Twitter’s Algorithms Should Be Open Source If Musk Wishes It To Be A Public Square, Facebook Whistleblower Claims

Facebook’s leading whistleblower Frances Haugen is making some straightforward claims for Twitter chief Elon Musk.

According to Haugen, the app’s algorithms need a change so that Musk’s promise of the platform is deemed a public square could be fulfilled. This change should be in the form of making all algorithms public, he confirmed.

We’ve seen the company’s chief mention time and time again that he wants the platform to be a digital town square. This is where matters linked to the future of humanity get debated.

Similarly, Haugen was seen talking about Elon Musk’s views via a special edition of NBC News’ Meet The Press. She revealed her thoughts on the way social media is altering today’s political scene. She even mentioned to one journalist that one crucial thing that Musk needs to do to prove he wishes to have a public square is public algorithms. People would relate more to his wishes and transparency would be at an all-time high, which is what people want.

By making it open source, Frances mentioned how he would have more help by his side and it would be cheaper in the price for him too. It would be more profitable as well.

Musk has been very outspoken about such matters in the past and how he bought the app so that he could provide people with more power. He similarly revealed through a memo after sealing the $44 billion deal that he purchased Twitter to help market the idea of dialogue. And he thinks it has been lost with time.

Musk really wishes Twitter could be the most accurate location for information around the globe. Just a few weeks after an acquisition arose, he decreased the number of people that were in charge of the platform and handling things like content moderation.

Haugen has plenty of knowledge on things like this. She has served as an ex-product manager for Facebook’s civic integrity team. In 2021, she turned heads after going public with thousands of leaked sources of internal documents that showcased decisions being made.

She even informed Congress about how such behavior led to further divisions, greater harm, and plenty of lies too.

In a recent interview with NBC News where Haugen arrived spoke about how so many social media firms were opposed to the intervention being made by the government as it may decrease profits significantly by nearly 20%.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Parents Believe that Technology is the Future of Learning and that's Why Most of Them Rely on Tech for Educating Their Children

It's a world full of technology that even parents cannot live without for raising their children. A survey between 2,000 parents in the USA proved that parents of children between the ages of 3 to 7 years use technology to teach their children before enrolling them in formal educational institutes. But there are also some parents which do not use any kind of technology with a percentage of 26%. 60% of the parents said they believe that learning through technology is the only way by which their child can progress along with the world. While some parents do not like the use of technology, 82% believe that they would like to learn through technology when they were younger.

This survey was conducted by One Poll on behalf of Duolingo ABC which is a learning app for children, it was proven that technology is the best way to learn. This survey concluded that 71% of parents have already used a technology app for their child's learning. 74% say that they think technology helps their children learn a lot, and this makes them less stressed in their parenting. 79% of parents in the survey said that by using technology, they make their child learn something new like a language or a new hobby. This is the reason that 64% of children use technology for creative learning. 67% of children also use technology for communicating with their family and friends. This way they learn socialization through an online approach.

This isn't all because technology is doing much more for parents like scheduling duties for their children. By using technology, parents can schedule different activities for children like sports or meal timings. Millennials are also learning the use of technology because they believe that it has to be used side by side with other activities to live in this world. Many parents are making themselves familiar with technology and want to learn it for the sake of their children. 63% of parents are still struggling to understand the technology while 69% of them are teaching their child about how to use the technology.

Many parents are also learning the ways by which their children can learn more effectively. 39% of parents believe that they are willing to learn more about technology as per the recommendation from their child's teacher and the success of peers. That being said, 81% of parents have a strong belief that technology is indeed the future of education and if you want to survive in this world, it is a must to learn it.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

The US Is Seeing a Hike In Inflation And The Prices of Many Goods Have Risen Due to This

Inflation is increasing as the economy of many developed countries are declining, however, countries like the USA are also not exempted from this. This inflation has also affected the prices of ordinary goods in the USA. According to the data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the prices of many products have increased much more as compared to 2021. The product which has been the most affected by this inflation is elementary school lunches in the USA. Many families couldn't afford them already but now they are out of reach even for the middle class.

The second on the list is once again food but at employee sites and high schools. The third place most affected product because of inflation is fuel oil. The reason why the school lunch prices are increasing is due to the federal waiver contract which has come to an end. The Federal Waiver Program was the one that provided free lunches to schools all over the US. Fuel prices increased by 66% this year as compared to last year and the prices of eggs increased by 49%. As these prices have increased, it is also important to mention that airfare prices also observed an increase of 36%. Just like that, living room, kitchen, and dining furniture prices have increased by 10.3%. The prices of alcoholic beverages also got raised by 4.5%.

There are also some goods whose prices have decreased in 2022 like smartphones by -23%. These aren't the prices that have decreased, rather the quality of smartphones has increased and that's why the prices aren't making a difference. Televisions and beef roasts have seen a decline in price like -17% and -8% respectively.

If we take a look at the overall inflation in US goods prices in the light of the Consumer Price Index, it has increased by 7.1% this year. If we take a look at the comparison of prices in the years 2021 and 2022, food prices have increased by 10.6%. The goods related to energy have seen a hike by 13.1%. All the prices of items that aren't food and energy have increased by 6% in 2022 as compared to 2021.

Now we have to wait and see what 2023 will bring for inflation. It seems that the prices are going to exceed due to the current economic conditions of many countries all over the world. Some experts believe that there will be more economic crises due to inflation in many households in America, but they won't be to a greater extent.

Infographic: Visual Capitalist

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Facebook is bringing back chatting to the app and Messenger Apps is probably going to be sidelined

Facebook was the start of it all. The first social media app, the first of its kind, and as expected it took the world to storm. So much so that the app is still widely in use to this day even though many others like Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok are already here. It was the first social media app with in-app chatting and was also the first without it.

That’s right most of us remember the time and felt the blow when in 2014 Facebook took the action of removing in-app chatting from the Facebook app and relocated it to a separate app made specifically to chat. This copied the essence of Whatsapp but, it worked somehow and has been working ever since that is until now.

You see, the thing is that the company behind Facebook, Meta recently decided to bring back in-app chatting to the app. That’s right folks; Facebook is finally getting the chat option back as shown in the screenshots shared by a Twitter user, Social media consultant, tech analyst, and our favorite Matt Navarra (who originally got the tip from Jeff Higgins).

According to the screenshots, the user will have to swipe from the right side of the screen to access the chats without being redirected to the messenger app. Not to mention, this feature as of now is available to selected users only. The selected users who swiped would then see another screen, which would invite them to test the latest Facebook chat experience.

This is a great feature as it will enable users to be able to text and check their messages without ever needing to leave the app. Another benefit of this feature is that it will allow users to use less space on their phones with just one app rather than two different ones.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Has Time Online Reached Its Limit?

The time that the average user spends online seemed to stagnate towards the end of the 2010s, but in spite of the fact that this is the case the pandemic caused it to reach new and unforeseen highs. After reaching a high of 6 hours and 46 minutes in 2017, time spent online decreased to 6 hours and 41 minutes by 2019. This was followed by a ten minute increase in 2020, the year of widespread lockdowns, and subsequently a five minute increase in 2021.

That brought the total average time spent online withing touching distance of 7 hours, or 6 hours and 55 minutes to be precise, and many assumed that the growth rate would help this metric break the 7 hour mark in 2022. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that time spent online actually fell by a large margin, 13 minutes, to reach 6 hours and 43 minutes, as highlighted by Global Web Index.

That is the lowest number seen since 2017, and it suggests that time spent online might have hit a ceiling that it would no longer be able to break. The 13 minute decline represents the single biggest fall in the past decade. In fact, internet behaviors that are considered foundational to numerous industries have all seen a huge dip in terms of usage hours.

Business networking is down by 23 minutes, the biggest drop seen so far. Research related to business saw a 16 point decline, news reading dropped by 15 minutes, and even solid areas like online streaming saw as many as 9 minutes less in terms of time spent online.

One of the causes of this decline could be oversaturation. Consumers spent so much time online these past two years that they are taking a break, and it will only become clear once the numbers from next year come in. It will be interesting to see if online time can go back up in 2023, but that seems unlikely based on these numbers. People are getting busy with returning to their normal lives, and their internet usage will decline as a result.

H/T: CTD 2023 Global / GWI Report

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Facebook addiction is helping already depressed to get even more depressed

Overusing Facebook can cause an increase in depression severity and lessen a person’s self-confidence. A study done by Computers in Human Behaviour gave evidence to this claim.

There’s been a lot of controversy regarding the harmful effects of social media apps and websites such as Facebook on a person’s mental health in a lot of scientific articles. There've been claims that the more time you spend browsing on Facebook, the more depressed you become. This claim has gained so much notoriety that some have started to call it ‘Facebook depression,’ which means depression acquired from the overuse of the Facebook app.

It’s not the time spent on Facebook that’s harmful, it’s the addictive use of it that may result in depression. Soon Li Lee said in their study that Facebook depression might be linked to two possible reasons, dependency and self-criticism.

There has been an increase in reliance on technology in the past decade which has come to a point where we need technology to effectively live our lives. This makes it important to understand how much effect this technology has on our lives both mentally and physically. Moreover, those of us already suffering from a mental disease have to be studied even more carefully.

Two surveys were conducted where 250 users who were diagnosed with clinical depression were examined for dependency and self-criticism over time for using Facebook. The first survey was conducted at the start of the study and the second was conducted at the end.

Participants with more addictive use of Facebook reported a higher severity of depression in the study. Moreover, the relationship between the individual and Facebook was reliant on self-criticism and dependency on the app.

Findings also suggest that monitoring the use of Facebook in individuals who are already depressed will increase the severity of their depression. Facebook use can be beneficial to users if the use is balanced and the results are dependent on the quality of Facebook use.

Some particular types of use such as finding support online actually benefited users whereas addictive use harmed mental health and increased the severity of depression among the participants.

Addictive Facebook use is also directly related to the severity of depression six months later. But the dependency and self-criticism were not affected in this period. This means that these aren’t interlinked and are therefore a contradiction as stated by Lee.

In the study, the researchers found that addicted people were more inclined to answer their social contacts for acceptance. This results in them getting depressed over their sense of rejection or magnifying their problems. This affects their self-worth and can cause depression.

The data regarding Facebook addiction, depression, and depression severity was mostly stable but the research is limited due to the time and the fact that only two studies were conducted.

No concrete conclusion can be made from this study but it would be useful to compare it to a study done with healthy individuals put under the same conditions.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Is Instagram the New Google for Gen Z?

The internet is hailed as the greatest invention in human history, and it’s not hard to see why that ends up being the case. After all, it can be difficult to get anything done without it, but the manner in which the internet is used might be shifting with all things having been considered and taken into account. Gen Z users are developing usage patterns that are quite distinct from what came before.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the most dramatic shift may be coming to the starting point for one’s internet usage. Most internet users start their journey with Google, but in spite of the fact that this is the case Instagram may be a more appealing prospect for Gen Z users. They are using it just as much as Google, and if current trends persist it might become even more prominent than might have been the case otherwise.

Google has long held control over the internet, and the new slew of apps that are capturing Gen Z attention might change that with all things having been considered and taken into account. Most online activities have seen a decline in terms of overall time spent. Finding information has seen a 14% decline in minutes, so Gen Z users are clearly looking for a different experience.

TikTok has leveraged this to create online learning platforms because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up appealing to its consumer base. We may be seeing a changing of the guard, with TikTok and Instagram coming to the fore and Google becoming a rarely used site.

The rise of Chat GPT is also leading many to call for a change to search engine culture. If an AI can answer all questions, there’s no need to go to Google. There might be a huge shift coming, and social apps with video streaming capabilities will be at the center of it all. We are likely going to see some changes in the coming years that will shake the industry up.

H/T: GWI / CTD 2023 Global Report.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World