Psychology

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A place for articles, discussions and questions about psychology – the science of mind and behavior. It is a multidisciplinary field, covering behavioral, cognitive, developmental, educational, neuro-biological, personality, and social studies (and more!).

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What would you suggest if you were helping design a healthier social network? (lemmy.eco.br)

submitted 1 day ago by subhomesickalien@lemmy.eco.br to c/psychology@lemmy.ml

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For example, would removing infinite scrolling help make it less addictive? Would you keep the upvote/downvote system, remove it, or classify posts differently to foster better discussions? How about adding a countdown timer to log the user out after a certain number of hours of use?

If psychological research can be used to keep users engaged on a social network for as long as possible, I believe it can also be applied to help prevent excessive use, improve the quality of discussions, and create a more empathetic environment. That’s why I’d love to hear suggestions from those in the field.

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[–] Jentu@lemmy.ml 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, copypastas would still exist. So long as people are trying to show off on the internet for likes or points, there will be people trying to steal other people's popular content or say the most outlandish things to get a response. You could tackle this by removing likes/points or you could remove the algorithm that gives preferential visibility towards things with the most likes/points/comments. People just don't want to feel lonely and if that part of their brain lights up when they steal jokes and get a ton of likes, maybe the solution is creating a situation that fosters real connection instead of emulating that feeling with of likes and digital attention?

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Copypasta is as easy to copy but memes are wayyy easier to digest so they're way more prevalent. Text uses basically no bandwidth in comparison, too.

It's just filler that keeps people scrolling.

[–] Jentu@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Would you also want to ban URLs even though they are technically just text? I also wonder if a social media site this limited would be able to survive when up against websites that are designed to be as addictive as possible. Actually, how does any non-addictive site compete with that and survive? My only guess is that it'd have to actually make people feel good about themselves and be less lonely. Fight addiction with a better emotion instead.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

No, I'm fine with links if the thumbnails aren't big images. It's making a meme the entire post that I think is what makes the internet worst

I'm not proposing a POPULAR social media site, of course.

[–] Jentu@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 hours ago

Ohh gotcha! I do think images would be fine if there was some way to verify original content since there are some truly amazing creators out there. But yeah, that'd likely require constant moderation.