I asked students if they would want to press a magic button that would permanently delete all social media and messaging apps from the phones of their friend groups if nobody knew it was them. I got only a couple takers. There was more (but far from majority) enthusiasm for deleting all such apps from the whole world. I suspect rates would have been higher if I had asked this as an anonymous written question, but probably not much higher.
An anonymous response, or better yet, a list deletion or Bayesian truth serum question, would certainly be worth doing.
It’s also striking that you get anywhere close to a majority for that question. (And consistent with Haidt and the other willingness-to-pay experiment about the harms of social media being a systemic problem, where you are unable to optout on an individual, or even very narrow friend-group basis, because that still leaves the rest of society using it.) Imagine asking that question about, say, indoor plumbing or electricity or vaccines? I suspect even much more controversial technologies like cars or video games would still get many fewer votes for deletion at any scale.
An anonymous response, or better yet, a list deletion or Bayesian truth serum question, would certainly be worth doing.
It’s also striking that you get anywhere close to a majority for that question. (And consistent with Haidt and the other willingness-to-pay experiment about the harms of social media being a systemic problem, where you are unable to optout on an individual, or even very narrow friend-group basis, because that still leaves the rest of society using it.) Imagine asking that question about, say, indoor plumbing or electricity or vaccines? I suspect even much more controversial technologies like cars or video games would still get many fewer votes for deletion at any scale.
if asked about recommendation algoritms, I think it might be much higher—given a basic understanding of what they are, addictiveness, etc