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Signups opened this week for Loops, a short-form looping video app from the creator of Instagram alternative Pixelfed, reports TechCrunch.
Maybe I’m just old, but I traveled by plane recently (I don’t fly very often) and seeing everyone around me mindlessly scrolling short-form video content was shocking. Looked identical to the people in the space ship in WALL-E.
Millions upon millions disagree. Some people are alcoholics and some people can enjoy a drink now and then. It’s the same with short form video content. Not everyone is an addict and I like that I can search something and actually get answers instead of an article or 10 minute video begging for subscribers and 1/3 of the video being an intro.
You can have tons of fun at the airport as long as you don’t mind getting on the no-fly list.
Fair, but I traveled for a music festival and saw lots of people pulling up their phones to get a few hits of TikTok/insta when there was a small lull in action. And most of them were with friends. Just enjoy your surroundings.
I was at a party with a small group of friends recently. We were all talking in a group and then one guy started watching tik/insta/whatever with the volume on. Everyone kinda looked at each other like wtf? I asked our friend if he wanted to borrow my headphones to watch that. He took the hint and rejoined the conversation. I still was gobsmacked someone would do that while hanging out with people.
And there are so many things you could do even just on your phone than mindless, objectively bad for your mental health shit like tiktok style content. Watch actual videos about interesting, cool and/or fun things, play a game, talk with a friend etc.
The way you write tells me you are young.
The older you get (and having a family of your own) the more you enjoy the quiet moments, just like the ones when you sit in an airport, waiting for the plane.
It’s really feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.
What tf you want them to do?
I don’t see how reading magazines, what people used to do, is any better.
I’m not an expert, so take this as far as you’d like — reading has real benefits to our brains such as improving vocabulary, improving critical thinking skills, and improving focus. I don’t think short form videos give us the same brain benefits.
Here’s an article from Piedmont health on the benefits of reading. I haven’t seen such an article for short form videos, but am open to it if there is one.
https://www.piedmont.org/living-real-change/health-benefits-of-reading
Instagram has been getting me with this. I like to post sometimes, but my friends and I recently compared our screen time stats and I couldn’t believe I was regularly wasting hours a day mindlessly scrolling IG. I uninstalled the app and will just occasionally post from my computer.
As opposed to doing what exactly?
If you are upset by the video length I can provide you plenty of videos of absolute tosh that are over 18 minutes long.
TikTok has 2 versions:
One is what we use. People mindlessly scroll brainrot contents with algorithm desinged to as addictive as possible.
Another one is chinese version. It has actualy useful and educative content, but its China only.
I don’t think the national security risk from tiktok is people watching it while waiting an hour for the plane to actually take off.
it’s from the clear boosting of propaganda.
The boosting of propaganda and the identification, tracking and exploitation of government targets.
People in key government positions are still people like us and they love social media too. Having an app on their phone doing data mining can identify people of interest and then collect data, target and compromise them. Even without the app on a government issued phone they can identify key people using their personal phones and then target them for more sophisticated surveillance.
Regardless of whether the content is “useful and educative” or “brainrot”, I just don’t seem how you can comprehend rapidly-changing and very short content at all, this just seems unnatural. Is that how ADHD feels like? And not like you can get comprehensive knowledge from such bite-sized videos anyway, maximum disjointed factoids.
