Assignment for 10 Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier


 Lanier

Assignment

1) Jaron Lanier provides 10 reasons why an individual should delete his/her social media account right now. Using these (or other) arguments argue whether a person should delete his/her social media account right now. Provide evidence from either your experience with BUMMER platforms or from information you have gleaned from other users and their accounts of their experience. Where possible see if you can move past anecdotal evidence and to wider research-based findings as evidence.

Lanier 10 Reasons

2) Use MLA parenthetical citation

3) In the conclusion, discuss whether there can be a tipping point where the number of cord-cutters will affect the behavior and strategy of BUMMER platforms.

OR

Explain why the overall effect of social media is a net positive or a net negative.

OR

Lanier states: "there is something you can do personally. If, when you participate in online platforms, you notice a nasty thing inside yourself, an insecurity, a sense of low self-esteem, a yearning to lash out, to swat someone down, then leave that platform. Simple.” Do you think this kind of self-restraint is likely/possible on a personal level for Americans?

OR

Do you think that tech users will ever be convinced that paying for content is a good idea after getting all this content for free for so long?

4) Word Limit = 1000+ words

Outline for Lanier Paper

Intro

Topic from book
Observation from real life

            transitions to

Thesis: One should/should not delete his/her social media account because of reason X, Y, Z.
                                   

Body

I. Discussion of first reason for why/why not a person's social media account should be deleted right now.

II. Discussion of second reason for why/why not a person's social media account should be deleted right now.

III. Discussion of third reason for why/why not a person's social media account should be deleted right now.

Conclusion

discuss whether there can be a tipping point where the number of cord-cutters will affect the behavior and strategy of BUMMER platforms

or

Explain why the overall effect of social media is a net positive or a net negative.

or

Lanier states: "there is something you can do personally. If, when you participate in online platforms, you notice a nasty thing inside yourself, an insecurity, a sense of low self-esteem, a yearning to lash out, to swat someone down, then leave that platform. Simple.” Do you think this kind of self-restraint is likely/possible on a personal level for Americans?

or

Do you think that tech users will ever be convinced that paying for content is a good idea after getting all this content for free for so long?

 


Study Questions

Study Questions #1 (pg. 1-42)

Study Questions #2 (pg. 42-77)

Study Questions #3 (pg. 77-111)

Study Questions #4 (pg. 112-161)


Ancillary Items

Cleveland Heights Library "For your Consideration: "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Account Now" by Jaron Lanier


From "The Big Tech Extortion Racket: How Google, Amazon and Facebook Control Our Lives" by Barry C. Lynn from Harper's Magazine September 2020

"In 2018 an Irish technologist named Dylan Curran downloaded the information Google had collected about him. All in all, Curran found, the corporation had gathered 5.5 GB of data on his life, or the equivalent of more than three million Word documents. In an article for The Guardian, Curran wrote that within this trove he found

every Google Ad I've ever viewed or clicked on, every app I've ever launched or used and when I did it, every website I've ever visited and what time I did it. They also have every image I've ever searched for and saved, every location I've ever searched for or clicked on, every news article I've ever searched for or read and every single Google search I've made in since 2009. And . . . every YouTube video I've ever searched for or viewed, since 2008.

In addition Curran discovered that Google keeps a detailed record of what events he attends and when he arrives, what photos he takes and when he takes them, what exercises he does and when he does them. And it has kept every e-mail he has ever sent or received, including those he has deleted."


Jaron Lanier

Jaron Lanier on Channel 4 British Public Broadcast Service

Background on Jaron Lanier [The Answer is To Double Down on Being Human: interview with Tim Adams] in The Guardian


Frances Haugen (Facebook Whistle Blower)

The Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Says She Wants to Fix the Company, Not Harm It by Jeff Horwitz in The Wall Street Journal ||| Oct. 3, 2021

Facebook Whistleblower Hearing: Frances Haugen Testified Before Senate Panel [October 2021]

The Facebook Files: Part 6 [Oct. 3, 2021]


Deepfake

Tom Cruise Deep Fake

A Lesson on Deep Fakes

60 Minutes: Synthetic Video: Deep Fakes

Top 10 Deep Fake Videos


Editorials

Why Am Still on Facebook? by Jill Filipovic for CNN

Why The Past Ten Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid by Jonathan Haidt from The Atlantic [April 11, 2022]


On Depression [Lanier Sources]

Online Archives and Subjective Well-Being by Fabio Sabatini and Francesco Sarracino [Cornell University]

Social Media Use and Children's Well-Being by McDool, Powell, Roberts, and Taylor

Facebook Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults by Kross, Verduyn, Demiralp, Park, Lee, Shablack, Jonides, Ybarra in Plos One

Association of Facebook Use with Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study by Shakya and Christakis in American Journal of Epidemiology

Do Online Social Media Cut Through the Constraints That Limit the Size of Offline Social Networks? by R.I. M. Dunbar in Royal Society Open Science

Social Media Use and Perceived Social Isolation Among Young Adults in the US by Primrack, Shensa, Sidani, Colditz, Radovic, Millet et al. in American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Facebook Told Advertisers It Can Identify Teens Feeling "Worthless" and "Insecure" by Sam Levin in The Guardian

Facebook's Emotional Consequences: Why Facebook Causes a Decrease in Mood and Why People Still Use It by Sagioglu and Greitemeyer in Science Direct

Should Facebook Manipulate Users? by Jaron Lanier in The New York Times

Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks by Kramer, Guillory and Hancock in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Hard Questions: Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us? on Meta

The Facebook Moms by Kate Spencer on Slate

Facebook Use and Disordered Eating in College-Aged Women by Walker, Thornton, Choudhury,Bulik, Levinso, Zerwas in Journal of Adolescent Health


More on Depression

Does Facebook Cause Depression? by Jack and Sara Gorman Psychology Today January 2022

Facebook Calls Links to Depression Inconclusive. These Researchers Disagree by Miles Parks for NPR in May 2021

Hard Questions: Is Spending Time on social Media Bad for Us? by Meta Dec. 15, 2017

Facebook Disputes its Own Research Showing Harmful Effects of Instagram on teens' Mental Health by Dan Milmo and Kari Paul for The Guardian in September 2021

The Social Dilemma: Social Media and Your Mental Health by McLean Hospital


Lost Productivity

The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress by Gloria Mark

Worker Interrupted: The Cost of Task Switching by Kermit Pattison in Fast Company

Focused, Aroused, but so Distractible: A Temporal Perspective on Multitasking and Communications by Mark, Iqbal, Czerwinski and Johns in CSCW


Miscellaneous

Gary Turk "Look Up" (a poem set to music that urges people to look up from their phones)


Vanessa Barbara Quote from New York Review of Books

From Vanessa Barbara's New York Review of Books piece on Max Fisher's The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World . . .

"In a chapter on the political situation in Brazil over the past few years, Fisher correctly notes that the political establishment had rejected Bolosonaro for decades because of his fanatical positions, misogyny, and hate speech. 'But that attention-grabbing behavior performed well online,' Fisher notes, with social media channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and particularly YouTube responsible for the upsurge in Bolsonaro's popularity. I especially appreciated a comment from Brian Winter, the editor of America's Quarterly, who visited Bolsonaro's office before the 2018 election. All eight staffers were 'doing social media the entire time I was there,' he said. 'There was no legislative work being done.'

Fisher explains how social media platforms are designed to provide users with more and more divisive content, driving them into 'self-reinforcing echo chambers of extremism' in order to retain their attention and increase engagement time. A 2019 internal Facebook report on hate and misinformation found 'compelling evidence that our core product mechanics, such as virality, recommendations, and optimizing for engagement, are a significant part of why these types of speech flourish on the platform.' Fisher's book is not specific to Brazil, but the populous, diverse country offers a laboratory for his thesis.

Fisher draws on his field research to argue that YouTube not only created an online fringe community but also radicalized Brazil entire conservative movement, displacing traditional right wing politics almost completely. The results of the October election corroborate this. The PDSB, which once was one of the strongest political forces in the country, is now virtually dead.

I have followed many right-wing groups on social media for The New York Times and piauí, a monthly Brazilian magazine, trying to make sense of these changes. I've been submerged in racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, and violent discussions. ('Nobody in the past hundred years has done more for peace than Adolf Hitler,' I read in a Brazilian chat group with over 4500 members.) I've heard endless refutations of science and epidemiology. Social media has let opinions that long lurked in the ugly political fringes bask in the open.

. . . Facebook, according to internal documents quoted by Fisher, knew by April 2021 that their algorithms 'were boosting dangerous misinformation, that they could have stemmed the problem dramatically with the flip of a switch, and that they refused to do so for fear of hurting traffic.' The company's researchers had found that 'serial reshares' were likelier to be false, but the algorithm, measuring them for potential virality, artificially boosted their reach anyway. 'Simply turning off this boost,' the reserachers found, 'would curb Covid-related misinformation by up to 38 percent.' This would be an important step to amend political fracturing in Brazil and elsewhere. After all, despite the results of the last presidential election, extremism on the Brazilian far right has not been defeated."

[February 23, 2023 issue]


Addictive Gambling Design

Natasha Dow Schüll on Addictive Gambling Design Hooked on Smartphones: Silicon Valley's Bet on Addictive Gambling Design Paid Off

[Part 1][Part 2]