These media play off of a very real psychological factor known as operant conditioning, the addictive need to return over and over in hopes of a reward.
The ability to pay attention, focus and strategically disconnect will be a winning discipline of the next generation.
yup.
One of the most interesting things about 4chan is that nothing gets archived. Threads disappear within an hour. It’s a contradiction — 4chan is known for creating memes, yet it’s designed for them to die so quickly.
The lack of retention lends itself to having fresh content. The joke is that 4chan post is a repost of a repost of a repost. There was a guy who was downloading every image from /b/. He calculated that 80 percent of what’s posted has been posted before. So it’s survival of the fittest. Ideas that are carried over to the next day are worth repeating. The things that are genuinely funny get carried over.
The reason we’re seen as a meme generation factory is because of the unique qualities of the image board and the lack of retention. On other bulletin boards, threads are archived indefinitely. All the big threads have been around for months or years. But with 4chan, something has to be really good to keep getting posted.
Data is almost as good as money, but I don’t don’t know of a single consumer Web application where access to data is guaranteed by a third-party private entity, much less by the government.
gina:
The loneliest place at BlogHer (via Cryptonaut)
