's doing, you can't unsee it. It drives me crazy that others can't see the same things.
However I think this film did a great job at conveying to non-tech people how the systems work and take advantage of them. I think of it a bit like those documentaries that expose the worst of the meat industry, where it's not uncommon for viewers to become vegetarians.
My optimistic outlook is that more and more people will wake up and turn their backs on these harmful things, and the era of Facebook etc will, thankfully, be over.
Thanks for NFE!! That and FB Purity have reduced the time I spend Facebook to nothing, except for messages.
I put a bit of effort into finding extensions like this, and Distraction Free Youtube, Inbox when Ready, Amazon Lite, etc this year and I've been shocked and how much less "sticky" I'm finding the internet. Willpower and personal responsibility are great, but better yet is not even having to try.
When I use my phone, the difference is absolutely incredible, since I can't bring this huge suite of extensions with me. and as a result I've been uninstalling apps gradually over time -- you can disable surprisingly core functionality on Android, including the web browser.
> Willpower and personal responsibility are great, but better yet is not even having to try.
I think as humans we overestimate just how much power we have over our minds. Especially up against these algorithms that have been trained and honed with billions of compute hours by thousands of engineers, we just have no chance.
I'm very glad to see this reaching the mainstream. Like most people in the tech industry with some understanding of how these things work, I've been increasingly worried about the harms it's doing to myself, others and society at large. Once you've seen the damage it's doing, you can't unsee it. It drives me crazy that others can't see the same things.
However I think this film did a great job at conveying to non-tech people how the systems work and take advantage of them. I think of it a bit like those documentaries that expose the worst of the meat industry, where it's not uncommon for viewers to become vegetarians.
My optimistic outlook is that more and more people will wake up and turn their backs on these harmful things, and the era of Facebook etc will, thankfully, be over.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...