Facebook for social use

A few things that FB can do. Please fwd it to the team

• Spotting depression patterns
• Alerting officials on drug peddling
• Monitoring sexual offenders
• Informing parents when kids chat with convicted people
• Spotting borderline-affected people
• Alerting friends/family of suicidal behavior
• Creating a smaller circle of friends / Keep only people who are in circles
• Reduce amplification of negative news
• Incentivize / promote Enable knowledge sharing/education / not-for-profit initiatives
• Facebook as a knowledge medium not just for social interaction
• Help combat trafficking/offenders / targeted crimes network

Facebook is a weapon to spot digital offenders as well as treat them with the right medication.

Keep Thinking!!!

Decode Content Engagement across apps / Alive and productive or Alive and Unhappy

Across different platforms / Apps, How the traps are set for Content engagement and amplification. How do you draw the line between #healthy consumption vs #dangerous consumption?

Youtube

• The subscribe option that shows up regular daily videos
• Updates to your favorites - Paranormal, travel vlogs, stocks, etc..
• This easily takes up time before sleep (Adds to your menu list with constant follow up / curiosity)
• Walking time is almost gone
• Recommendations of video list to keep you scrolling

Swiggy

• The notification / offers trap
• Beautiful recipe pictures
• Add more to the menu and get a 30% discount with X value order
• Always this comes in mind, Even if you don't cook you can swiggy it anytime food delivered 
• 50 rs if I walk for 5 mins, 300 rs for ordering from smartphone :), One-click at cost :)

Twitter

• Search by trending tags and keep hearing opinions
• Look for opinions similar to your beliefs
• After a TV show lookup for trending topics to engage more in content

TV

• Debate shows / Talk shows / comedy shows / Expedition X
• People know the type of content/type of engagement
• Although unverified but content that excites with uncertainty
• Breaking news of constant repetition and sensation

Work (Some useful work)

• Read papers / Experiment code
• Look for solutions/references
• 30% is useful, 70% is a useless Internet content

Whatsapp / Telegram

• Groups / messages / discussions
• Status in WhatsApp to know things around us
• Constant forwards / motivation / count of unread messages / groups
• Marketing forwards / calls from marketing/loans offers / Numbers that get shared with data registered in the apps

"Many time blocks of the day were used only for work before social media now take up smartphones". Everything consumes time. 

What we forget

• Reminder I waste time and I age losing my precious time and thoughts, How slowly we change our routine based on the content we consume, gradual increase in content consumption with the personalized recommendations
• A reminder this content is for attention and not really true always
• The food in the picture is good for taste but bad for the heart
• Everybody cannot afford to travel, focus on work
• Don't live or long for Life that you don't have
• Internet is a garbage yard, the more you travel without a plan the more you end up with trash
• Eye problems, sedentary lifestyle everything will be an issue
• Swiggy food looks good in pictures, and discounts but in quality often consuming it what about cholesterol?
• Die early, get more health issues, feel emotionally low
• Every age group kids/teens/adults / aged everyone has similar to their preferences and choices of apps for engagement, The changes come in all segments. How much we use for learning vs entertainment? How much do we get often distracted?
• The small amounts of loss of focus how impact cascades into habits and loss of productivity

We have slow poison pills everywhere around us. Alive and feeling unhappy vs #alive and #focused vs alive and #purposeful. We need to set boundaries in our usage/consumption and be consciously aware of purpose/usage, or else we will end up as busy and unproductive.

Good read - Link

• Fake news. Misinformation. Mental health crises. Election meddling. Extremism. Partisanship. Eating Disorders. Body Dysmorphia. Vulnerability porn.
• Parasocial relationships4 where a single person can make thousands (or more) feel as though they are interacting on a personal, one-on-one level.
• #Socialmedia companies hire #programmers and #datascientists to operate “engaging user interfaces” that strip mine your attention.
• "...you’re not the customer, you’re the product."

Keep Thinking!!!

Mass content engaged zombies

Time wasters / Dopamine boosters

• Inescapable Internet / Constant Content Engagement / Content amplification Systems
• Inescapable Youtube / Whatsapp / Facebook / Telegram / Instagram / TV
• Content for all age group / genders
• Crave for new content every day - Programmed by Constant Usage
• End up consuming more unwanted content and less quality content

What do we think/feel is right?

• Slim body
• Acne free skin
• Attention seeking machines

Results of Social media 

• Depression / Anxiety
• Deep Dive Engagement 
• Addiction

Loss of Personality

• Manipulative / Biased / Personalized targeted ads
• Exploit human tendencies of feedback / Sensitized to bias 
• Top 10 Happiest Countries <> Top 10 Countries spending time in Social Media

Social Media can be an addiction, It can make you feel lonely. We are not monitored for mental health. Talk more, Walk more. Quit Social Media!!!!

Happiness is not spending time on Social Media or watching others' Lives

mere-exposure effect

• The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle.
• The fact that you liked a song because of mere exposure to it, is something that products all over the world is trying to leverage
• Higher the frequency of the usage -> higher the familiarity -> higher the likeness of the product -> higher the ‘share of mind’ of the user -> higher the ‘share of wallet’!

Ref - Link

Keep Thinking!!!

Must watch for every #parent #education #porn #awarness #digitalfootprint https://t.co/FU5lNprO2a

— Siva (@sivaram2k10) May 4, 2023

What questions we need to ask Facebook

1. What Affirmative action is taken to reduce extensive user amplification/engagement
2. What plans do you have to engage kids towards creativity/thinking, a platform for self-development vs content engagement
3. 50% of the world's population still being offline, How has FB impacted in positive ways vs migrating/working for #metaverse

Keep Thinking!!

Socialmedia - Mentalwellness - Pornography - Privacy

10 mins Quick summary on the collective impact of 

• Smartphones
• Social media
• Tracking
• Privacy
• Pornography
• MentalHealth 

Keep Thinking!!!

Dark side of profits

• The dark side of  analytics - mobile apps - facebook - youtube - amplify the #engagement for the sake of profit 
• If you aren't the paying customer, you are the product. #google #facebook #android
• Anger/ Hate / Excitement / Drugs creates dopamine addiction and keeps the conversation going
• For the cab sharing, delivery partners - The illusion of guaranteed income while the variable incentives seem attractive initially but mental and physical costs would take a big toll soon
• High dopamine low effort entertainment (video games, drugs, porn, Netflix), it becomes the default way to spend leisure time really quickly

I will let this happen to my own kid vs can I leverage everything outside my home as an untapped market.

As an end-user think

• How much time does Zuck spend on FB every day
• Will they let their kids spend so much time FB that a typical teen does

Until we recognize we are in this trap of low-cost internet, virtual addiction you will never come out of this virtual trap - low-cost mobile phone, free internet, engagement vs leaving away your goals in life.

The same happens in every other domain, Why do restaurants don't hesitate to use outdated/expired products in their food. It boils down to one's own integrity vs profits. 

How I Met & Surpassed My Career Goals While Following One Actionable Rule

Keep Thinking!!!

Dark Side of Social Media

I was expecting such evidence-based insights to understand social media manipulation.

Key Notes from Link1, Link2

• There were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money
• Facebook has realised that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money
• The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world,” says former Facebook employee France Haugen.

Paper #1 - THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

• Adverse outcomes such as suicide and depression appear to have risen sharply over the same period that the use of smartphones and social media
• Social media may create ideological “echo chambers” among like-minded friend groups, thereby increasing political polarization
• Deactivating Facebook freed up 60 minutes per day for the average person in our Treatment group
• Facebook deactivation significantly reduced news knowledge and attention to politics. 

More Read

POVERTY, DEPRESSION, AND ANXIETY: CAUSAL EVIDENCE AND MECHANISMS

Social Media can be addiction, It can make you feel lonely. We are not monitored for mental health. Talk more, Walk more. Quit Social Media!!!!

Weekly Tech Bytes - Consumer Tech reads

Article #1 - How Big Pharma Finds Sick Users on Facebook

Summary - Based on users' interests target drug personalized ads. Diabetes, Heartattack etc depending on the groups enrolled.

Article #2 - The secret tricks hidden inside restaurant menus

• Font italic typeface conveys a perception of quality
• Wine labeled with a difficult-to-read script was liked more by drinkers 
• This is not just a pudding - Adding Indulgent Descriptions
• The more description you have the higher the value of the item

Article #3 - Welcome to Good Faith

Internet poisoning is when someone spends so much time online that they come to believe that real life is as warped and strange as the internet

Article #4 - Machine Learning is a Marvelously Executed Scam

It’s still early days; technology is built upon iterative improvements

I'm afraid to Google something because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it.

I'm afraid to skip a song because I don't want the algorithm to block all songs like it.

I'm afraid to click a link because I don't want the algorithm to show me more like it.

What a cage.

— Josh Collinsworth (@jjcollinsworth) May 6, 2021

Keep Questioning!!!

Five Things for better User Privacy in Social Media, Ads, Google, Youtube

• Apply policy of Individuals have the right to request the restriction or suppression of their personal data in all the countries
• Explicit consent requires a very clear and specific statement of consent with the purpose
• Investigate on Statistical purposes of Data usage at Individual Level
• What level of data is aggregated at the user level. Apply the policy of restriction, archival
• Callout every Ads based on identifiable data that was used (Name, IP address, Location data)
• Warn them of Obsessive behavior but do not alert it or use it for advertising
• Advise them if you spot depression symptoms but do not remember the historical data more than a few months
• Have a more social approach toward better sex education, awareness, restrict on content but provide more relevant content, not addiction

After months of stalling, Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome and the Google app. No wonder they wanted to hide it.
⁰
Spying on users has nothing to do with building a great web browser or search engine. We would know (our app is both in one). pic.twitter.com/lJBbLTjMuu

— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) March 15, 2021

Keep Thinking!!!

Smartphone / Social Media Issues

There are a lot of issues due to cheap internet smartphone / social media, The primary motive seems to have failed

• Targeted marketing to influence people
• Change from Morality to Majority Opinion is right
• Crowd following mentality
• Drive more consumeristic / purchase behavior
• Focus more on lifestyle/luxury than principles/priorities
• Low or no importance to education
• Setting up wrong examples
• Addiction to games/media / fake gurus
• Commercialize everything, Take away all the time
• In a way they have created isolated hotspots, depressed, addicted to smartphones. With cheap internet, they have only screwed their lives further. Targeted apps for each age group. Drive based on their emotional, behavioral needs. 

Keep Questioning!!!

Ten Reasons to launch Orkut2.0

1. The necessity for a better Facebook alternative, New segment of groups outside Facebook need to evolve 
2. Orkut was successful during the 2005+ period. I remember it started as a side project.
3. Google+ started but didn't achieve what Orkut had earlier achieved
4. Android + Orkut 2.0 might need a comeback considering a better Facebook alternative
5. Already many contacts/ frequents contacts are only available in telephone contacts, bringing them into an Orkut 2.0 will challenge both WhatsApp and Facebook
6. Transparent privacy controls and ensuring user confidence Google can attempt to do a better job than Facebook (personal opinion)
7. Segment and build networks kids/elders/peer networks like research gate. We need specialty networks
8. Quora has become a crowded platform and losing its knowledge value. Facebook has become more of an influencer platform. Social media platforms need to be accountable for the facts/opinions shared. If the opinions are shared to disrupt peace then we certainly need to cut down the section that disrupts the peace.
9. Hopefully, there are more user controls, privacy, and data restrictions. The current twitter flagging debate highlights opinions vs verified opinions
10. Time for more innovation! 

Hopefully, we see more alternatives!!!

Facebook + Reliance Jio (Privacy vs Preferences vs Recommendations)

This has been trending news last couple of days, Facebook investment in Jio. Let's look at stats

• India - 450 million active internet users
• Reliance Customer base - 369.93 million and market share to 32.04 percent in the telecom sector (Link)
• WhatsApp user base of 250-300 million in India (Link)
• FB users in India - 340 million (Estimated)

How Jio is evolving?

• Strategy #1 - High-Speed Free Internet @ low cost to Capture the market
• Strategy #2 - Leverage the customer base for the B2C segment
• Strategy #3 - Use FB details, Whatsapp details to understand user sentiments, choices, preferences

What Jio knows about customers

• Usage 
• Location Coordinates
• Gender / Behavioral Analytics

Social Media is giving away more and more information that was once deemed private

What Facebook knows about customers

• Social circle
• Financial status 
• Place you live 
• Place you work
• Education
• Buyer Sentiments
• Decode a lot more from your pictures
• FB technically can access whatever information that app accesses on your device
• Facebook is also a data and advertising platform

What can we do from a single picture on Facebook

• Age Estimation
• Emotions
• Clothing Factors
• Personality Type
• Lifestyle Patterns
• Gadgets / Cars / Things we live with
• Fashion Consciousness
• Brands Usage

We had already looked into this in related post decode your personality. 

There are many startups working in this space bringing the rural population on board. From Tiktok, Youtube, Facebook now it means Serious business. Facebook already has a proven history of data scandals. The visibility of data shared / people influenced will always be manipulated greatly. We end-users have no control over the influence of ads. Are they random or targeted based on our historical data?

Reference - Link
TikTok is a data collection service 

• Phone hardware (cpu type, number of course, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)
• Other apps you have installed
• Everything network-related (ip, local ip, router mac, your mac, wifi access point name)

Another competitor that will be looked up will be Telegram. Telegram hits 400M monthly active users . There are other players in this segment.

Future Possibilities in Connecting Platforms + Users + Social Media Apps after Reliance jio + Facebook + WhatsApp. Future possibilities could be

• Airtel  / Vodafone + Telegram + Amazon 
• Airtel / Vodafone + Flipkart + Telegram  
• Google + Telegram

WhatsApp and Facebook will be invaded by ads, Stay tuned!!!

How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps

Keep Thinking!!!

Social Media Responsibilities

How do we measure social media impact? What are the pros and cons of Social Media
Pros

• Information Sharing
• Connect with a larger set of population

Cons

• Sharing information without Authenticity
• Motive / Authenticity of people sharing information
• Smiles / Selfies vs Reality of Life
• Manipulative / Biased / Personalized targeted ads
• Exploit human tendencies of feedback / Sensitized to bias 

Social Media Accountability

• Freedom of speech vs Hurting Sentiments
• Consequences of blackmail/threat/bullying through social media contacts
• Consequences of any form of violence instigated through messages
• Validating the facts/claims shared?
• Endorsing political advertisement claims without a moral stand?
• Biased targeting of users?
• Depression / Suicide due to excess usage of social media?
• Freedom of speech vs Authenticity of speech vs Intentions of information shared?

When we can’t even agree on what is real


Keep Thinking!!!

Improving Women Safety

To reduce crime against women more than strengthening laws we need to get to the root cause of issues. We need to analyze the crime data and fix the source of the problem.

We need to analyze the crime patterns based on different aspects to find the underlying patterns.

Pattern vs Solutions

• Correlation with alcohol - How to reduce/limit alcohol consumption 
• Correlation with education - How to reduce dropouts and improve education
• Correlation with income category - Sustainable jobs
• Correlation with marital status - Family aspects
• Correlation to caste - Driven by caste / Unemployment / Dropouts
• Correlation to age group - Social media, porn impact
• Correlation to social behavior - Drugs / partying / Addiction
• Correlation to job type - Government vs Private jobs vs Daily vs Organized Crimes

Education is not limited to a few years. Education is not about degrees. The real purpose of education is to unlearn and relearn things from morality/humanity perspective.

It needs complete society change, not just laws. Let's prepare a safer tomorrow by making the required changes. 

Keep Questioning!!!

The curse of Social Media and State of Education - Dark Future

With the growing amount of selfies, pics data shared across quora, facebook, Instagram, tiktok. We need to think of

• Impact of the content on the psychology of kids
• Emotional Maturity / Bias / Impact on Kids / Children
• Loss of productivity / Distraction
• There is considerably more bad content than the good content
• How does these content fuel for better thinking / better focus
• Who is responsible for moderating all the online content? How do I know as a parent the influence on my Kids
• The state of education/mindset hasn't changed with this cheap data plans. Instead, we started losing our own individual thinking
• This is a follow the crowd pattern approach. Developed countries do not have so much of exams but produce better research and innovation. With the state of education, we produce more failures and ship abroad few successful students
• Changing students to merely solving problems within time constraint does not develop creativity or curiosity
• If 90 kids fail in this education system what do they end up? Delivery boys?
• Population can't be controlled by force. It needs education, awareness, and responsibility

Better metrics for a better future generation and better thinking towards

• How do we make people self-sufficient
• How has education improved scientific thinking
• How has education improved morality
• How has education promoted social responsibility
• Are things affordable for the poor and needy
• What have we done to create ideas at grassroots

Creating a better intelligent generation needs more thoughts than just about GDP

Keep Thinking!!!

The Business of Facebook

When we think everything in terms of Data. We would need to look at Data Goals, Business Goals, the story behind data.

High-Level Aggregated Metrics - What would be the data metrics in Facebook

• Number of new users added
• Number of new places added
• Number of pics uploaded, Growth of data video, pics
• Number of conversations for new users
• Average time spent by users across ages, professions, country, ethnicity
• Most viewed content across age groups
• Most viewed contents across domains / Professions
• Number of new advertisers added
• Sale / Conversion / Influencers 

Individual User Specific Information

• Your likes/dislikes
• Your background, education, ethnicity
• Behavioral traits
• Your app usage 

Unconsciously we do reflect a lot of our interests in social media. This makes us more aligned/biased if we are suggested based on our historical data. Always keep changing your patterns of thinking, learning, experimenting. Instead of Facebook, I prefer to chose to share things in my own private blog. I don't believe pics reflect the emotions of a person. I remember the lines in Macbeth "Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair"

Your bits and bytes are tracked and recommendations are given. Always timeslice your tasks. We are here only for a limited time. Sometimes we need to create those moments by experimenting, taking our learning to the next level. This Life is precious to get carried away with selfies and pics. Look beyond and find what we can do, learn to make the world a better place.

More Reads - How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation

Happy Learning!!!

Youtube - Please Improve your recommendations

With a lot of social media, new data. It's a lot of data duplication in Youtube recommendations, The recommendations are not contextual, time relevant, emphasis on emotional wellness

• Data Duplication - News from one channel followed by same news reported from other mediums. The data is the same but why would we need to revisit the same new again

• Repeat of News with Same Situations Involved (Aircraft Accident follows a list of other accident news in history). News with Negative emotions or More news and noise could be controlled or promote tips for Air Safety  

• Promote Heterogenous mix - (We listen to songs / tech talks / motivation videos / news-trends) - Recommendations depend on day of week / time of day / place. It has to be more contextual than just what type of videos I saw recently

• Impact on children - I have observed my niece spending tons on time on toys, cars etc. Learning has to be both online and offline. Time moves without any alert. Rather being glued its better we reduce/encourage better content that promotes creativity, questioning, thinking. Children don't know what's best to them, parents often feel giving smartphones makes them calm down

• Emotional Wellness - There has to be a human touch/impact in every aspect of life. We are all tracked by our android phones. They know more about our patterns/actions. It can better understand our highs / low points of life than just making us download/watch more bits and bytes. Recommendations based on our lifestyle/commute / recommending start times / proactive to alert based on our previous activities. 

After two years. Today read this article . Key lessons listed below

• ‘successful’ recommendations is watch time, providing compelling recommendations
• Great for a company trying to sell ads but waste of time for consumer
• YouTube’s interest to keep us watching for as long as possible.

Happy Thinking!!!