That’s one of the interesting things about Facebook’s algorithm. It it incredibly good at Goodharting- in this case, feeling efficient and time-effective, when in reality 90% of the content is complete garbage (lower than mid) and the average user spends >2 hours per day scrolling through that garbage (2 hours is ~12% of waking hours) despite intending to only spend ~20 minutes each day.
I definitely don’t spend 2 hours a day scrolling facebook, though I may spend about that long scrolling twitter (mostly miserably but occaisonally I see something really useful).
I think I’d do that even if there were no algorithm, though. There isn’t one in my twitter list of consistently good accounts, nor in mastodon, I still check these things often, they are not much less juicy. People often say that twitter was designed to be addictive. It mostly wasn’t designed at all. It was selected. And most of that “addiction” is just a craving for a thriving social space online.
That’s one of the interesting things about Facebook’s algorithm. It it incredibly good at Goodharting- in this case, feeling efficient and time-effective, when in reality 90% of the content is complete garbage (lower than mid) and the average user spends >2 hours per day scrolling through that garbage (2 hours is ~12% of waking hours) despite intending to only spend ~20 minutes each day.
I definitely don’t spend 2 hours a day scrolling facebook, though I may spend about that long scrolling twitter (mostly miserably but occaisonally I see something really useful).
I think I’d do that even if there were no algorithm, though. There isn’t one in my twitter list of consistently good accounts, nor in mastodon, I still check these things often, they are not much less juicy.
People often say that twitter was designed to be addictive. It mostly wasn’t designed at all. It was selected. And most of that “addiction” is just a craving for a thriving social space online.