Kids who grew up in the 80s were too early to have had the internet at all. But kids who grew up in the 00s, notably after the iPhone came out in 06, grew up very differently. The internet wasn't a precious resource, but an always available utility ready to be consumed at will.

This generation is growing up in a never ending onslaught of advertisements and peer pressure the likes of which we didn't experience. They are all guinea pigs for the Facebooks of the world, subjects of the A/B psychographic targeting grind. Their dopamine receptors have been primed since birth to go crazy at the sight of a like.

Anyway, that's my take on it as someone who grew up in this tiny golden era of the internet.

This always-online stuff is good and maddening at the same time. And I still don't "get" social media and probably never will (I don't want to either, it's a giant time sink - my wife is always pecking at her smartphone. Seriously, we're in the same house, stop texting me).

Agency, fuck you points.

I have a low uid, and a ton of karma. One comment, and I get mod points.

I rarely participate these days, but when I do, it's always noticed.

These dynamics were discussed when the mod system and voting were being put together back in the day.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/2017...

Heroin, nicotine, sugar... People just increase dosages.

> How do we prevent extinction? By only giving treats some of the time. So the dog learns something more subtle. When my master says come and I obey, I might get a treat. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. That way, if I obey and don’t get the treat, I shouldn’t panic. I should still always come when he says come because that’s still the best way to get the most treats. Intermittent reinforcement works better.

> This sounds like what Facebook was doing to me.

but... I think it just got normalized. It was like online dating, a lot of people wouldn't admit / kept it quite guarded that they met their partner online. Now it's almost odd if you didn't.

It sort of makes sense there, but it still would seem lame to me for the average person to publicly admit to caring about FB, Instagram, and Hacker News likes and engagement (obviously everyone does at least a little privately). I'm not hip though. Is this still the case or not?

Influencer marketing getting popular most likely.

Does usenet fit the bill ? (no ‘likes’ per se, but the number of answers in a thread would be a good proxy)

Or blog rings where people would link to your pages and you’d monitor link numbers and page views ?

or just the number of comments on your “guestbook” section of your blog ?

I am not sure if those were more or less legitimate to accumulate than likes. My parents sure didn’t understand what we could be doing on the internet (I passed it as a research tool while still studying) but friends would proudly show their blog numbers, there was a hierarchy of well respected posters on boards, and there was a clear social effect IRL during off meetings.

In a way I think the numbers game started the minute something could be counted regarding stuff you did online.

If anything, you might be seeing seeing the tail-end of that kind of pretending. But probably not. The internet is just the newest place to keep up appearances to those around you.