• bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    57
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 months ago

    it’s the kind of material that keep a monkey occupied.

    I think that’s kind of the point. There was an article a while back that said the CCP/Bytedance intentionally serve up braindead content to everywhere outside China, while promoting educational and uplifting content at home.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      I have one 50 year old friend with very little tech know how and his kids set him up with a good smartphone. I saw his family about a year ago and his kids noted that their dad often sits up until about 2 or 3 in the morning at the kitchen table just scrolling through tiktok videos. He sent them to me about once a day until I had to block him and tell him directly to stop sending me this stuff. He’s since become ‘aware’ of his addiction and stops sending out videos as often as he did before. He still scrolls through thousands and thousands of videos a day.

      It would all be funny if it wasn’t so frightening at the same time.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        6 months ago

        No kidding. I just find it ironic that the generation that kept saying “TV will rot your brain” is now completely consumed by social media.

      • GluWu@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        6 months ago

        50 is still too young. Endless scrolling should only be for old people who literally can’t do anything. Kids need to do physically stimulating things like playing outside, adults need to do mentally stimulating things like playing video games. Old people don’t need to do anything, they can veg out to short form.

      • ZOSTED@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        6 months ago

        Legitimately, when I was quitting nicotine, I would scroll on my phone when I was getting withdrawal pangs, and it helped.

        Nowadays I have to watch myself, or else I’ll potentially lose hours. I know exactly what addiction feels like: going without and satisfying what feels like a need - it feels right. And these apps are definitely addictive. I didn’t really notice until I tried to stop.

    • kofe@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      6 months ago

      I’ve had no trouble curating my feed to mostly professionals, psychologists and pet behaviorists. Occasional cute animal videos

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        6 months ago

        Nice. I’ll be honest, I never bothered with tiktok, only Instagram. And even that got to a point where I just gave up and tossed it. Even Reddit was weird like that.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 months ago

      that sounds way too bizarre to believe without seeing a source. and i know there’s gonna be people replying saying it’s not that bizarre, because China, but really…?

    • markon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      6 months ago

      Just don’t forget Blackrock owns a very sizable portion of Bytedance. Just saying.

    • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      22
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      That’s such a gross misunderstanding of the separation between TikTok and China that it’s very possible purposeful misinformation.

      China has no control whatsoever over TikTok, and in fact, there are US intelligence officers on the board for the American company. If anyone is “intentionally serving up braindead content…” it’s the US company, who is under strict control and observation by US intelligence agencies.