The article fails to define both the problem and the solution.

How exactly this “attention theft” causes significant negative societary consequences is defined extremely vaguely, and almost exclusively through personal anecdotes.

The offered solutions, forcing employers to respect working hours and forcing social media companies to change their business models, are borderline non-sequiturs to the article’s thesis.

There is a comment about this possibly being a new “moral panic”, which the author dismisses out of hand. Yet in the same article, he implies his son dropped out of school at 15 because of WhatsApp.

It seems as though you're suggesting that we use authority to "solve" these "systemic" issues - which really are just individual issues for a subset of the population. This suggests that you are comfortable deciding what's good for others. How would you respond to obese or social-media-obsessed people who are content with their lives and not interested in your "solutions"?

Everything the market does as a byproduct of maximizing profits is fine, but all other intervention with provably better mental and physical health outcomes is authoritarian. Did I get that right?

First we have to all agree on what this means, which I'm quite sure is impossible. Everything the free market does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not. That is exactly the basis for my opposition to authoritarian paternalism.

Also I disagree that corporations are "enacting control" - they are merely exerting influence. There is a world of difference.

In some ideal world, where both parties of an exchange hold equal bargaining power, the "free" market might be "voluntary".

This is certainly not the current state of affairs, though. Being able to "choose" between a crappy option and a horrible option is anything but voluntary: "you can choose to work for me for little to no money... or you can choose to starve to death. it's your 'free' choice."

The very premise of what would make a free market efficient in the real world simply doesn't exist, but we keep trying to convince ourselves that it does because we don't know or aren't used to anything different.

To protect people, against their will, from the consequences of their own misfortune or inadequacy is fundamentally paternalistic. The goal isn't efficiency, but the primacy of agency and consent.

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...

I think we're going to have to disagree for good here. I much prefer living in a country where radically free markets are substantially toned down.

FWIW, I wouldn't want to prescribe a particular habit of eating healthy or not binging media, but I also don't consider the current status quo neutral. It is true that it is simply a product of profit incentives, but that doesn't mean the outcomes are good, desirable or natural.

What is being sacrificed? Equal starting conditions to start with. Wealth in capitalism tends to concentrate. Social mobility exists, but it is severely limited. Exploitation through holding capital is mandatory. I'm feeling this right now, I am in the top 25% income bracket overall and much better if accounting for age, yet I will never be able to do such trivial things regular workers could do just a few decades ago such as build a house, thanks to the freedom afforded to the absolute top end to turn housing into a speculative commodity. If I lived in the US, a considerably "freer" society than mine, my entire wealth would be consumed by healthcare, a result of the freedom of hospitals and insurers to charge arbitrarily high fees for maximum extraction.

> Equal starting conditions to start with

Equal conditions are not a prerequisite for liberty. They are in fact impossible to define and impossible to impose. You can be destitute and free, and you can be pampered and enslaved. The Darwinian nature of a free economic system isn't imposed, it's an emergent property of any system where scarce resources are competed for by living beings. As in any Darwinian system, the optimal behavior for the successful is to maximally exploit their success, to pull-up the ladder, so to speak.

Everything else you've said just betrays your religion: "Workers should be able to build houses". "Healthcare should be regulated so people can afford it". I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree here. In my religion, I'd prefer to die in agony rather than pry greedily into the pocket of an unwilling stranger. Why is your religion better than mine?

- The internet is a common shared environment, so its maintenance should be regulated like other environments to manage externalities.

These points seem consistent with your philosophy and also permit regulation of social media companies.

I agree we shouldn't let people physically destroy internet infrastructure. I don't think this is controversial. I don't think we should regulate how people peacefully interact.

Violence is fundamentally preventable because people have agency in ways that animals do not. You'll note that only violence with knowledge is considered horrific. For instance, being attacked by a person with the mind of a 4 year old isn't considered nearly as bad as being attacked by an otherwise normal adult. The adult knew what they were doing and did it anyways.

> I see you've also added property rights now, which are a totally separate category from violence

I suppose it stems from the idea of natural rights - ie. what would you be able to do if there were no other people around? Would you be able to put something down and expect to find it where you put it? If so then you have "property rights": the reasonable expectation that your material activities will not be interfered with. The rest of it is mediating how your property rights interact with those of others.

Liberty is basically the idea that you should be able to do anything at all as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others to do the same. The legitimacy of government is derived from its defence of liberty. It's not about preventing "bad things".

The prohibition by the government of the physical force requisite to deprive people of their freedom.

> the legal framework should permit nullification and redress

It does already. Contracts have disclosure clauses all the time.

To bring it back to the article at hand, did social media and other tech companies disclose the negative effects of the use of their products in their EULA?

The prohibition by the government of the use of physical force requisite to deprive people of their freedom.

If a distributor of an addiction-forming substance engenders an addiction in customers, is that not utilizing physical force to deprive them of their freedom? Especially if the addictive properties were not disclosed ahead of time.

What do you mean "negative"? Why do you consider captivating people negative? Do you think this view is universally held?

I think people should be able to distribute any substances or provide any services "as is", without implied warranties of any kind. Offering such goods and service does not constitute physical force.

without implied warranties of any kind. Offering such goods and service does not constitute physical force.

Then there simply should be more powerful NGOs rooted in civil society that can advise consumers on potential negative effects, to protect against information asymmetry, and so users will understand the full freedoms they have at their disposal for redress if a business happens to provide poor, injurious service.

All of these actions are done with the threat of fines for noncompliance, and the threat of imprisonment for noncompliance with the fines. They are also financed by taxation, which is involuntary and redistributive by nature.

> Then there simply should be more powerful NGOs

If these NGOs do not occur naturally, then there's clearly not enough demand for them. This is supported by your proposal to use authority to force them into existence. I'm opposing the use of authority to intervene in peaceful interaction between citizens.

Instead of forcing the issue, why not just be content with the fact that most people are not interested in forming voluntary collectives, even when it is in their interest, and in spite of the fact that they are free and entitled to, and allow them to suffer the consequences?

How is filing an amicus brief or funding third party groups in danger of anything like that? There’s no regulation involved.

> If these NGOs do not occur naturally, then there's clearly not enough demand for them.

They already do, e.g. https://www.ofsms.org/

> why not just be content with the fact that most people are not interested in forming voluntary collectives

Why are you insistent on claiming the nonexistence of information asymmetry?

> They are also financed by taxation, which is involuntary and redistributive by nature.

Ah if we go down that route of normative woolgathering then we can next call property theft and even land (or at least rent) theft, and continue this endless wheel of rhetorical Samsara.

Uninstall social media from your phone, delete your social media accounts, put your phone in a box when you get home, etc, etc, etc.

These “problems” are trivially easy for an individual to solve. They are so easy to solve that I disagree with the basic premise that we even have a problem.

I think we could rewrite this article from the perspective of any generation. Just replace the phone with whatever hysteria was happening in that era. Music, video games, comics, or whatever.

The author of this article seems to just throw her hands up without having tried even a single thing.

“No, I cannot manage my own behavior. It is society that must change!”

Tobacco clearly kills you (and people around), ruins you and make you stink like pile of old crap. We still allow it, but regulate it heavily since bad effects are out there, everywhere. TBH I don't mind some regulation on too-powerful social media, they've enjoyed their free pass for way too long and so far they definitely didn't make the world a better place, in contrary.

“I see you explaining why x is difficult for most people, but I don’t struggle with it so the difficulty is invalid.”

I find these two examples particularly interesting because the regulations have done absolutely nothing. Heroin has never been more popular or more regulated. Tobacco is lightly regulated and the declines in usage are almost completely attributed to campaigns against smoking, not the regulations themselves.

To me, it's also a problem of "Moloch does it". Scott Alexander describes it well and gives a handful of great examples in Part I of his Meditations on Moloch.[1]

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-10-01/why-social-...

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...

Some things on the frontpage are clear advertisments, there has been evidence of shilling about certain topics by using post templates etc etc. but still somehow the impression persists that some dude from Idaho just posted his awesome BBQ recipe and the perfectly framed and well-lit tech equipment in the background is just coincidence.

And it scares me 'PR firms' exist and are named as such because the term 'propaganda' started to take on a negative connotation. Kinda like how Google became Alphabet, or Facebook became Meta. Advertising, marketing, public relations, propaganda, manipulation.... where does the distinction lie?

Do you care to give a couple cases/examples on the Reddit front? Like proven scandals where people or groups have conspired to deceive? You mention a dude from Idaho, but I'm not in-the-loop enough to get the reference.

https://blog.wishpond.com/post/115675438254/reddit-marketing...

https://contentfac.com/a-complete-guide-to-reddit-marketing/

There are also useful subreddits to find examples: https://old.reddit.com/r/AstroTurfing/

It is hugely powerful to not get caught up in all this nonsense at the individual level.

I know so much more than what I knew in early January 2021 because I spend my time reading books, doing tutorials or taking MOOCS instead of wasting my time watching TikTok. I literally don't even know what the user interface to TikTok looks like and never will.

If anything the exact problem is people are giving up agency at the individual level. As if there is absolutely no choice other than to be helplessly addicted to your phone. That implies then that it is not your fault that you check your phone or txt while driving.

But, it is also true that in this 'attention economy' the large companies are hiring psychologists to try to break your agency, to try to take it away from you. And they are doing a pretty damn good job, and aren't going to stop any time soon. "Stolen" in the title of the OP is not really an exaggeration.

>It is hugely powerful to not get caught up in all this nonsense at the individual level.

I mostly agree with this, but in the same token think we should be aware of "this nonsense".

>As if there is absolutely no choice other than to be helplessly addicted to your phone.

Don't think anyone is saying that. Think what we are saying is more along the lines of something like 'the problem is systemic, essentially baked into the business model of advertising/marketing, and it should be addressed'

Theft can happen only when it’s involuntary.

> the problem is systemic, essentially baked into the business model of advertising/marketing, and it should be addressed

That’s not the root cause. It is just a choke point for blame.

The root cause is the choice people make, which we’ve established exists. If people want help, there are plenty of mitigations for social media, like alternative front ends.

I suppose I am arguing that it is involuntary. Social media addiction is a real thing. "Stolen attention" seems to fit here. But I guess the line does get blurry. When a true heroin addict shoots up, is that completely voluntary or completely involuntary? Probably neither.

>The root cause is the choice people make, which we’ve established exists. If people want help, there are plenty of mitigations for social media, like alternative front ends.

So the root cause is not that these companies are being manipulative for financial gain, the cause is that users aren't choosing alternative front ends to social media (or some other mitigations). Hmm... Not sure I agree.

Yes, it is true users have some sort of agency or choice in the matter, but that doesn't mean these large companies aren't still doing the sneaky things that we know they are. Even you including the word "mitigation" in your response speaks to the fact that the problem is deeper than the users choice. Mitigation is secondary.

Also, I think this is a great discussion that is well worth having. The 'root cause' of all of this... (I tend to think it's just greed.)

The heroin addict doesn't get to blame someone else for their choices; it's a bit like jumping from a building - it's not voluntary to be falling (i.e. being subject to gravity). You had a choice to not jump from the building.

The mitigation is to turn the parachute on your back on, so _continuing_ to be falling is voluntary.

So, in the moment, it may not be voluntary - but in the long term, it certainly is. And the _responsibility_, that most certainly lies with the user in this case.

> but that doesn't mean these large companies aren't still doing the sneaky things that we know they are

It's not like they're hiding anything from the user so it's not sneaky at all. The effects of social media are pretty public on the Internet.

And what are they doing, exactly? Responding to HTTP requests over the network and serving content as the user requests them via algorithms.

Not much different than any other addictive thing in life. Sure, you can try to compare the addictiveness, but it's still just a spectrum.

Ironically, making highly digestible content for social media is something that requires a certain amount of sustained attention.

And yet we have worn masks for months at least. If the price of a free internet is the equivalent of wearing a gasmask then I would rather do that, at least until we we have the equivalent of the nano-robot immunesystem from the Diamond Age.

If we let the government make the rules here we will lose the last place where we can play freely, and will almost certainly not solve the problem we wanted to be solved.

I am aware of the bias of large companies that stops certain people from building, which is why I wrote play.

Seems like different activities are falling under corporate purview.