a.k.a. “business as usual” when the government that’s supposed to be policing such behavior had become primarily focused upon doing it themselves.

Those who make for the best leaders very rarely want to be leaders.

If I knew about that beforehand, I’d probably be much less likely turn it on to begin with. If I learned the hard way, I’d likely be dissuaded from ever trying it again & just get one of those other apps. Conversely, the fact that my current phone boots much faster than older ones did makes it not really as off-putting an issue at it once was. It sounds like a major PITA until you realize that.

You have control over it so it’ll soon be just like all the other pre-installed crap that you never use, but still eats up limited storage space.

With the addition, Google isn’t only thinking of users’ well-being, of course.

It’s reacting to increasing regulatory pressure around social media harms and algorithmic dangers. Today, many countries and U.S. states have created laws to restrict or ban minors from using social media, as the impacts of these apps on young people’s mental well-being have become better understood.

Google can now point to a feature like Pause Point to claim it’s part of the solution, not the problem.

Ahhh - there it is.

The thing that is much more concerning to me, tho: if this is pre-installed as a standard part of Android, then it could potentially be abused by work, carriers, governments, malware, etc. to control what you can and can’t easily do.

Please do (even though I personally don’t use those apps). Including imposing more of the incredibly large fines the EU has become known for, and applying the bulk of them towards mental health services & initiatives. It’s long past time those companies were held responsible for what they’ve done to rake in such insane profits.

If you’re relying on AI, well then…

(Yes, I know they can have their uses if done properly, but for too many that’s a HUGE “if”.)

Did you get too close to a 5G tower?

If anyone is still invested in Tesla at this point, they deserve to lose their shi®t.

Now if they’re newly invested, that may be another story entirely. Assuming the battery & solar biz doesn’t get spun off.

If they can get people to buy it, they’ll sell anything.

That’s excessive. There’s just not that much drift in accuracy in the space of a week. Monthly would be enough.

Sure. If we had a properly functioning justice system. We no longer do.

It’s definitely meant for their Enterprise customers.

It’s not just anti-competition, but anti-privacy - Google will know exactly who is going to what sites, regardless of your browser.

Everyone with a technically inclined, logical, forward-thinking brain did. Unfortunately, that probably at best describes no more than roughly 10-15% of people.

Regarding spoiling the fun, were this a world without enshitification and/or corporate malfeasance that might be a good consideration. For the world we currently actually DO live in, my initial reaction is usually one of mistrust - and I strongly suspect I’m far from alone in that.

As such, I normally might’ve not ventured forth with exploring your offering, but instead waited for someone to give me more of an idea what I was walking into before potentiality giving out information I didn’t want to inadvertently. However, at the moment I came across your post I guess I was feeling gregarious enough (and less concerned with this identity since I’ve only recently created it) to toss my normal inhibitions aside, and share the kind of info I myself would have been wanting to see before taking the risk.

TL;DR: There are an number of psychological factors at play here as well as real-world concerns, so IMHO the more up-front you are in letting potential users know what to expect, the more comfortable they’ll be with giving it a shot. They’ll also be better informed about what to look for in features they might not have otherwise discovered with a quick spin.

Isn’t teletherapy the same? It can work IF done right (and, yes - that’s a BIG “if”).

Ironic: I think the idea is to indicate how open you feel at that moment to being social. I get how doing that without actually socializing seems ironic, but I can also see how this would help avoid social interactions going needlessly bad because one participant just wasn’t in the right mood.

I have strong doubts about people keeping this up to date, however. I could see it being used as a kind of S.O.S. by someone who needs some support, but doesn’t want to impose on others who might not be up for providing it.

You’re absolutely right about the lack of integration into other platforms that actually facilitate that socialization, however.

Quick intro for those wondering how it works:

1. It does ask for an email first thing, but it’s presented as just an optional backup for your account.

2. Then comes the explanation I was looking for in my other comment.

Your Social Battery - Drag the dial to set how social you’re feeling — from drained to fully charged. Your friends see this in real time.

Share Your Invite Link - Tap “Share your link” and send it to friends. When they join via your link you’re connected automatically. https: //socialbattery. space/?ref={username}

See Friends’ Levels - Once connected, you both appear in each other’s friends list with live battery updates.

Then you’re plopped on this screen:

Settings lets you select a profile picture, nickname (so you can show your real or gamer name presumably, but since your username is part of the link you share it doesn’t do anything for security or privacy), and light or dark mode. ETA: I think the nickname feature should also be on a per-friend level, not global.

I think that should be sufficient to give people an idea what to expect when deciding whether to give it a try.

ETA: I am curious what happens when you don’t have the PWA open. Do your friends just perpetually see what you last selected, or is there a timeout where it’ll just say “offline” (and what is that timeout)?

I’ve made several edits/additions to this throughout, so you may want to scan it for those if you’ve already read this.

Would be nice if your mention of the site was actually a link, although I’ll admit I’m just scrolling through “all” and have no idea if that’s against the rules in this community (which would seem silly if a self-promoting post was allowed to begin with).

ETA: some explanation, and/or demo of how it actually works in practice would also be helpful so we can decide whether we want to invest the time.