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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.
I don’t think TikTok community is compatible with the idea of fediverse
TikTok exists to give you large floods of endorphins via either an algorithm trained to your interests or by giving you big numbers. And this is not exclusive to TikTok, this is just how modern “social” media works, it’s the sole reason why bluesky succeeded more than mastodon
Modern social media is mostly a hive mind of people affirming each other driven by algorithms. Fediverse on the other hand, always boils down to a old fashioned usenet style network made just so people can talk with each other. You can’t really get addicted to fedi
I wasn’t really alive during the wild west internet (im 19). I got into the net during the transition from forums to modern social media and reddit was my first social. I tried getting into facebook and instagram because everyone else was there but I just didn’t like it much.
I don’t know why but “the algorithm” is really boring for me. I only tried algorithm driven feeds on reddit (after u/spez) and on tumblr but the recommendations were always extremely “fake”. Other sorting methods like “new” or “by most active” just feel more like as if there was someone on the other side of the keyboard
You can’t really get addicted to fedi
Hmm… anxiously eyeing my Lemmy post history…
Yeah, I’m not as addicted to Lemmy as I was with Reddit, because there aren’t as many comments and niche communities and an algorithm messing with me, but like I check Lemmy throughout each day and if I’m honest there’s not much purpose aside from getting that hit.
I had some days that I spent hours debating with people, other days I just chill and chat with people, particularly on Mastodon.
and then theres… Lemmy, I was probably addicted to the hardest. The score system would keep me checking it and i’d be interested in keeping my score up high. I’d even argue that it made me a better human being.
An interesting point, that a lot of younger people might not know: social media wasn’t always like this.
When I joined facebook around 2008-09, it wasn’t algorithm driven, there weren’t even ads. You had a chronological feed of your friends’ interactions, so you could see if someone posts a photo, comments something, or shares a stupid quiz. It was a very-very different feeling compared to what we have now. It was useful and practical, but the enshittification killed it.
I would never sign up for something like this today, absolutely useless - only reason I’m still there is the messaging app, which I use daily with most of my friends/family.
It’s weird seeing how “the algorithm” has genuinely only made things worse. Falling into the YouTube rabbit hole was a thing, and it was entirely organic. From the loose connections of topics, you could start from any feel good funny video, and end in detailed documentary about MK Ultra.
The best algorithm was no algorithm and there’s no way of ever going back to that. I feel pretty lucky to have experienced the internet before it became everything.
I don’t think algorithms themselves are to blame but what they are tuned for. While engagement/eyeball hours for the adserver is the prime metric the quality of experience will be subservient to it. If the algorithms could better measure your mood and stimulation levels and maximise for that the effect would be less toxic. Ideally if it realised you were just mindlessly consuming it could suggest maybe you’ve done enough today and to try something else. But that I fear that is not something the owners of the various ecosystems want.
I have been so happy since I’ve adopted the “intentional browsing” concept. It means I am the only one choosing what I want to see so I use NewPipe instead of YouTube, Mastodon instead of Twitter, Lemmy and a RSS reader instead of Reddit. My life has improved so much I am not even kidding. I feel ‘clean’
I don’t think anything is un-addictable (making up words here). I do agree that the social media mindset and fedi are not compatible though, basically because of the algorithm concept.
At the end of the day I hate all social media because they feed me what they think I want to eat. Regardless of how well they do that I hate the concept because I want to decide for myself what I want to partake in. Fedi allows that without getting in my way.
They don’t have to sell or provide videos to third parties, because they can just do it themselves.
That’s the nature of actual federation. It’s not private.
We are literally training the future AI that will suppress mankind by our social media chats.
Nice.
Im guessing it’s going to be missing all the features that make tiktok popular like duets and pedophilia.
It’s a feature of TikTok where you can put your video side-by-side with some else’s video. This seems like a decent explanation.
My problem with tiktok/reels/shorts is not that they aren’t federated. It’s the entire format/concept I hate.
I think I might like them better if they didn’t auto-play. I hate anything that auto-plays.
I think if you’re just looking for quick news breaks then it can be useful but if you’re looking for detailed content or lengthy movies, or skits. Something like Youtube would be more preferred. I think for me it depends on the content.
I watch a ton of YouTube. I love it for entertainment and some news. I absolutely hate YouTube for tutorials or guides though. If I’m trying to figure out how to fix a computer issue, I just want to read about it and have screenshots I can look at. I don’t want to have to constantly pause a damn video or scroll back and forth to find info.
As far as tiktok style videos go I just hate everything about them. I hate the auto play, I hate the vertical aspect ratio, I hate the stupid auto voiceovers, I hate the dumb floating captions and comments overlay, I hate the lack of volume adjustment or the ability to pause and rewind or seek. I hate the types of brainrot content that people make to work the algorithm. I hate that the format has infested YouTube and IG with no real way to be rid of it.
Agreed, except youtube is great for any guides on stuff like vehicle maintenance. Want to know how to do something on your car? It’s almost guaranteed there’s a youtube video walking you through the whole process.
I think if you’re just looking for quick news breaks then it can be useful…
No, even then, that format is even worse. Good journalism often has a nuance and detail to it. The short-format video nonsense barely has enough time to get through a headline and a broad summary.
The 24h news cycle is bad enough without trying to shorten it further to 90sec ragebait clips.
