09-18-2025, 09:45 PM
This is relevant to the design of a social media component into the exercise designer and tracker app so that users with a common constructive purpose can interact, share material, find support, etc.
The following is a comment I posted responding to this blog article:
How Social Media Shortens Your Life,
URL: https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/how-social-...-your-life
Your discussion of the problems with the current status quo of social media platforms is excellent and detailed, and as a software engineer I've both experienced the feeling of futility or lack of purpose that their "engagement" tactics produce, and spent a lot of time thinking about designing better. There are technology redesign solutions to the profitable and powerful social media platform designs prevalent on the Internet today, just a there are cooking and dining solutions to the prevalence of fast food and other convenience addictions. Governance of the user is the main problem since their rewarded goal generally is to attract attention with the most relevant or compelling content posts, and this frequently involves bending or breaking the ordinary rules of constructive restraint in social interaction.
By facilitating communities with constructive purposes, rather than collecting as many users as possible, with any motives or intentions possible, and mixing them all together into the same inflammable pot, you get an inherent governance from the users themselves. They are also not structurally motivated to attract the greatest number of followers or greatest amount of attention, but can if they like, and can simply be ignored, unlike algorithm driven attention grabbing scrolling machines. Search-ability by the user is key to finding content and other members with similar interests, and should be possible with user selected or provided criteria. This capability is crippled in profit driven or social manipulation driven algorithm control of content and ad delivery. Restore agency to the user and you restore civilization.
The following is a comment I posted responding to this blog article:
How Social Media Shortens Your Life,
URL: https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/how-social-...-your-life
Your discussion of the problems with the current status quo of social media platforms is excellent and detailed, and as a software engineer I've both experienced the feeling of futility or lack of purpose that their "engagement" tactics produce, and spent a lot of time thinking about designing better. There are technology redesign solutions to the profitable and powerful social media platform designs prevalent on the Internet today, just a there are cooking and dining solutions to the prevalence of fast food and other convenience addictions. Governance of the user is the main problem since their rewarded goal generally is to attract attention with the most relevant or compelling content posts, and this frequently involves bending or breaking the ordinary rules of constructive restraint in social interaction.
By facilitating communities with constructive purposes, rather than collecting as many users as possible, with any motives or intentions possible, and mixing them all together into the same inflammable pot, you get an inherent governance from the users themselves. They are also not structurally motivated to attract the greatest number of followers or greatest amount of attention, but can if they like, and can simply be ignored, unlike algorithm driven attention grabbing scrolling machines. Search-ability by the user is key to finding content and other members with similar interests, and should be possible with user selected or provided criteria. This capability is crippled in profit driven or social manipulation driven algorithm control of content and ad delivery. Restore agency to the user and you restore civilization.