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Numlock Sunday: Max Fisher on The Chaos Machine

Sep 2022 🇺🇸 Numlock News

In this Numlock Sunday edition, data-journalism newsletter author Walt Hickey interviews Max Fisher about The Chaos Machine, with the full conversation published as a transcript. Fisher walks through the quantitative research he leans on most, including a large deactivation experiment in which people who stayed off Facebook for four weeks reported wellbeing gains he characterizes as roughly a third the effect of going to therapy, alongside meaningful reductions in political polarization. He describes engagement mechanics modeled on intermittent rewards, and connects the amplification of outrage content to the real-world cases — Myanmar, Sri Lanka — from his reporting. Because it is text, the interview doubles as a citable, quotable digest of the book's evidence. TechKids Foundation includes it as the most data-forward of Fisher's launch interviews.

≈1/3 the effect of therapy

Fisher cites a Facebook deactivation experiment in which four weeks off the platform was associated with happiness gains he describes as about one-third the effect of going to therapy.

≈50% of 25-year polarization rise

Per the same study as Fisher describes it, deactivation was associated with a reduction in polarization equal to about half of the measured increase in American polarization over the past 25 years.

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CITATION

Fisher, Max, interviewed by Walt Hickey. "Numlock Sunday: Max Fisher on The Chaos Machine." Numlock News, September 18, 2022. https://www.numlock.com/p/numlock-sunday-max-fisher-on-the

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