When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media | BFI
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Large shares of consumers use Instagram and TikTok out of a fear of missing out rather than genuine interest and, as a result, are worse off than if...

Those findings are crazy. I’ve never been social media addicted, been into luxury or general show-off brands (I pay extra to not look like I’m an advertisement… for anything but metal bands), so I don’t really know much about those issues.

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.ggEnglish
      4·
      9 months ago

      You don’t. I play lots of multiplayer games (they’re pretty much all I play these days). You just play different games with different groups of your friends at different times.

      I didn’t like Balder’s Gate, RPGs just aren’t my cup of tea. Some of my friends played it, I did things with other friends that interested me.

      This person’s argument might apply to some people, but for the majority of people I’ve met, they have more than a couple of friends or at least have friends that are decent enough to say “okay we all like X, so we’ll play that instead since everybody is here.”

    • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      9 months ago

      I don’t play a lot of multiplayers games either but thats not the only point.

      1. if you play a mp game regularly, you make friends and build up community. If the product changes for the worse, you‘re pitting your financial self interest against you community. Btw. that is how relationships work for a lot of neurodivergent people. IRL we face significant challenges which used to be no problem until companies started enshittifying.

      2. Aside from multiplayer, if you have offline friends, games are like brands or social media tools. You need to play the games (at least some) your peers play so that you can bond with them. Otherwise you become irrelevant. If they play fames with harmful gambling mechanics (lootboxes for example) you are introduced to and kept in that ecosphere.

      Now we need to address that vote with your wallet only works if you’re sufficiently able (mentally, educationally) to swim against the tide and you can see how this is like telling people in wheelchairs to just get up a couple stairs already. (Since a lot of us actually don’t have the selfimage to maintain behavior like this)

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
          4·
          9 months ago

          Why is that important? It is a significant amount of people. Add up children (who are prone to be peer pressured), the neurodivergent (who are in need of alternative ways to socialize) and those who are not strong of will.

          Additionally, it does not have to be a strong tide. Like with dark patterns, it just needs to make it „sufficiently hard“ to switch the vendor and you constitute a lock in (which we are discussing rn).

          Edit: imagine we would ask this question when assessing a wheelchair ramp at a mall? It is not important if it’s the majority but if people suffer under this when it is (easily) preventable.

            • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
              4·
              9 months ago

              You were faster to answer than my edit.

              I can only asssume why the technique hasn’t worked for a long time. But taking the example from social media where it would be voting with your feet (leaving), the product markets for games are defined. And in these markets, I recon the majority is vulnerable, so yes. It is most likely the majority.

                • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  so none of the bystanders should help them either

                  I don’t understand this. Telling someone to vote with their wallet is not helping. The equivalent would be that a victim was „told“ to defend themselves. I am saying we shouldn’t put the responsibility on the victim but the aggressor.

                  just like with most things in life

                  That I can agree to. Taking action is hard. But I would say that it is easy to broadly judge „most people“ while this very article says that in the case of social media, the boomers‘ blame for example seems to be ill aligned. Not the people are to blame but the mechanics.

    • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
      2·
      9 months ago

      Depends on the circles you keep. But if your gaming crew if say 6 people are all playing Overwatch, what’s the game you’re likely playing? It’s not even pressure it’s just how social conformity work.

      Isolation is a strong word. But to some degree, it’s about community. If your friends are all playing hockey all summer and in August you dip and spend it playing chess or drawing, it’s not going to strengthen the ties you have. Same deal with gaming. With any socially oriented hobby tbh.

      It doesn’t mean you’ll turn into the Uni Bomber tho.