Everyone Quit Social Media Now!

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Everyone Quit Social Media Now!
Number 3729
Broadcast Date MARCH 2, 2020
Episode Length 29:44
Hosts Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang

More and more people are feeling unhappy. Is social media to blame or is it just exposing older and more systemic social issues?

Quick Hits

Amazon announced it banned over 1 million products that claim to either cure or prevent the COVID-19 virus, and also terminated tens of thousands of deals from merchants that attempted to price gouge customers on hygiene masks and hand sanitizer.
Organizers of the Game Developers Conference announced the event will be postponed due to COVID-19 concerns, with plans to hold "a GDC event" sometime this summer. Nvidia also announced its GPU Technology Conference would be held online this year, originally scheduled for March 22-26 in San Jose. And Twitter has withdrawn from attending SXSW, canceling a planned keynote by Jack Dorsey.
Apple tentatively agreed to a settlement in dozens of class action lawsuits over the company's practice of slowing down iPhones with aging batteries. Pending court approval, Apple will offer $25 to anyone who buys a iPhone 6 or 7 model, for a total settlement of $500 million.
A new law affecting internet speech in China went into effect on Sunday. The Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem groups online speech into "illegal," "negative" and "positive" classifications, and explicitly makes dissemination of rumors, threats, insults and doxxing online illegal in the country.

Top Stories

AT&T TV is not the same as AT&T TV Now, the new service. AT&T TV NOW is the renamed DirecTV Now which offers cable-like streaming TV service over the internet on most platforms without contracts. You get the app, you pay for the subscription, you watch TV. AT&T TV (without the Now) is the one where you pay for streaming cable-like TV over the internet and AT&T gives you an Android box to watch the service on, for a two-year contract. AT&T TV (with the contract and the box but not the word Now) is now $50 a month for the first year but goes up to $93 a month with a $15 per month early termination fee on whatever months you have left if you cancel early. The Android box has most of the Google Play apps, like Netflix and YouTube but inexplicably not Hulu or Prime Video. You can access AT&T TV on iOS and Android mobile devices too.
Sharp announced it will convert part of an LCD panel factory in Osaka, Japan to make surgical masks, with domestic supply exhausted amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Sharp will be able to produce 150,000 masks a day within weeks and could eventually reach 500,000. Foxconn previously converted a factory in Shenzhen, China to mask production. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to make 600 million masks available every month. US and UK health advice is that masks are useful for some patients and health practitioners but "there is very little evidence of widespread benefit for members of the public."
Business Insider calls Google's Stadia "flailing" and attributes that to developer concerns, specifically that they were hesitant to develop for the platform because Google didn't offer them enough money. Developers will take less money to reach a huge audience (like Steam) but Stadia doesn't have that audience yet. And they might take less money to be on the platform early before it grows but they don't trust the company to stick with the platform.
Facebook launched 3D photos on its app in 2018, which used dual camera smartphones to post images with backgrounds that moved when scrolling or tilting a device. Facebook now announced that it can produce 3D photos from virtually any 2D image, including ones previously uploaded to the service. This uses a neural network to map the estimated depth of each pixel in a 2D image, something previously supplied by the secondary "portrait" camera. Viewing the photos requires the Facebook mobile app on an iPhone 7 or newer, or a recent mid-range Android device.
Alphabet's X lab announced a new project called Tidal, working to protect the ocean. Tidal's first project uses computer vision with underwater cameras to monitor individual fish in fish farms and detect behavior that isn't visible to the human eye. This could let farmers make more efficient decisions, like how much food they need to put in pens, in feeding and raising the fish, leading to fewer environmental impacts. The Financial Times reported that Tidal is working with farms based in Europe and Asia to track several species including salmon and yellowtail.

Discussion

Monday, Indian Prime Minister Norendra Modi tweeted that he was thinking about giving up on his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts. We've all been there. Sometimes it just gets too much. In fact, a paper published in American Economic Review backs up the fact that quitting social media might make you happier. A study was done where a randomized trial asked 2,743 users to leave Facebook for one month in exchange for a cash reward. Some of them were not required to quit and some are to control for results.

Of those who did quit Facebook
- They got 60 extra minutes a day which were used for offline activities like socializing with friends and family
- A self-reported increase in life satisfaction of 25-40% about the same as that attributed to therapy.
- Decline in news reading of 15% and decreased ability to answer questions about recent news events.
- Reduced polarization of views on policy and issues but did not reduce negative feelings about opposite political party.


So there you have it right? Quitting social networks will not only help you feel better but also reduce this polarized world we live in. Or will it? Before we kick this around some more, one more study is worth noting. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research argues that polarization is increasing faster in the US than anywhere else, BUT several large modern nations with high internet usage are seeing a DECREASE in polarization. In fact, internet usage has risen fastest in countries with falling polarization. US polarization predates digital media and is concentrated among older populations with more analogue habits. In an interview with The Verge's Casey Newton, Exzra Klein says of the paper, "it further polarizes elites, who then act in more polarized ways, which create more polarized choices and situations that the mass public has to respond to."

Mailbag

While listening to Friday's show describing an article that the Covid-19 virus might have companies start to realize the benefits of employees working from home, I'm reminded about a formal study that was done with a Chinese company Ctrip.

The study found that the employees that worked from home were 13% more productive, they reported higher job satisfaction rates, and Ctrip found a cost savings of around $2,000 per employee.

One of the really interesting twists of the study - 50% of the participants decided to go back into the office. They chose lower satisfaction, lower productivity, and long commutes with the reported reason being that they felt lonely.

This does not surprise me. While I work 100% remote due to my company having no presence where I live, if I did live near an office I would probably go in once or twice a week for the socialization. This does not seem to be abnormal as all my coworkers who are allowed to work from home as much as they want still go into the office a few days a week due to the loneliness factor as well.
Sent by Matthew

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Preceded by:
"League of Later" 		Everyone Quit Social Media Now!
 Followed by:
"The Security Spoon"
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