Re: Psychological, cognitive and democracy issues with Social Networking Services and their connection to Self-Sovereign Identity.

Wow... Bohdan, you have hit the nail on the head with your assessment.
Thanks for publishing this.

-Mark Chipman

On Wed, Jun 20, 2018 at 10:13 AM Bohdan Andriyiv <
bohdan.andriyiv@validbook.org> wrote:

> TL;DR: Social Networking Services are a great invention of our time. In
> the same time, they cause large psychological and cognitive issues, that
> have significant negative impact on individuals and communities. The root
> cause of these negative issues is attention based business model, not
> centralization. Decentralization in itself is a red herring. Just
> decentralizing current services will not fix their issues. To fix these
> issues we need to invent a new business model that will allow us to build
> and maintain a set of core human-centric cooperation/communication
> services, among which Social Networking Service is the most important one
> from psychological and cognitive perspective.
>
> Moses thank you for raising the topic related to the psychological issues
> and Self-Sovereign Identity [1]. It's a large topic – a complicated tangle
> of intertwined issues, causes and effects. To add more clarity, let me try
> to untangle the tangle, and put its constituent parts, into a few lists.
>
> *Key Terms to be used*
>  - Personality, Identity, Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI)
>  - Social Networking Services (SNS)
>  - Attention Based Business Model (ABBM)
>  - Self-Sovereign Identity Based Business Model (SSIBBM)
>
> I want to shortly contrast Identity vs Personality. Sometimes these terms
> are used interchangeably and this leads to a confusion.
> Identity – is representation of entity (human, thing, virtual entity) in
> virtual/digital world. It can be understood as an actor of entity in
> virtual/digital world, or as a set of attributes that allow to identify the
> entity in the physical world.
> Personality is how we know someone as a human. A set of psychological
> traits, interests, ways to behave and communicate that characterize person
> from human point of view.
> From human perspective, personality defines/is identity, but it is not the
> same thing from technical perspective.
>
>
> *Background Environment*
>  - Emergence of Social Networking Services (SNS) – unseen from human
> evolutionary perspective, persistent one-to-many communication tool –
> "everyone has a stage with audience now".
>  - Attention Based Business Model (ABBM) – business model based on
> capturing attention of users and selling part of it to advertisers. ABBM is
> used to develop and maintain all mainstream SNS.
>  - Human need and tendency to minimize mental load.
>  - Human need for connection/communication, belonging to a group.
>  - Human need/propensity for social competition (for attention, prestige,
> status; “to be liked”, “to be not worse than”).
>
> *Issues and their causal pathways*
> Before you go through the issues, take a moment and think about 2 quotes
> from the former Facebook VP for growth, – “_I feel tremendous guilt_ … The
> short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how
> society works.”[2]; “My kids get no screen time whatsoever...” [3]
>
> /Psychological issues/
>  - Less happiness: ABBM >> enticing high engagement >> more notifications,
> more interesting “variably-delightful” feeds >> more short term pleasure >>
> dopamine resistance>> less long term happiness [6]
>  - Increased envy: ABBM + social competition >> enticing high engagement
> >> uncompartmentalized “all or nothing” profiles + more competition >> no
> opportunity for asymmetric social competition, no opportunity to switch
> focus >> “best moments only” profiles >> more envy >> more “best moments
> only” posts >> envy spiral
>  - Increased anxiety: ABBM + social competition >> … >> envy spiral >>
> feeling of inadequacy >> more anxiety
>  - Increased loneliness: ABBM >> enticing high engagement >> less
> face-to-face interaction >> more loneliness; || ABBM + social competition
> >> ...(see envy path)… >> “best moments only” profiles >> feeling of
> missing out >> increased perceived social isolation
>  - Increased depression: ABBM + social competition >> … >> envy spiral +
> anxiety + loneliness + dopamine resistance >> more depression
>
> /Other psychological issues/
>  - Narrow and shallow view on personality: ABBM + social competition >>
> high engagement >> uncompartmentalized “all or nothing” profiles >> more
> focus on conspicuous consumption, “shallow” things
>  - Unnatural distribution of communication time (a few post, most
> passively consume): ABBM >> enticing high engagement >> uncompartmentalized
> “all or nothing” profiles without easy to use layered privacy + enticing
> sharing mode “share-to-all or do-not-share-at-all” >> only a few people
> feel comfortable to share, most just consume
>
> /Cognitive issues/
>  - Decreased attention span = ABBM >> enticing high engagement >> more
> notifications + more interesting “variably-delightful” feeds >> dopamine
> resistance >> less ability to concentrate [6, 7]
>  - Decreased motivation to do “boring stuff” = ABBM >> enticing high
> engagement >> more notifications + more interesting “variably-delightful”
> feeds >> dopamine resistance >> less motivation
>
> /Privacy issues/
>  - Leakage of private, personal personality information: ABBM + social
> competition>> enticing high engagement >> no easy to use gradiated privacy
> layers tools>> enticing sharing mode “share-to-all or do-not-share-at-all”
> + need to minimize mental load + need for connection/communication >>
> oversharing >> unintended leakage of personal/private information
>  - Psychometric, manipulative advertisement: ABBM >> … >> unintended
> leakage of personal/private information >> manipulative advertisement
>
> /Community and democracy related issues/
>  - Echo chambers: ABBM >> enticing high engagement >> “do not upset users”
> >> show only stuff they agree with >> echo chambers >> bad democracy
>  - Fake news: ABBM >> enticing high engagement >> no incentives to create
> tools to fight bots and trolls >> proliferation of bots and trolls + echo
> chambers + more engagement from sensational news + need to minimize mental
> load >> more fake news
>  - Psychometric, manipulative advertisement in politics: ABBM >> … >>
> unintended leakage of personal/private information >> manipulative
> advertisement
>
> Of course, different people are affected by SNSs differently, depending on
> conditions and personality traits. More about issues created by ABBM fueled
> SNSs you can read here: [4], [5], [6], [7].
>
>
> *What we can do*
>  - Recognize the issues
>  - Recognize the root cause of the issues – ABBM (Attention Based Business
> Model)
>  - Understand to what extent issues are driven by ABBM vs. human nature in
> the environment of SNS
>  - Define goals
>  - Create new business model to support human-centric SNS
>  - Create and maintain human-centric SNS
>
>
> *Potential Goals*
> We need to provide alternative, that really works. It should be similar to
> current SNSs, but have human-centric functionality. Important to
> distinguish between real root cause and secondary issues. For example,
> centralization issue is a red herring. Wikipedia works wonderfully,
> although it is not decentralized.
>
> /Target psychological issues/
>  - Less happiness (increase in anxiety, loneliness, depression): bad or
> good thing?
>    Probably we went too far into short term pleasure side (notifications
> and “variably-delightful” feeds) and got too much side effects (dopamine
> resistance + increased envy). A lot of people cannot use SNS and go cold
> turkey - “Facebook is a new smoking” now.
>    Can be fixed on dopamine-resistance side: less interesting
> “variably-delightful” feeds + less notifications + more informative feeds
> >> less engagement on SNS, less pleasure short term, but still remain
> informed >> more happiness long term || Also entice users to connect in
> real world instead of enticing engagement on SNS >> more happiness
>  - Increased envy, envy spirals: bad or good thing?
>     Not obvious, often a good thing – Instagram fitness effect, lifestyle
> changes. in other words: “It’s not greed that drives the world, but envy.”,
> - Warren Buffett. Benign envy >> more competition >> mostly good thing for
> society at large,  often good thing for individual. Worse when focus of
> competition is not beneficial for society – too much focus on conspicuous
> consumption.
>     Partially fix: opportunity for asymmetric social competition,
> opportunity to switch focus from conspicuous consumption to other things
> via compartmentalized social profile
>  - Narrow and shallow view on personality: bad or good thing?
>     Probably a bad thing for society at large.
>     Can be fixed: compartmentalized social profile >> comprehensive but
> compartmentalized, privacy layered view on personality
>
> /Target cognitive issues/
>  - Decreased attention span: bad or good thing?
>    Can be fixed: less interesting “variably-delightful” feeds + less
> notifications >> less dopamine depletion >> more attention
>  - Decreased creativity, motivation to do “boring stuff”: bad or good
> thing?
>    Can be fixed: less interesting “variably-delightful” feeds + less
> notifications >> less dopamine depletion >> more attention
>
> /Target privacy issues/
>  - Leakage of private, personal personality information: bad or good thing?
>  - Mostly bad thing. Can be fixed by compartmentalized profiles.
>
> /Target community and democracy related issues/
>  - Echo chambers: bad or good thing?
>    Bad thing.
>    Fix: stop enticing high engagement >> allow to “upset users” || Another
> way to do this is by using Validbook UX feature – “Channels” – when you see
> what others see, sharing feeds with other users.
>  - Fake news: bad or good thing?
>    Bad thing.
>    Fix: remove incentives for high engagement + incentivize to create hard
> to forge real human profiles (see Validbook SURLHIs) + tools to report
> trolls >> less bots, less trolls >> less fake news
>  - Psychometric, manipulative advertisement in politics: bad or good thing?
>    Bad thing.
>    Fix: No advertisement on human-centric services + less public leakage
> of personality information due to compartmentalized layered profiles >>
> less opportunity for psychometric, manipulative advertisement
>
>
> *Tools*
> /UX tools/
> Quite simple UX changes can make SNS less engaging, but more humane.
>  - Compartmentalized profiles: comprehensive view on personality >>
> opportunity for asymmetric social competition, opportunity to switch focus
> >> less envy, less unhappiness (implemented on VB Social by using UX
> feature - Books).
>  - Compartmentalized and layered privacy: easy to use gradiated privacy
> layers tools >> more connection/communication >> less leakage of
> personality information (implemented on VB Social by using UX feature -
> Books)
>  - Inverted following model (compartmentalized, layered identity
> following, controlled by the followed identity): followed identity can open
> different compartments of itself to followers, usually done mutually
> mimicking the real life human relations (implemented on VB Social by using
> UX feature - Books).
>  - Informative and privacy layered feeds of information – ability to have
> a lot of feeds, tailored per different needs >> less engagement, more
> information, more connection (implemented on VB Social by using UX feature
> - Channels)
>  - Point of view from other identity – ability to share your feeds, look
> into other people’s feeds (implemented on VB Social by using UX feature -
> Channels)
>  - Calm mode: ability to receive all notifications at one time in a day >>
> less notifications >> less engagement, but still informed >> more
> happiness, motivation, focus
>
> /AI tools/
> Mental load minimization is very important – "convenience trumps
> everything". Some issues can not be fixed by UX changes only, because they
> require too much of humans’ limited mental capacity. Algorithms/AI can help
> to minimize mental load, by automating sorting, filtering of feeds and
> making smart notifications.
>  - All UX tools should and can be greatly enhanced with AI/algorithms.
>
>
> *Relation between Self-Sovereign Identity and Social Networking Tools*
> To the large extent the root cause of all issues with SNS is ABBM. Thus to
> fix the issues we need to fix their root cause – create a new business
> model. Self-Sovereign Identity allows us to create such new business model
> –  Self-Sovereign Identity Based Business Model (SSIBBM).
>
> SSIBBM in a nutshell: create money based on Self-Sovereign Identity, take
> part of that money to develop human-centric cooperation services.
>
> SSIBBM logic:
>  - Create service that will allow people to create SSIs
>  - Create service that allows SSI to prove that it uniquely represents a
> human individual
>  - Create Kudos (tokens with daily supply 1 token per 1 living human (7.5B
> KDS/day in 2018; 11.3B KDS/day in 2118)
>  - Distribute *all Kudos, between SSIs that proved to uniquely represent
> human individual only* - thus create huge continuous incentive for people
> to participate in Kudos distribution and support Kudos value. In this way
> *solving common killer of "big ideas": the chicken-egg problem*.
>  - Use part of the Kudos to support development and maintenance of the set
> of core global human-centric cooperation services, for example
> human-centric Social Networking Service.
>
>
> *Validbook* – a real world attempt to fix SNSs issues, as well as to add
> security and privacy to other core cooperation services: emails (end-to-end
> encrypted emails), money transfer (self-sovereign wallet), documents
> signing (human friendly digital documents signing = self-sovereign
> ownership).
> Validbook Kudos – is an attempt to implement a Self-Sovereign Identity
> Based Business Model.
> Validbook Social – is an attempt to implement a human-centric Social
> Networking Service.
> More details about Validbook idea at:
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2018May/0024.html
>
> Looking forward to hear what you think about described issues and fixes in
> theory and about proposed practical solution - Validbook implementation.
> If you are interested to get involved into the development of the next
> generation Social Networking Service and other Cooperation Services (in any
> role - investor, developer, thinker) let me know and we can make Validbook
> a reality!
>
> --Bohdan
>
> [1] -
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2018Jun/0116.html
> [2] -
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&feature=youtu.be&t=21m21s
> [3] -
> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/12/chamath-palihapitiya-my-kids-get-no-screen-time-whatsoever.html
> [4] -
> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180104-is-social-media-bad-for-you-the-evidence-and-the-unknowns
> [5] -
> https://mondaynote.com/facebook-has-a-big-tobacco-problem-f801085109a
> [6] - http://www.robertlustig.com/hacking/
> [7] - https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked
>
> --
> Bohdan Andriyiv,
> Validbook Foundation (to be incorporated),
> Chief Maintainer
>


-- 
- Mark