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My brief forays into both TikTok and YouTube Shorts have left me profoundly unimpressed with the short-form video.
It’s all vertical video as well. YouTube pushes Shorts fairly aggressively on the desktop website, and it’s a crappy experience.
Be glad Youtube still works on the desktop at all. A very large majority of users watch on their phones and YouTube only cares about profits.
I already knew this but still what a terrifying prospect, I love my phone but there are some things a desktop is just better for
Yeah I’m one of the ten people who can’t stand watching videos on my phone. I draw the line at gifs.
I tend to watch YouTube on my phone while traveling, waiting, relaxing and don’t feel like turning on the TV… but always in landscape orientation. I can’t stand vertical videos.
I use a firefox addon to hide shorts. works most of the time I guess.
It’s all mind-melting in my experience
Literally proven to ruin attention span in children and essentially cause ADHD, can also easily cause depression by constantly seeing (usually) fake people flaunting their (usually) fake life and wealth.
Not to mention the proliferation of insane conspiracy theories, absolute nonsense and usually harmful ‘advice’ of one kind or another, ‘being rich is the only thing that matters so here is a scam to show you how!’ of all kinds of flavors…
Brain rot.
Literally proven to ruin attention span in children and essentially cause ADHD
Please link source, interested in reading.
Having recently been diagnosed with ADHD I’ve taken part in several classes on ADHD to learn more about it. And the consensus is that no external factors like that cause ADHD. However, I’m sure this topic of algorithm driven addictive short form videos for a very young audience is being studied more now than ever so who knows what the consensus on that will be in the future. Causing ADHD or not, I don’t think it’s healthy either way.
Yeah it can certainly cause problems, it’s just not ADHD.
ADHD doesn’t even really mean short attention spans, it’s more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It’s the same way people incorrectly use “OCD” to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.
I have ADHD and I’ve had times where I’ve done the same thing for 14 hours straight (even forgetting to eat) when my brain decides it wants to latch onto that thing. You just need to be sufficiently stimulated, hence why stimulants can work as a treatment.
ADHD doesn’t even really mean short attention spans, it’s more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It’s the same way people incorrectly use “OCD” to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.
Both of these are the product of needing constant stimulation. I understand your point that hyper-focus is also part of ADD/ADHD, and I certainly am not going to make claims about how your brain is changing structurally without evidence behind it.
So this is mere conjecture for a mechanism:
What these apps (with short format video being the worst) do is train your brain to expect a constant stream of dopamine hits. Novelty (presumably even trash novelty like TikTok) triggers dopamine, your brain becomes dependent on that steady stream of dopamine fix, and your body starts craving it once you remove that pattern of behavior.
This is very similar to ADHD, which is also strongly connected to problems with how dopamine is regulated. It’s not as simple as just not enough dopamine or poor uptake or whatever, but it’s reasonably clear that it plays a role.
So both cases are a result of poor dopamine regulation causing a need for stimulation that has a negative impact on ability to function from day to day. They’re probably at minimum relatively similar.
This is my understanding of it all as well. Like, if your parents never stfu as a kid or you never had a chance to really be alone and quiet and safe as a baby, your brain, your very concept of self, is hardwired for constant stimulation such that it’s uncomfortable not to have it, to the point of sitting their for 14 hours reading Wikipedia pages or whatever because it’s more stimulating that it would be to stop and wash the floors or so the laundry, or maybe just talking your fingers in class or letting your mind read every sign and bumper sticker while you’re driving. It’s also why all the most effective treatments are about emotional regulation.
That doesn’t sound right to me. ADHD is a constellation of shared symptoms, grouped together and given a name for insurance and diagnostic purposes and because the treatment overlaps. The cause of those symptoms are obviously multifactorial, heavily correlated with both genetics and childhood stress. Bad news if your mom or dad didn’t ever stfu when you were a baby, hardwired you to be uncomfortable without constant external stimulation and validation.
Schools at least where I live do a much better job of teaching kids to manage their emotions. And I hope parents of young children are doing a better job as well, seems like it to me, but I’m in a well off rural bubble.
I imagine TikTok sets back any progress and I’m glad it’s banned. TikTok brain is a real thing. Human beings are meant to be able to focus intensely in one purposeful thing for several hours at a time and with practice anyone can learn to be highly productive and attentive if they can find a time and place to be free from distractions, and anyone can have a super memory if they set aside time and purposefully train their memory; memory is a product of focus.
can also easily cause depression by constantly seeing (usually) fake people flaunting their (usually) fake life and wealth
That’s a problem with many social media platforms and the “influencer” culture they host. Instagram has been particularly criticised for this.
These heavily curated content posted on these platforms does not reflect the warts and all reality of real life. People who get too engrossed in it can quickly start to feel their lives are inadequate.
I’m not sure what the solution is for this, other than trying to better regulate the algorithms used by these platforms.
Well, better regulation of algorithms is not a thing that is going to happen.
Assuming you could actually specify this kind of content… which you probably can with some degree from the standpoint of the engineers behind the things… theres basically no way to ban or limit this kind of content in a law.
1: Giant Freedom of Speech based opposition. To some extent, yeah if you penalize it, well you are limiting free speech and artistic expression, is what will be claimed.
2: Without literally having access to the way the algorithm works, it’d be a massive tome of a law to try to pass. And also software changes, so … you can probably rewrite your way around a specific way to limit this kind of content.
I don’t know. Maybe you could pass a law that mandates if your platform has x many users or daily views, you must provide to the user far, far more in depth means to manage their own content they are thrown up.
Or perhaps you could have some kind of FAA type entity created, which is supposed to be deeply involved in the behind the scenes aspects of basically standard operation of the social media industry, as the FAA is with aircraft manufacture/airspace/airports.
Of course the counter point to that is well just look at the FAA and Boeing ot even SpaceX. Regulatory capture is a thing, and with both Boeing and SpaceX it seems like the FAA (and in SpaceX’s case the EPA) either don’t really care to do their jobs, or actual enforcement mechanisms are just too slow or cumbersome.
You literally are posting on a site where every 3rd post is defending genocide…
???
I must not be part of the same lemmy communities as you?
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Shhh, its now time for Hasan to interview another violent religious fundamentalist to remind us that Houthis are good actually and wanton piracy is the same thing as being a good Tankie.
Don’t mention that the Houthis have actually targeted Chinese vessels, and that China also has naval forces on escort and anti piracy operations faaaar from their territorial waters.
Modern American leftism has to a great extent devolved into ‘any and all of America’s enemies are good actually and can do no wrong’. Except Russia. Because MAGA likes Russia, so Russia bad.
Bleck.
There was that brief period of time where Vine existed and had actual quality content.
Then the short video format was shittified after everyone began doing it, and fairly rapidly devolved into mindless attention seeking nonsense / micro personal update vlog… or worse.
Well humans are making them. Vine and other early adopter places (Lemmy) are nice until the “masses” find it.
It’s awful, but people eat it up. Add in profit margins and companies jump on smelling that sweet sweet profit.
Tik Tok is blocked in my house but unfortunately reels/yt shorts have no easy way to block without affecting the rest of the service.
Jack Dorsey was just a year or two early with Vine it seems.
He didn’t have the resources and determination of the Chinese state behind him.
And lacking destructive impulse and intent
The question here would be… where are their parents?
On tiktok too, where else.
At their second jobs.
Putting their kids on Tiktok so they are able to poop in peace.
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Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !antinatalism@lemmy.world
Out stealing cars for likes.
You wouldn’t download a car.
Can’t, but you can download a video of me stealing a car!
That sounds like a parental problem
Yeah none of those kids should have cell phones. They should be about old enough to drive before they get one even.
Yup. I have kids (three under 10), and the only time my kids use my phone is when I’m literally there with them, letting them pick a video (usually Pat and Mat, Bert and Ernie, or similar). It’s not every day, and never more than 30 min, usually like 15-20 min, and we take turns picking.
I’m not letting my kids have their own phone until I trust them with one, and that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon with how many of our other rules they break.
You can type in coherent sentences so it’s no surprise your kids don’t fall into the reported finding, your kids are off to a better start than average, I presume.
That’s a depressingly low bar…
Yup.
So does a kid snapping and shooting up the school, but it doesn’t mean we ignore guns.
but it doesn’t mean we ignore guns.
Uuuh, you sure about that? It seems like that shit keeps happening and nothing at all is being done about it.
oh please. if guns became sentient someone would stack three of them in a trenchcoat and give them the right to vote.
Yeah, parents are getting ruined by social media algorithms too.
Our government seems to be moving towards an “we only care about the children, but everyone, including adults, upload your government papers” approach.
Y’all got any of those protections for adults? I remember reading regulations that companies couldn’t show children advertisements. Can I have some of that regulation too?
I just can’t stop being cynical that there is little focus on homeless or underpaid adults, or other adult issues, but the one problem we’re focused on just so happens to include everyone giving up anonymity on the Internet.
We do need to help kids with social media, but there’s a lot of other challenges they will soon face as adults that we’re ignoring.
Are there any examples of ‘for the kids’ legislation that isn’t just something like backdoor encryption masquerading as protecting the young?
Uhh, yes, in fact I’d say most. There’s entire systems of childhood health legislation, education, labor, you name it. This is an availability bias showing through. Think about it for five minutes and I bet you can come up with a dozen examples.
Children copy their parents.
Children can’t do that if you’re a responsible parent that keeps an eye on what their child is doing. Y’know, the bare minimum of parenting.
That’s sort of true, but “rules for thee and not for me” just kicks the can down the road. They’re going to copy you, so it’s really important to set a good example, at least when your kids can see you.
It’s not “rules for thee and not for me,” unless you consider that true for things like drinking alcohol. It’s protecting children from something they are not cognitively developed enough to be dealing with.
The difference is that it’s easy to point to reasons why a child shouldn’t be drinking alcohol (illegal, liver immaturity, etc), and less easy to point to why they shouldn’t be on social media, esp. if their friends are using it.
Where the line is more fuzzy, I think parents should set a more strict standard for themselves, at least in front of their children.
I think the line is, TikTok pulls a video at random it thinks you’ll want to watch. This means that you may be exposed to basically anything a person felt like filming. This includes violent or pornographic content, which children should not be exposed to.
Being a parent is telling your children no sometimes. Being a parent means that you should vet the media that your child is being exposed to, which is impossible on a platform like TikTok, and sometimes make the decision for them that they are not old enough to be exposed to certain material.
It really feels like folks don’t want to be parents - they want to hand the iPad over to the screaming toddler so that they can be babysat by their own phone. I don’t understand why one would have children, if they weren’t interested in doing the work of parenting those kids.
My thoughts exactly.
I will say, however, that I’m generally against content filtering. My kids know the rules, and they know if they violate them, they lose device privileges. Simple as that. If I put parental controls on, they’ll just circumvent them (and I’ll teach them how to if they ask). I know because I was a kid and constantly got around stupid content filters at school.
Either I trust them with the device, or I don’t, no half-measures. For example:
- TV - “kids” profiles, but they’re free to use our “adult” profiles if the filtering sucks
- computers and tablets - they ask for access, tell me what they want to do, and I unlock it for them
- Switch - child lock, but only because my 4yo keeps taking it when not allowed; my older kids know the code
That’s it. I generally allow them to use devices unsupervised, though in a public area so I can walk over and check on them. I intend to give them their own devices as they get older (i.e. they’ll set their own passwords). But if they violate my trust, it’s their fault, not the content filter’s, and they lose privileges.
if you’re a responsible parent that keeps an eye on what their child is doing.
Unfortunately you can’t run a society based on how people should behave. That’s the entire reason we have a legal system and the means to implement safeguards for our population.
We can’t run a society on the things on which we run society!
So why do locks exist, if society runs on how people should behave? Why do we have a court system, if we assume no crimes will ever be committed? Why do we have laws?
That’s why we have them friend, because it couldn’t. The system is based on punishing antisocial behavior.
With some things yes. But not all.
Childless young people downvoting this, perhaps not able to admit they’re just like mom or dad?
For most of us I’m sorry but it’s true! Kids are mirrors; apples don’t fall far from trees. Not all of them. Some carry.
That’s fucked
The next generation is so fucked. Wait…they be the ones who take care of me in the old person home. I’m fucked as will.
People have been claiming that new media will destroy society at least since we invented writing, and probably before.
Look at Mr Moneybags here, getting cared for in an old person home.
Who is Will and why is he so fucked?
They’re gonna put a camera in your room and post all your old people antics on future tik tok
Nobody wants to see old people.
Karma.
The young treat the old however they do. But then the young grow old and get treated the same.
Child abuse
This ban can’t come soon enough. Fuck the CCP.
“In my household, the only addictive spyware we use is made in the USA!!!”
Edit: everyone below me is proving my point exactly.
People love to repeat this, but US companies aren’t coming from a place of hostile intent like china’s special brand of tik tok for the states.
I’m not so sure about that, they seem pretty hostile to consumers and employees.
They’re both focused on profit. The only reason you see the other one as scary is because it’s owned by the scary scary Chinese. Red scare all over again.
No tiktok is not focused on profit. It literally has one of the worst/non existent monetization systems.
Yup, vine ripoff with some tweaks and the same monetization issue
Case in point. Vine literally can’t survive and so shouldn’t TikTok. Unless of course it’s getting propped up by a government with endless funds and not focused on profits.
Why is Chinese tiktok different than that in the states then?
Because the USA strong armed them into giving their platform handling to Oracle Corp, a top tier US govt contractor.
But since pro-palestine cries can’t be silenced on TikTok as easily as Zio media, taking control of the platform is no longer enough
No, it’s literally a different app in China.
It’s the same thing, the international one was called TikTok and the US version is handled by Oracle
It’s called douyin or something idk in China but it’s the same shit
You say “red scare” as if China isn’t a hostile nation state to the US. Go look at western company penetration in China if you want. Are you calling it “western scare” when China blocks yet another western company? I didn’t think so.
So Facebook has the best interest of the people at heart?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/facebooks-dangerous-experiment-teen-girls/620767/
Facebook is not intentionally doing it. It was a byproduct of capitalism. While TikTok doesn’t care about profits and only wants to control our government and people.
Most 10 years ago they were already manipulating people on purpose
Yes, to maximize ad spend, not to take down a government for another government’s benefit.
You know though that the United States have “taken down” governments before? Americans do not have any right to feel superior on this issue in the slightest way
To do both… But keep your head in the sand as long as you want
Hmm, here’s what Zuckerberg said when he launched Facebook:
According to SAI sources, the following exchange is between a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and a friend shortly after Mark launched The Facebook in his dorm room:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don’t know why.
Zuck: They “trust me”
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
Brutal.
Could Mark have been completely joking? Sure. But the exchange does reveal that Facebook’s aggressive attitude toward privacy may have begun early on.
They may not be trying to control elections (they certainly have their fingers in that pie too), but they’re still hostile to users.
Why would it matter whether or not it’s intentional, if the end effect is the same?
It’s not the same. China wants to fuck up the American youth. That’s why their version of tiktok is so different from ours. But you already knew that I’m sure
Nah, I don’t use tiktok, Chinese or otherwise so I wouldn’t know the difference. But you’re missing the point.
- USA organisations abuse social media to spy on and influence citizens.
- Chinese organisations abuse social media to spy on and influence citizens.
And yet, you claim one is inheritly worse than the other or should be preferered. To me, they are equally bad. If anything, the USA manipulation is worse - they can use that knowledge more easily and to greater effect than an attacker on the other side of the world.
- USA organisations abuse social media to spy on and influence citizens.
- Chinese
organisationsgenocidal dictatorship abuse social media to spy on and influence citizens.
Are the American companies doing it in pursuit of destabilizing the United States population for the betterment of the CCP and its interests?
Is the Chinese company doing it in pursuit of destabilizing the United States population for the betterment of the CCP and its interests?
China does not have a version of tiktok. You are repeating bullshit lies
Douyin begs to differ.
Unironically yes, at least the US government is something we can openly criticize and attempt to change while living within its borders. Try criticizing the Chinese government from within China, let me know how that works out for you. I’ll take homegrown American spyware any day.
Blaming tiktok for bad parental choices?
I’m not saying it’s a good parental choice. But the ban can help the kids.
I doubt it, parents will just move them to YouTube, Instagram, or some other platform. The TikTok ban is intended to limit misinformation by the CCP, and that doesn’t really matter for this age of kids.
I’m a parent. YouTube is watched but you can see what they are watching.
The more important thing to me is building habits. I care less about how much they’re watching vs how they’re spending their time generally.
We have a rule where our kids need to read to be able to watch/play games, and we cap at 2hr/day. If they read 1hr, they can watch/play for 30min. My kids seem to have a pretty good mix of reading, watching/playing, and playing outside w/ friends, so I think it works.
Yea. We do something similar. It’s an electronic allowance. If you use it it’s done for the day. I change it for rainy days and vacations if we are traveling in the car or whatever. But it’s easy to set up with Google family. And then you can see what they are doing. Not to be snoopy. Just to teach them the right way to protect themselves online. I don’t want them to turn 18 and be completely lost.
I give my kids 30 min “free” on Saturdays, which gets doubled if they spend it in a game with a sibling. For trips, I make my kids all do the same thing, so either watch the same show, listen to the same audiobook, etc.
I personally don’t digitally track what my kids do at all, I instead rely on trust and keeping devices in a public space. I tell them what’s acceptable, and occasionally hang out with them while they’re doing whatever. As they follow the rules, I give them more autonomy (e.g. my oldest may get their own PC soon-ish), but if they break the rules, they lose access. The only parental controls I use is for my 4yo, because she keeps getting into my Steam Deck and Switch w/o asking, but my other kids know the passcode on the Switch (not my Steam Deck, that’s mine).
It’s a bit bumpy, but I’m hopeful that having rules but no actual walls teaches them to learn to self-regulate and will help them in the long-run. It worked for me as a kid.
No blaming the CCP on psyops on Americans.
Ah yes, that will solve the problem
Wait, is there another psyops software the CCP has deployed in the US?
Probably plenty. Tik tok is just the biggest owned by a foreign government that also is showing pretty immediate extreme negative effects on children’s attention spans and learning capabilities.
But people are still gonna whine because they’re 25 year olds who need to watch 80 videos of unboxing shoes in 4 minutes . That’s really the only pro tik tok argument there is.
It sets a pretty chilling precedent that non-American competition can be forced to sell to Americans for (insert arbitrary reason here).
I am in favor of TikTok at least becoming restricted to adults only if not outright banned, just warning about the consequences of doing it this way.
It’s owned by the CCP who is currently trying to undermine our election. It tried to do it in Taiwan where I currently live.
It’s owned by the CCP who is currently trying to undermine our election
Not that this may not be true, but the USA undermines it’s own foundation of democracy
While the US government is not perfect, it still is OUR own government. The CCP is a literal adversary.
I’m guessing you’ve never been on TikTok. It’s a pretty good news source and information disseminator. Your algorithm feeds you what you pick so if you linger on posts from physical therapists and psychologists about child development, that’s what you learn about. If you linger on political posts highlighting our local and federal government’s corruption, you get that.
I’m all for banning it (and all social media) for children, but if you think TikTok is all trash TV, you’ve been successfully propagandized.
I use TikTok routinely. I actually spend time on Chinese parts of TikTok, because I know a little Chinese. I’ve seen content that the CCP would be very much opposed to - including discussions of the Tank Man from Tiananmen Square and homosexuality in Chinese history.
TikTok has censorship certainly, but it’s more targeted towards the Gaza conflict.
I use TikTok routinely.
Your experience is different from other experience. That’s the main issue. They are and can target specific people in specific groups and in specific regions. You seeing this content just means you’re not important enough for them to target.
As can/do Facebook and every other social media platform. But I find it hard to take this idea that TikTok is an arm of the CCP seriously when I routinely discuss Ughyur Muslims and Tiananmen square with folks, and see depictions of Chairman Mao as Pooh Bear.
The more shady shit is the shop and how every third video is an unlabeled ad. TikTok wants to make money first and foremost. I don’t think TikTok is some force for good in the world, but what they are doing is no different from what Meta and Google are doing.
Tiktok has one of the worse/non existent monetization programs. Its clearly not important to them how bad it is.
My extended family in Taiwan would routinely see fake news on Tiktok during the Taiwan elections.
That’s the thing. You don’t know. Nobody knows except the CCP. That’s the problem.
Only Western manipulation please!
It’s not in American businesses best interest overthrow a government. Can’t say the same for the CCP tho. Fuck the CCP.
What does “on tiktok” mean?
Unsupervised with their own accounts? I feel like that’s difficult to believe. Watching a few tiktoks before dinner with their parents? That doesn’t really strike me as a problem.
While I don’t entirely disagree with the author, I feel like this is a far too superficial look at what is a larger societal problem: young people have checked out.
He makes the argument that mental health is in decline, and I’m not sure if that’s true or we’ve just removed the stigma from therapy… But of more concern to me is that young people just DGAF, and I think that’s because older generations have left nothing for younger generations to inherit, besides ruin. Kids 5-7 aren’t gonna understand that, but they’re gonna pick up the vibes from their parents.
I don’t think its difficult to imagine 30% of 5 to 7s with their own phones on tiktok nearly all the time.
Raising kids is hard, especially when youre poor and stressed out or tired all the time, its waaay easier to just get them a phone.
The number of people I’ve met in the last couple of years? Yeah, I live amongst the poors, the abusive parents and single moms and drunk/drug addicted dads… all their kids either have their own phones or the family has one for all the kids, who basically fight over it and get smacked by a parent or older sibling when theyre being too rowdy.
A few weeks ago I was walking, puffing on a nicotine vape. A school bus pulls up and drops off what could not have been older than 2nd graders, who began hounding me: Lemme hit that wax bro, Share your wax!
These are those 5 to 7s that are on TikTok, or close to it. I didnt even realize what Wax was at first, literally had to scurry home and lookup that wax is now the term for basically dab pens.
So yeah, theres huge segments of the population where 7 year olds want a highly concentrated dose of MJ from a literal random person theyve never seen before.
Devo: It’s a beautiful world we live in… for you, but not for me.
I mean, that’s kind of my point - in situations like that, it seems like using Tiktok is small potatoes compared to the more significant issues that’d cause problem behavior. The Tiktok consumption is just another symptom, and if it wasn’t tiktok it’d be some other escape mechanism.
To me, the article seems lazy, complaining about a superficial problem without spending effort to even consider or mention underlying root causes that could give rise to it and must be solved first.
And to be clear I’m not blaming the parents, they’re not the “root cause” I’m talking about. They’re victims too, in large part. They and their kids are stuck in a harmful cycle, and people with the ability to break that cycle are unwilling to do so.
That is terrifying
You would think that with all those kids watching, Xi would lean into the whole Winnie the Pooh resemblance.
Is there any data for similar age range but for YouTube?
With YouTube kids, and the popularity of channels like cocomelon, I’d be surprised if it’s less than 75%…
How do you take over the world? Program the children!
Seems bad, man.
Yeah bad parenting
Algorithm “okay kids remember, America bad and China number 1”
Chinpokemon all over again…
I’m not completely convinced. It is possible but sounds a bit high to me. It is based on a survey of less than 3k parents, and although I found the BBC article, it doesn’t seem to link to the actual source. It is therefore difficult to take this too seriously without seeing exactly who was interviewed and how the questions were worded.
It’s probably not that bad, but I wouldn’t be surprised just based on anecdotal experience.
I’m a provider at a children’s hospital and phones have always been an issue during appointments. Before, it was mostly an issue with getting parents to pay attention or answer questions during the evaluation.
However since COVID, we’ve noticed a large increase of parents using tablets and phones as a constant babysitter. These children are so emotionally attached to their screens that they will tantrum until they have access to their screen again.
