The McFly Effect: Why Everything on Facebook Is Probably a Lie

A Facebook friend posted this image this morning.

Those of you in particular social media circles will feel a twinge of familiarity, as you probably saw something remarkably similar in the middle of last year, when the exact same image appeared, also doctored to the then current date. I, myself, am something of a BTTF aficionado, having watched the trilogy far too many times as a teen, and so when I saw the 2012 version, something struck me as a slightly off. I did a quick search on Snopes and found that I was right—the date had been altered.

Changing a seven-segment display is, like, Photoshop 101. No, it's Photoshop 97, the remedial class for people who totally missed the "how to turn on your computer" class in high school. There's no real reason to trust this image. But that's not how your brain works. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking, Fast and Slow identifies two parts of a mind: System 1, the instant-reaction, automatic computation part, and System 2, the slow-thinking solver of complex problems. The brain, he says, is a "machine for jumping to conclusions", where System 1 does most of the work, and enlists System 2 only when the going gets relatively rough. And System 1's default is to trust what it sees.

Unless System 2 is active, System 1 will take whatever it's given and run off. And our control over our own vigilance is spotty. Acts like self-control and vigilance require energy, and this energy can be spent over time, in a phenomenon known as "ego depletion". When mental energy is low, we're even more eager to believe everything we see and hear than usual. Facebook is a great ego sink, as people often use it to relax, procrastinate, or otherwise fill downtime. Facebook also offers people a litany of choices, and decision-making further depletes mental energy. So, you arrive at a place where most users have a means of sharing information, and show up at a time when they're most likely to believe it at face value. The perfect storm.

Because of the strange topography of social media content propagation, these ideas will bounce around the tubes like used swim diapers in a wave pool. And, the rule of 10,000 ensures there will always be someone there to pass it on.

Google+ and the Economy of Circles

I recently had an enlightening conversation with a brilliant friend that will remain nameless until he posts his own version of events. This friend had come across, somewhere on the internet, a page containing a list of “Twitter accounts that will follow you back, guaranteed”. As an experiment, he followed everyone on the list, and, as per the guarantee, they followed him back. Interestingly enough, however, is that he’s still racking up tons of followers, beyond those of the original list. Having more followers means you will get more followers.

Thinking about the ramifications of following what amount to dummy accounts in order to increase his follow rate, this friend pointed out that there’s no reason for him to unfollow the accounts he followed. Many of them don’t post, and those that do can be put into a list, and that list can be silenced. There’s no regulation in the Twitter TOS that says he can’t follow certain accounts (that would be counterproductive), and there’s no social stigma associated with it, as no one is likely to double-check his follow list for bots. To my friend, this seemed to be a fatal flaw in Twitter’s system—it can be easily gamed without consequence. Fortunately, Twitter is not a game. It’s a free-market economy.

In fact, Twitter is a very free economy. Because there are only the barest of regulations and developers can and do develop tools that automate and simplify actions in Twitter, users are left to rational self-interest as their only guide to navigating the economy, that is, their audience. Some, like my friend, do this, escaping from the trappings of social convention to further their clout by whatever means available. But because of this forced freedom, Twitter is a world of bubbles (as in “housing bubble”), where individual importance shifts from day to day, and where there seem to be more “experts” than regular Joes.

Compare this to Facebook—an economy with heavier restrictions, where businesses register differently than celebrities, who register differently than regular people. Where events aren’t just blipped out to the masses, they’re fully scheduled and organized. Where there’s such a thing as “like” and where it takes mutual consent to form a connection. Facebook, by its nature, abhors the expert, and embraces the commoner. Spamming is not only encouraged, but subsidized, and there’s no reason to aspire to any benchmark of social performance, unless you’re a company.

I count myself among what I imagine to be a majority of people, content with the shortcomings of both methods. We doubted the need for another major social media platform, especially after having been jilted by Diaspora. Yet there was the Goog, rolling out what at first blush was poised to be Wave 2.0. Thankfully, it wasn’t—it was an exceptionally simple design that approached the social media economy as a free market, much like Twitter. And, in fact, despite the brilliance that is the Circle system of separating one’s friends, there’s nothing yet baked into G+ that will keep it from becoming Twitter. There’s also nothing that can prevent it from becoming like Facebook. At the same time.

That’s the brilliance of Google+: giving the user the ability to change the rules. Because one can change one’s content stream like the channel on a television, users can make the service into anything they want: a Twitter clone, a Facebook clone (minus some largely unnecessary features), a mix of the two, or something else entirely. The killer app is being able to choose your audience, and thus, your economy.

A lot has been made of G+’s ability to succeed—whether it will be a functional social network on the order of Facebook and Twitter. The numerical evidence seems to indicate that that’s a big yes, but whether it will actually succeed—that is, yield an improvement for direct social media in general? That will depend on whether we, the users, learn to make it work to bridge the gaps in existing social media services. For that to happen, we need to experiment, and we need to share.

There’s a lot of upfront work that goes into building a social network, and in Facebook and Twitter, that setup seemed to be straightforward and repetitive. For Google+ users, the setup phase is ongoing, as we attempt to discover how best to format our circles and use them in a way that makes sense. Experimentation will yield functional formats on an individual level, but then each of us needs to continue to have a usability discussions with any friends willing to share, ensuring that disruptive ideas have a chance to spread through the network. I recommend a circle called “Meta” or “Google+” for that.

That’s really the unexpected joy of Google+: millions of people, working together to make something awesome.

Reddit, the Abortionplex, and the Infinite Rabbit Hole

Fake news, people that think it's real news, and people that want people to know that there are people who thought the fake news was real news.

On the 18th, The Onion ran an article detailing a new $8 billion Planned Parenthood facility called "The Abortionplex". In typical Onion fashion, the article was gleefully tongue-in-cheek, timely, and completely, utterly false. The Onion is, of course, a satire news site.

That doesn't necessarily stop people from believing it. This wouldn't be the first time that the masses have bought an Onion line. Nor would it be the most ridiculous thing the general populace has believed. That being said, this graphic (click through) shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone—and yet it's one of the most interesting internet artifacts I've seen, as there is no attempt at all to prove that it is authentic.

I want to be sure that I go one record saying that I don't have any doubts as to the legitimacy of the graphic. However, if someone wanted to create a false graphic on this or any other theme, the ubiquity of Facebook thumbnails and Photoshop makes it possible for them to get involved in made-up guerrilla journalism. The Culture Wars no longer require facts (but they do need the lulz).

Eli Pariser notes the advent of the "filter bubble": the way that Google, Facebook, et al. filter content that you receive based on previously expressed preferences. His TED Talk approaches the most obvious problem with the filter bubble, which is that as websites tailor content automatically, people aren't exposed to opposing viewpoints. There's another angle here, which is that these filter bubbles protect false ideas from being debunked except by untrusted "outsiders". It's clear that the Obama Kenyan birth certificate is a fake, that vaccines do not cause autism, and that the Bush administration did not conspire to cause 9/11, but these ideas continue to spread.

Consider this: we are creating a world in which large social groups not only have different views as to how the world works, but can actively produce proof that their worldview is correct. Worse than that, the low barrier-to-forgery makes it easier and easier for us to disregard facts we find inconvenient to our preconceptions.

Getting a Celebrity to Tweet to You

A well-timed Twitter post got Dulé Hill to send me one in return. You know that's right.

The other day I had an idea. A goal, really, albeit a small one. I had found that there were a couple of celebrities on my Twitter feed that seemed to be very interactive with their followers, and I thought, "I should get one of them to interact with me!" Now, I don't want you to take me for one of those celeb-stalker sorts...I follow one actor, one athlete, one novelist, and a handful of journalists.

The two celebs I follow that I deemed "interactive" couldn't be more dissimilar, but, strangely, both are in Vancouver. William Gibson, father of cyberpunk and author of some truly awesome books; and Dulé Hill, best known for his role as Charlie Young on The West Wing and Burton "Gus" Guster on USA's Psych, both of which are excellent television series.

Gibson, for his part, seems to like to tweet about current events, largely retweeting funny and interesting things he sees, but he responds when people ask him questions. Hill tends to converse with the crowd constantly, and posts about friends, especially West Wing and Psych castmates.

After a failed attempt to get Gibson to respond, I decided to focus on Hill. Now, when I say "focus", I mean, in the immortal words of Mr. Hill's castmate James Roday, "Wait for iiiiiiit!" And the moment arrived.

I saw that Rob Lowe, formerly of The West Wing was trending at the time, due to his appearance on Oprah. Hill had tweeted a number of times regarding his admiration for Lowe, so my tweet was simple, "@dulehill Rob Lowe is trending right now. Just thought you should know." Hill's response? "@benchatt Nice!" That was it. Mission accomplished.

Of course, I told everyone on Facebook what just happened on Twitter. Yes, that sentence is as strange to me as it is to you. The funny thing is that my one-word brush with greatness has stayed on the web—I think I've mentioned it once in real life, to my wife, who then probably saw it on Facebook anyway.

Social media may bring us into closer contact with celebrities these days, but those brushes with fame aren't nearly as cool as running into Ralph Macchio at Taco Bell.

Groupthink

The new Facebook Groups is a miserable failure.

Quietly, amidst the opening of that movie where Zuck is played by a guy who looks like Michael Cera only more serious, Facebook rolled out a new version of Groups. The new Groups combines the function of the old Groups and the function of Lists, which I (and apparently only I) like and use a great deal. It's been touted and announced on a ton of news outlets and techblogs. Read Farhad Manjoo's syrupy article in Slate. Zuck, I hope you already have a date to prom.

Personally, I think the new Groups is at best a major tactical error after a few quiet months. (As you'll recall, there were a number of concerns over the privacy control changes in May.) At worst, it signals a Microsoft-like disconnect with the user base, which will lead to a Microsoft-like end of relevance. Here are the problems:

First, it was rolled out without any real announcement. I heard it on the tech blogs, and have still never seen any notifications on the site. That's pretty major. I have been known to miss the forest for the trees, but I haven't even seen a sapling of notice.

Second, the FAQ doesn't really differentiate it from Lists, and doesn't address the question of why it was implemented (other than "We are continually looking for ways to enhance overall user experience"). It does give a basic overview of the new features, but they seem a lot like things that you already have access to if you use any Google products.

Third, any friend can add anyone, and Facebook gives the added user no notification, even when added to public groups. And there's the spam.

Some have compared the new Groups to Google Wave (apologies for the third TC link—they just did a good job this time) and while the functionality is somewhat similar, it appears that new Groups is the latest in a series of missteps. Wave was simply a gigantic error in judgment, an aberrant faux pas. No, the better comparison here is Microsoft's gradual decline. In no way is new Groups Facebook's Vista, but it does show that to Team Facebook, features are more important than utility, which means irrelevance is inevitable.

Diaspora kids, take your chance soon—you won't get another.

Convenience Killing Caprice and Broken By Design

Editor's Note: It's a twofer this week, about usability design.

Convenience Killing Caprice

I lean on Wired a lot. I'm not going to lie. Today I read an article about context-aware devices, which are objects that use sensors to learn about their users and environments and adapt accordingly. The example given in the article is a remote control that uses accelerometers to determine which user out of a predetermined set is holding it, based on the way they have held the remote in previous sessions. It got me thinking about what would happen if this took off.

Assuming I had a real television, and one of these stupid-cool remotes, my wife and I would of course hold the device in a different natural position, and each time I grabbed the thing, it would warp me over to the Daily Show and Eureka, and when she had it, it would line her up with AGT (Poppycock was robbed!) and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The missus would be totally ok with the setup, probably forever. She is definitely a creature of habit—and there's nothing wrong with that. I however, am not. Knowing that the remote only works right if I hold it a certain way would become an unscratchable itch. I would constantly have the urge to sidearm it, hold it upside down, give it to the baby, et cetera.

Every time we adopt a new technology, we give up one habit for another. Rarely is this anything other than trading in a laborious ritual for a simpler one. (You think getting the kids into the minivan is a chore? Try the horse and buggy—you had to freaking feed your engine. Every day. Even when you didn't use it.) But sometimes these tradeoffs are still annoying, and I think it's important to our understanding of these modern times to identify the bugs and quote-unquote features of our tech that take a bite out of its beauty.

(If you're looking for examples, cellphones are rife with these annoyances, from public cross-chatter to the fact that you need to remember to silence the device in places where it would be inappropriate to receive a call.)

Broken By Design

Have you ever used a corporate website, and thought, "What were they thinking when they designed this thing?" The answer might actually be, "Evil thoughts." An enterprising user experience guru named Harry Brignull is collecting a list of the most common tricks pulled on us by web designers. They include a whole category for Facebook's notorious privacy settings, the "sign up online, cancel by phone only" trick, and several other traps of the web's intentionally obtuse. (I was directed to this site by a Consumerist article about a particularly dirty RyanAir UI trick.)

Frankly, I'm stumped as to why major above-board corporations would act this way. It's not as though Facebook's just up a creek if they make their privacy settings simple (or have an option for simpler settings) and set the defaults to a moderately safe level. As more of the services we can't do without move to dark patterned user interfaces with impunity, the usability gap may create a savvy subgroup of people who save money and have more control over their account settings, like the DIY crowd does in the physical world, or couponers do at the register. This, however, does add a lot of extra work for those who want to access the convenience offered by these sites and services.

The Electronic Middleman

Writing about social technology is something of an exercise in redundancy. Essentially every technology writer in existence has taken a turn discussing the relevance and effects of social media on social networks, culture, and individual psychology. As this post is simply an introduction to the topic, here are a few of the arguments and questions that will be plumbed in later posts.

The biggest and most easily accepted argument in any discussion on social media is that it fundamentally changes the nature of human communication and sociology. But how?

An important question here involves the size of a social network. Previously, it was taken as gospel that the human neocortex limits the size of a viable social network to somewhere around 150 people. This doesn’t appear to correspond, however, to real occurrences on social networking sites. While the average Facebook user only has 130 friends, violations of Dunbar’s number on very high orders are very easily found.

And there’s another thing: a new type of prestige appears to be forming around the friend / follower number. In fact, there’s an equation that determines your Twitter clout.

Social media tend to the making of all comment into public comment. As such, new social norms are emerging regarding tact and honesty in these spontaneous forums. Further, such forums fragment the national or world discussion of certain topics into various, generally unrepresentative sample discussions.

Social media and other communication technologies allow for an increasingly developed middle ground between synchronous and asynchronous communication. This changes the nature of conversation by messing with the time between discourse turns, allowing for more or less thought between statements than previously

This fuzzy synchronicity can lead to the loss of conversational fluidity. That change in fluidity can have a whole range of effects on discourse pragmatics in general.

Previously, human communication was either very high priority (face-to-face or telephonic) or very low (correspondence). Now, there are medium settings to that priority, allowing for reasonably important communication to be done while performing other tasks.

Further, more than one conversation can be happening at the same time, and over multiple media. That simultaneity can lead to an increase in conversational density—and we may not be able to predict what that means for the brain.

For certain, some of the effects of social media, and the internet in general, are perceived under an umbrella category of “loss of focus”. But, is that loss of focus real? And is it such a bad thing?

Social media certainly affects the importance of distance in maintaining a social network. Friends can be kept, on some level, despite vast physical distances. But, what is the importance of “meatspace”, and what role will physical closeness play in the future of social networks?