[HN Gopher] From context collapse to content collapse ___________________________________________________________________ From context collapse to content collapse Author : pmlnr Score : 35 points Date : 2022-04-07 11:20 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.roughtype.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.roughtype.com) | fullshark wrote: | previous discussion: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23732384 | daralthus wrote: | - context collapse: different personal identities collapse onto | one social media | | - content collapse: different mediums (tv, radio, newspaper) | collapse onto a feed | | - reality collapse: different forms of content, fictional or real | collapse onto a single stream: propaganda, marvel universe, | GPT-3, Dall-E, etc. | | Could be a nice sci-fi theme. | Ialdaboth wrote: | A nice sci-fi theme sure, but one of the the worst choices | possible to build a resilient society. | afry1 wrote: | That part about information being condensed down into a tiny form | factor (a smartphone screen) hits hard as a frontend web | developer: | | > The diminutive size of the device's screen further compacted | all forms of information. The instant notifications and infinite | scrolls that became the phone's default design standards required | that all information be rendered in a way that could be taken in | at a glance, further blurring the old distinctions between types | of content. | | I've really struggled with this concept when building out apps | and tools that have to fit in the form factor of a smartphone. | Some things are just too complicated or too nuanced to express | with little buttons on a little screen. | | Sometimes it's an interesting constraint to work within, but more | often than not I feel like I'm leaving so much on the table when | it comes to functionality and usability. | redmen wrote: | I too feel this deeply. Sometimes I think our phones have given | much more power to the companies that have the algorithms, | since there is less space for anything, which means companies | that can create a good touchscreen keyboard, or a search bar, | etc are the ones who win, not the ones who build a deeper | experience. Everything is hidden away from us. | | I also sometimes think that this is another reason our phones | are making us dumber and more fragile. We have become used to | having everything done for us. | kevmo314 wrote: | I absolutely love this constraint and I believe this is where | all the complexity of frontend derives from. When I hear | someone believe that frontend is easy, which nowadays is not as | common, I always think yeah maybe on an infinite-dimensional | canvas it's easy. It definitely can feel like I have to leave | something on the table but the real trick is understanding | which pieces of functionality are okay to leave out. :) | redmen wrote: | I think startups taking over the world was a very dangerous and | naive idea. We have essentially created singular points of | failure. I wonder if globalization is similar in that it can make | our system more fragile. | | There has to be some sort of balance. There is good and bad in | globalization. Good and bad in having only 1 or 2 companies that | control the entire world. | | Can you imagine if every single person in the world spoke the | same language and had the same cultures? Maybe then there would | be even greater homogeny. | jdrc wrote: | I 'm surprised sociologists would take Zuck's words seriously. I | ve watched him in interviews and in his own podcasts and he | doesn't sound like having any kind of sophisticated worldview. | The 'context collapse' more likely has to do with the fact that, | from an algorithmic point of view, all news fit in the same data | format, and nobody cared to introduce context. Or they introduced | it in a wrong way (like Google+ did with circles). In the end, | context reappeared in the form of separate social networks | (linkedin, slack, twitter etc) so it s probably all good | redmen wrote: | I think he enjoys living in his own bubble and justifies to | himself that his work is important. It takes a massive ego to | convince oneself that they can do no wrong ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-07 23:00 UTC)