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.
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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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 fucking 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.
Les see... there was music, tv, then DnD, then computers, then video games, and smartphones. Just in my lifetime. Remember how video games created a generation of psychopathic murderers? I have too many bodies to hide I tell ya...
Tik Tok's design clearly taps into psychological principles that drive addiction. The infinite scroll and unpredictable content rewards work like slot machines in a dopamine-driven feedback loop. This keeps users glued to their screens, often without realizing how much time has passed. The For You feed continuously adapts to like a million data tracking points, and spits out a constant stream of whatever content it deems most likely to keep you scrolling. Neuroscientists have pointed out that heavy TikTok use can reduce attention spans and increase the need for instant gratification which are effects tied to dopamine stimulation. Obviously bytedance isn't going to publicize the proprietary research they used to accomplish this. But the app clearly uses these engagement-maximizing techniques. That also goes for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit (they wish lol) and the rest of them. But in tiktok's case, it's an export from an adversarial nation, and you only need to look at the internally approved version of tiktok for Chinese users, which promotes a completely different kind of content.
Which neuroscientists are saying that? All the articles I’ve found referring to “TikTok Brain” quote one Dr. Patrick Porter. And I have become quite wary of trusting one man’s word, even that of a professional, since the whole vaccines cause autism thing.
Here are several studies, I have not read all of them but they are what I found:
https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/items/277e3219-85d2-41ac-92f3-4ac3745c1d58
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8820
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.641673/full
https://theoxfordblue.co.uk/tiktok-and-the-death-of-the-attention-span/
The first one is one that I didn’t find in my own time. It correlates heavy usage of TikTok with a decreased ability to block one’s own distracting thoughts. Certainly interesting, and worth further study, but the authors appear to have equated that correlation with a causal effect. They did not satisfactorily delineate between someone who has a poor attention span and is attracted to TikTok because of it and someone with a poor attention span caused by TikTok.
The second and third studies I have already addressed in my other comments. The second study being the Chinese one that demonstrated a correlation between heavy TikTok usage and memory loss, anxiety, stress, depression, etc. Again, important findings, but crucially not causal. The third is the meta analysis that refused to make a statements regarding detrimental effects of TikTok usage.
The fourth isn’t a study, it’s an article. This article does link to several studies, however the only one the directly mentions TikTok is, again, that same study of roughly 3,000 Chinese students. The rest of the studies mentioned are targeting social media use in general.
These articles and studies may be of interest to you
https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8010681/
https://www.psychreg.org/double-tap-dopamine-science-social-media-likes-impact-minds/
You have linked a term paper, one study, and two articles. The study is a meta analysis that refuses to comment on the detrimental effects of TikTok usage due to a lack of research in the field in general. One article is about social media use in general and does not directly link to any scholarly works. The other does directly target TikTok and links to a study on Chinese students. There, TikTok Use Disorder was positively correlated with memory loss, anxiety, stress, and depression. Unfortunately my understanding of statistical analysis is not strong enough to judge the quality of the study, but to my limited knowledge it seems robust for its purposes. That being said, positive correlation does not necessarily prove causation. Notably, this study was a one time questionnaire. Meaning there isn’t any mechanism to determine the effects of high TikTok usage over time.
All this is to say that the field is deeply understudied, and that there aren’t any reliable conclusions that can be drawn yet. It may be that there are adverse effects, but that has to be proven.
So what you're saying is: We have a small sample of unreliable evidence that this thing may be absolutely detrimental to the developing brain. Thus, we should assume it's fine until we have more reliable evidence. Did I get that right?
No, you did not get that right. I’m saying there is a small body of evidence that may or may not indicate some detrimental effects and that we should conduct further research before jumping to conclusions. The claim that TikTok is rotting people’s brains is, as far as I can tell, unfounded. A claim being unfounded doesn’t strictly mean it is untrue, but it does mean there isn’t any real reason to be making the claim in the first place.
You are neglecting the cost-benefit of temporarily jumping to the wrong conclusion while waiting for more conclusive evidence though. Not doing anything because evidence that this is bad is too thin, and being wrong, can have severe long-term consequences. Restricting tiktok and later finding out that it has no detrimental effects has essentially zero negative consequences. We have a word for this principle in my native language - that if you are in doubt about whether something can have severe negative consequences, you are cautious about it until you can conclude with relative certainty that it is safe, rather than the other way around, which would be what you are suggesting: Treating something as safe until you have conclusive evidence that it is not, at which point a lot of damage may already be done.
You are making assumptions about what I am saying again. I am not advocating for more TikTok usage. At no point did I say anything positive about TikTok. What I am advocating for is people reaching a certain threshold of evidence before going around stating things as fact.
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...
Whose law is it of headlines, that when they ask a question it can be answered with 'No'?
Betteridge gets all the credit, although the origins go back much further.
Or, if you are publishing an article, "Did Betteridge create the rule of headlines?"
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.
It does. American politicians and meta go along really well.
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.
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.
All of these platforms are controlled by opaque powers, be it shady board rooms or political cabinets, and all of them entice engagement in any way necessary at any cost. But one isn't American.
The whole point of their algorithms is boosting specific content, but some specific content doesn't appease some Americans, and a lot of people think facebook et al are just fine.
I dislike all of those platforms.
This platform is not controlled by opaque powers. Decentralized social media is the best solution to this problem currently available.
Absolutely.
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.
It's Dungeons and Dragons that did. And fidget spinners.
Don't forget the records that convey Satan messaging when played backwards at 1.5x speed
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.
Well that could definitely be the case. I'm amazed how well intact is Twitter still in terms of userbase, despite all the dramas.
No.
No more than any other social network and more likely to be less so. This just seems to be a justification for future government action against the app/company.
It's pretty sad to see Vox's decline into gutter clickbait media. I guess it was inevitable once Klein and Yglesias left, and their mediocre minions took over.
It's never the parents.
Parent here. It's always the parents. The biggest problems with young people are typically caused by lack of parental involvement and are next to impossible for schools or society at large to solve.
The catch is that any public figure or institution saying that out loud is more or less committing suicide. Just like I'm about to be roasted alive on here for saying it.
Shitty, inattentive parents do not want to hear that they need to do better. Parents who didn't plan ahead and just shove their kid in daycare don't want to hear that they should have moved to a cheaper metropolitan area so they could work less and spend more time raising their kids. Parents who went off half cocked and had kids in unstable relationships don't want to hear that they shouldn't have done that knowing they wouldn't be able to stay together in the long term.
Nobody is allowed to say that out loud, you have to read between the lines.
why not both?
If parents keep throwing kids into the public piranha tub, I'm absolutely blaming the parents, but I will still question why we keep a public piranha tub.
We need to look outside of social media. Doesn’t mean the media we consume don’t play a role in shaping opinions. The short attention spans and highly simplified messaging encouraged by endless scrolling on social media platforms play right into the hands of populists who trade in slogans, scapegoats and easy solutions. The algorithm takes care of the rest. Once you’ve expressed an interest in politically edgy content, you will be served more of that, to the point where your perception of reality will be completely shaped by that.
It's not changing them, it's breaking them free of the bullshit authorized narrative the government has over other social media platforms. It allows us to talk to each other which the government does not want. It's a tool for class consciousness.
lol
Lmao
Good guy CCP, breaking us free of government control, must be so good to live under them 🥰
Yes, but probably only about as much as every other garbage social media trashsite like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Can you break that which doesn't exist?
Especially using mainstream social media for politics. Owch