I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by gamblor956 on Friday January 18, 2019 @03:51PM (#18942949)

There are plenty of people who feel the same way about all the useless startups in SV that exist solely to take VC money.

At least Facebook actually provides something of value to the hundreds of millions people who use it.

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by ForrestN on Friday January 18, 2019 @04:17PM (#18943190)

There is a robust debate about whether or not facebook provides negative value to its users. In my opinion, it's charitable to say that the question of whether Facebook harms its users is open to debate. There seems to be a clear correlation between use of facebook and negative mental health outcomes. The fact that people use a product is absolutely not evidence that it provides value to its consumers, especially when addiction is involved. Whatever "value" someone got out of cigarettes when they first started smoking, most addicts wouldn't say they smoke because they get something out of it beyond the assuaging of cravings.

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by citrablue on Friday January 18, 2019 @06:36PM (#18944157)

This assumes that FB is harmful to everyone, instead of a subset of people. I don't think that's very well proven. The mental health studies also have a bit of a correlation issue, similar to drug use.

I think sugar is a more apt analogy than smoking. Facebook, like sugars, provides a source of a required human input. (Calories/human connection). Overdone, both are harmful.

Tobacco is a much more charged analogy, and is more extreme in terms of positive/negative balance. I think it reveals more about the biases of the person making the statement than it does about social media.

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by ForrestN on Friday January 18, 2019 @07:34PM (#18944434)

The degree of harm is correlated with the degree of use, just like cigarettes. If you smoke a handful of cigarettes a year, it probably won't affect you much at all. But if you use cigarettes multiple times a day for years, you'll do real harm to yourself. That's exactly true of Facebook. Yes, if you occasionally check in and are diligent about how you use facebook, you might escape harm. But unlike sugar, this slight-of-hand language they use of "human connection" doesn't prove that any facebook use is beneficial.

Sure, candy technically has calories. But the fact that human beings need calories isn't a good argument for eating candy. You can also get calories from healthy foods, and you can get "human connection" from, you know, talking to people, or sending text messages, or reading reputable news sources. Not coincidentally, the idea of a "social connection" was and is also a big part of apologizing for smoking as a habit.

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by throwawaymath on Friday January 18, 2019 @08:19PM (#18944638)

> The degree of harm is correlated with the degree of use, just like cigarettes. If you smoke a handful of cigarettes a year, it probably won't affect you much at all. But if you use cigarettes multiple times a day for years, you'll do real harm to yourself. That's exactly true of Facebook.

That's also true of just about anything humans can consume. For example, sugar.

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by zestyping on Friday January 18, 2019 @07:29PM (#18944401)

To refine your analogy, Facebook is like someone whose business plan is "Hey, there's this nutrient called sugar that everyone eats. Great! Let's put heroin in it and give it to kids."

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by gfodor on Friday January 18, 2019 @04:44PM (#18943406)

I like this analogy and I'll steal it if you don't mind. (Assuming that customer value is the same as product use, with cigarettes being a brain dead obvious counterexample.)

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by Aloha on Friday January 18, 2019 @04:23PM (#18943234)

Facebook gives me excellent tools to keep the family members I dont want to talk to at arms length, while letting them feel involved with my life, yet taking none of my time to do so - its preferable to the alternative, which would be breaking off contact with those people.

But, I dont consume much news from facebook (outside of reputable sources, like NPR), nor do I pay much attention to it in general, and I'm VERY cautious about what I post, to avoid anything that could create controversy or waves of any sort.

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by vehementi on Saturday January 19, 2019 @10:51AM (#18947578)

Really? There are people who feel the same way about extracting money from rich VCs as they feel about the harm Facebook does worldwide? Seriously? Who and where are these people? Where can I see their widespread and articulated stance on the equivalence of those things?

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Re:I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in s... by Apocryphon on Saturday January 19, 2019 @11:41AM (#18947799)

Disrupted by Dan Lyons is a recent book that goes into the flim-flam nature of many startups.

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