Whose law is it of headlines, that when they ask a question it can be answered with ‘No’?
The kids are exposed to these hyper addictive algorithms, and the garbage content that gains ubiquity as a result, from a super young age. There is no way it’s not screwing up development.
No, it’s just like Dungeons and Dragons, according to others in this thread.
Good Lord. Was Dungeons and Dragons conceived and engineered from the ground up for the specific purpose of exploiting the dopamine pathways in children’s brains? Not so much. Sounds like tiktok has successfully eroded the minds of others in this thread.
Do you know how many times I’ve heard the “designed to exploit the dopamine pathways” line? You know how much proof I’ve seen for that? Zilch, nada, nothing. Not a single source is ever provided to back that claim. Does that automatically mean it’s a false claim? No, but it’s definitely suspicious. From my limited time looking into it for myself all I can see is that TikTok does, in fact, produce a dopamine response. That’s it. None of the (very few, this is an under-researched subject) studies I have found even differentiate it from other sources of dopamine. Hell, one of the articles I saw used the amount of time a fucking hashtag stays on the trending list as an indicator of the degradation of attention spans. I trust I don’t have to explain how those two are only superficially linked.
Got my kids back for the summer, first time since they got phones (9 and 11-yo). They’re hooked through the fucking bag. And that’s with their mom having severely limiting their screen time.
If I so much as threaten to take their phones, they act exactly like an addict having their stash stolen. If a literal demon jumped out the phone, grabbed them by the neck and punched them in face, they’d go right back on the screen.
I listen in, and it’s all high-pitched chatter at 100mph, randomly switching topics and formats. If the internet has fried my brain at 53, god knows what it’s doing to them.
This post scares the hell out of me. My daughter is 5 and sheltered but I know this is coming, I see it in other friends and families. Even the parents get sucked in and tell me about these addictive and fun empty headed music videos and it becomes a family event of consuming YouTube which makes me really question our Idiocracy future…
Just as much as YT, FB, Instagram and whatever else.
I would say facebook is actually much worse. And even though you didn’t mention it, X/twitter is as bad as facebook.
Yes, but probably only about as much as every other garbage social media trashsite like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Omfg. What a trash article. Great examples of the spin the politicians are trying on, of tiktok. because people can use it to unite against an unjust system and that made them scared and therefore launch a negative campaign and force a take over of the whole app. I mean, come on!! Such a bad article.
There’s more misinformation on fb. Marky Z, when asked why he let’s all a that just spread around, said, he thinks people can just tell stuff is lies by looking at it. He knows that isn’t true.
I mean tik Tok is shit though. The fact that FB and X are also manipulative and shitty doesn’t really prove your point.
An authoritarian government as evil as China’s having power over that platform compromises it. Tiktok escalates content that hurts western governments but downplays content critical of China. How many times have you heard about the ongoing Uyghur genocide and the over 1 million Uyghurs still imprisoned in China on Tiktok? Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is boosted everywhere because it makes America look bad. While all attention brought to work against genocide is good, it’s important to note China has their finger on the scale pushing down content against their interests. China does things just as worthy of Tiktok activism and it is ignored by the algorithm on purpose.
Decentralized social media is really the best option for public discourse in the long run.
Maybe people are just less interested in accusations against a state on the other side of the planet and much more interested in the open, horrifying and costly crimes committed by their “own”.
edit: Also nobody in the USA is advocating for the oppression of the uyghurs so there’s not much to protest here. The situation is almost completely reversed with respect to palestine.
So TikTok bad 'cos it allows criticism of the US… and Facebook, Youtube et al good? Seriously?
No, but any bias in what content gets boosted is bad for public discourse. Too many people think Tiktok is fine, but it being so heavily influenced by an authoritarian dictatorship makes it a bad platform. We need platforms that aren’t controlled by these opaque powers. I wasn’t saying Facebook or the like was the answer at all if you read my post.
