Maybe this is a long-shot, but maybe not.
Lots of evidence recently about social media and its negative effects on mental health, especially that of teens.
It's pretty compelling stuff.
Does Nostr offer an opportunity to fundamentally change social media for the better?
I'm honestly not sure, but if we can do it we should try.
I do think a large part of the negatives that come from social media is the virality and algorithimic feeds that keep people scrolling. It generally takes advantage of some of human behavior's biggest weaknesses. There is an insatiable mindset when it comes to posting and scrolling feeds that I feel social media today takes advantage of and people lose their mindfulness as a result.
Back when social media was really just your circle of friends and that was it, things weren't as bad and Nostr reminds me a lot of that time period. Whether it stays that way will remain to be seen.
Yeah I agree.
This quote from one of the articles is interesting:
"(Side note: Interestingly, teen loneliness briefly went way down from about 1996 to about 2006. That’s consistent with the idea that the old computer-based internet was a complement to in-person interaction — a place you could build an alternative social circle — instead of a substitute for it. Like I always say, the internet used to be an escape from the real world; now, the real world is an escape from the internet.)"
Spot on.
While companies fine tune their algos to maximize addictiveness, even a “no algo” approach can’t eliminate it.
The basic mechanism is the dopamine surge from “social validation”
Nostr isn’t fundamentally different. In fact it everyone in the space seems to be deliberately trying to replicate it.
I think the only way to make it better is to restrict *a lot* all the “social” features.
Zaps might help.
Random thoughts:
- no likes
- except for some sort of “global feed” you only see events by people you follow or validated by their “zapper”.
- that means replies, reactions etc. all must come as zaps and the recipient decides the minimum amount.
- you can filter events by minimum amount of zaps
- no totals of likes or zaps or other interactions.
- you only get notifications by people who you follow or who zap you a minimum amount
A think something like that would help — but not completely fix it. In general I think kids shouldn’t have access to anything that can’t be easily censored by their parents.
