Eh, there is sufficient evidence to recommend children and teenagers having limited internet and social media access during their formative years at this point.
The tiktok algorithm of mindless doomscrolling funny little bits all short and digestible for a decaying attention span is just the most egregious example why restrictions should at least be considered.
You realize that’s still true, right? You’re posting this as some big own as though it’s somehow not harmful to mindlessly consume any form of media to an extreme extent, especially in the learning years.
How is it hypocrisy if the previous forms of media were also bad for you, Tik-Tok is just more efficient at funneling meaningless drivel down your throat?
Such generalizing statements are blatantly untrue, hypocritical, and harmful. People don’t use social media without a reason. Everything a human does is meet their needs, both psychological and physiological. When humans resort to social media it means they resort to social interaction and whatever other needs they may have like having feelings validated, visual/audio/etc. stimulation, but that doesn’t sound sensational enough, that’s not enough to scapegoat a group of people
Ok but research indicates that it fails to actually meet their long-term needs. This is actually a really confusing take, if humans always do what meets their needs then we wouldn’t have any issues at all? We TRY to do what we think will meet them, but we’re often mistaken, and this is an example of that.
Did I say that it does meet needs long term? What was the sample? What was the methodology? What communities were they participating in? How were they participating? What were the needs? Did they have a neurodivergency? What were their surroundings like? What was their childhood like? Do they go to therapy? What therapeutic practice did they do in therapy?
Why are you asking like I was talking about a single person? Like… “What therapeutic practice did they do in therapy?”? Is this your idea of a counterargument?
They’re sponsored by better help💀 ok, let’s ignore that
“Strong link between heavy social media use and increased risk for depression” conflating correlation and causation. People are depressed and use social media more because that’s one of the only things that feels ok to do and that happens when there isn’t a good REAL LIFE support system in the first place, and lack of a good support system IN REAL LIFE can be one of the main contributors to depression and self image issues.
“Inadequacy about your life and appearance” as if people aren’t told their whole lives that they should be doctors, engineers, dentists, and that they should always be pretty THEIR WHOLE LIFE. People grow in an environment where these inadequacies are developed in the first place. It’s never “do what you like to do”, it’s always “be normal” and “be successful”. Social media is not at fault for this. Sure, social media can trigger negative thoughts about these topics, but it isn’t the one that tells people who to be or what to look like, it isn’t the one who implanted these insecurities and fear into your brain in the first place.
“FOMO” that’s just capitalism and point number 2. It’s the “you should do this and be this” implanted into your brain since the day you’re born. Social media helps find communities that are against this and that deconstruct this dumbass rhetoric. Without social media, on this scale, it just isn’t possible.
“Social media addiction” you should really look up how psychological addiction develops, but I’ll sum it up for you (but it is more nuanced that that). A psychological need not met properly (or at all) for the entire life ➡️ suddenly it’s a bit more met than usual ➡️ brain’s reward system things ➡️ brain wants you to repeat ➡️ possible development of scarcity mindset-like behavior in relation to the subject. And it doesn’t have to be the thing that supposedly gets you addicted. It can be the circumstances (people and your emotional connection with them, some rituals that can be soothing or just pleasant in any way). My point is when people are ostracized in real life - the internet presents them an opportunity to find someone, or a group of people, whose experiences are relatable, with whom they could build some kind of emotional connection. So someone is being called “weird” for whatever reason ➡️ they refer to social media where that happens much less ➡️ now they get bullied not only for being “weird”, but also because they “have a social media addiction”. You’re not going to tell me that’s social media’s fault, right?
“and Instagram increases rather decreases feelings of loneliness. Conversely, the study found that reducing social media usage can actually make you feel less lonely” which means social media, as an entity, has little to do with this.
“Depression and anxiety. Human beings need face-to-face contact to be mentally healthy. Nothing reduces stress and boosts your mood faster or more effectively than eye-to-eye contact with someone who cares about you.” Is that a reason why social media is harmful or what? How is this a critique of social media? This is literally just another reason why “social media addiction” exists in the first place - feeling lonely and invalidated irl.
“Cyberbullying. About 10 percent of teens report being bullied on social media and many other users are subjected to offensive comments.” While true, the real issue lies in people lacking a support system in real life which, again, can be the reason for “social media addiction” in the first place. This shit wouldn’t have such an impact if these dumbass “responsible and functional members of society” weren’t popping out children they don’t care about like they’re a candy factory because “children are cute🥺” and “I want a mini version of me🥺” and “who doesn’t want children🥺”. You treat your child like shit ➡️ the child treats other people like shit. You scapegoat your child ➡️ the child tries scapegoating other people. How is that not common sense I don’t understand. Like those people vote??? THOSE people are considered “normal”? That’s the society’s norm? This is genuinely pissing me off right now. I’m falling into a personal rant here
“Self-absorption. Sharing endless selfies and all your innermost thoughts on social media can create an unhealthy self-centeredness and distance you from real-life connections.” WHAT LMFAO PLEASE💀💀💀💀 Not only that claim is blatantly incorrect, theres also NO SOURCE FOR IT (yes I looked through each of them). I’ve found studies about it being linked to NPD but social media doesn’t cause NPD WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK LMFAOOOOOOO
At least they said that there’s limited evidence of social media’s harm before listing their points
Anyway, there’s nothing in this article that says “research indicates that it fails to actually meet their long-term needs”, nothing in the resources they referred to. There’s also no such thing as “long term need”. “if humans always do what meets their needs then we wouldn’t have any issues at all?” Ever heard of survival, exploitation, gaslighting, repression, abuse, manipulation? Almost nobody is taught emotional intelligence and proper interoception and that’s not to mention people with different neurological development who have it so so much harder because the expectations that are put on them are made for people with typical neurological development.
Also no. Addiction happens exactly when the needs are met more than usual, hence “social media addiction”, and it’s not the social media’s fault, it’s not “TikTok Instagram bad”. It’s weaponized misconceptions about mental health that are creating this issue in the first place
I think that's generally a good argument, however the rate and level of dopamine hits from TikTok and YouTube Shorts may far surpass that of prior mediums and so actually warrant additional considerations and precautions.
It may be hypocritical, but have you considered that all of these forms of entertainment are unhealthy? The only difference is that they get more and more efficient with each generation, causing increasing levels of concern from each generation. That’s indicative of a rising trend
@STUPIDVIPGUY@aCosmicWave I'm trying and eliminating are sources of entertainment from these websites since the saturation of entertainment content is much more than educational ones now.
What situations your short attention span makes uncomfortable for you apart from things related to some sort of achievement (as perceived by your workplace, school, family, friends, etc)
I mean achievement as something that’s perceived by society, something that you don’t do for enjoyment, something to profit off of in some way (be it simple recognition or raised social status), “I will do this because people will also see it and that’s very good”. It can be the expectations of relatives, workplace, college, or you’re just doing something for the workplace or college.
I’m asking because I cannot imagine what hobbies/activities outside of performing for somebody can be negatively affected by short attention span. It’s not your problem that people are just boring and don’t treat you like a god damn human (workplace that requires you to sit and sign documents for 12 whole hours with little to no breaks, or endless inefficient meetings, for example)
Exactly. We’ve also been saying that burning coal was destroying the climate, and then we said CFCs were destroying the ozone, and then we said massive deforestation is ruining the climate…doesn’t make any of them less true just because we’ve said similar beings about less efficient means of destruction.
You could say that about a lot of things, though. Video games and TV were commonly criticized this way. And it was a popular meme on Reddit that people would be so addicted to the site that they’d spend hours scrolling it.
Criticizing tik tok is just popular on sites like this because people here really don’t like tik tok.
At any rate, parents can already try to restrict their children’s access. But governments are gonna have a hard time doing so without hurting everyone as a whole (eg, see the attempts of some US states to require giving your ID to porn sites). Dunno if you remember being a kid, but I found my way around every restriction my parents set and I just disliked them for it.
Yes, the trend of making more and more mentally disruptive technology has been continuing. Yes, capitalists have managed to make more and more effective attention/brain drains…that’s exactly what we’re saying.
The kids “adapt” in that the world has changed and kids have no choice but to live in the world they grew up in. It doesn’t mean the above things aren’t true. It just means things change, and I dunno about you, but I don’t see things moving in the most positive direction. Angrier people, less and less able to have nuanced discussions, people becoming more entrenched and hostile about their views, more instances of thinking people with differing opinions are “evil…”—that shit is in large part due to social media, not to mention network news (both “advancements” of the exact type were discussing).I mean, shit, look how much radio has changed. From old timey radio broadcasts with the family sitting around the fire hearing tales of Redd McGibbon and Bullet to fuckin Howard stern making strippers do math so people can laugh at them and goddamn Rush Limbaugh. See what we’re saying?
There is a strong survivorship bias in this though. Some kids do adapt, maybe even most, but many still are harmed, and have been by unhealthy exposure to radio, television, videogames, etc. in the past. Social media is even wreaking havoc in the older generations right now.
It’s easy to point at the survivors and the success stories and say see, there is nothing to worry about - but that’s also a bit like pointing at the lifelong smokers who do not get lung cancer as an argument against promoting non-smoking.
I spend a lot of time on TikTok and once the algorithm knows what you like it’s a fantastic way to waste your time, the same way reddit and YouTube are.
They were making a typical “TikTok bad brain rot user stupid cringe natural selection🤓☝️” “joke”. Don’t bother explaining that to them because they don’t care
They’re not wrong. Screen time is known to be harmful to children. And radio time may have been as well: hard to say, because kids aren’t listening to that kind of radio anymore. Two things can be true at once: pointing fingers at something that doesn’t apply anymore (when’s the last time you listened to a radio serial?) doesn’t invalidate the harms today.
Talk radio still rots a lot of brains of all ages. It’s insidious as a lot of folks still have that on in the background while driving to work or cooking etc, as compared to video and TV where you have to look directly at it and think about the message received with your whole brain.
Tiktok is digitial media, the attention span is the issue, not the media format.
I know a few people who admitted to me without me even probing them that they cannot handle watching or listening to a video over 1 minute long.
I am not for censoring Tiktok, however I will never used it since its horrible on privacy and has “back doors” to a powerful and malicious government. And I like videos that are long with good discussion or information.
You’re correct that it has been overblown in the past. That does not invalidate what is occurring, doubly so since we have scientific proof now.
You are equating “Old man yells at cloud” to “hundreds of nuclear scientists says cloud of radioactive gas is harmful and here are dozens of papers proving it.”
TikTok conditions you to process media very quickly, id it doesn’t catch you within a few seconds you’re on the next one — that sort of thing then applies access the board and not only when browsing TT
Especially since children are still developing their brains this makes it even more problematic
To be fair as someone who over my life has transitioned from reading, to the internet, to videos, to short form content. it does have an effect on your attention span.
My advice. Do what you will, but never stop reading. Pick up some books.
TikTok, Social media, video games, rock and metal music, rap music, Dungeons and Dragons, Rock ‘n’ Roll, movies, phones, bikes, novels, older generations will always chose a scapegoat to focus on
Just so you know, newspapers used to be pretty terrible in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were ripe with exaggerations and sometimes downright lies. The issue with TikTok and social media in general is how easy it is for absolute idiots to spread lies and harmful information to children (and naïve adults).
Here’s an article on the topic from the New York Public Library.
Is that even unique to social media? We have “news” sites that do the same thing (like the various alt right ones). If the goal is to tackle misinformation, we should tackle misinformation directly.
newspapers used to be pretty terrible in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Periodism is still terrible, not in the form of newspapers, but the internet, and it’s why you usually end your searches with a ‘reddit’ at the end (hopefully lemmy will fully replace that soon)
They’re all mediums. The content on them can be anything from mindless to informative.It’s all up to who’s curating it. Do you leave it up to the algos and advertisers or actually provide something to your kids? Up to a certain age letting them do whatever on the internet is idiotic like letting them run around a bookshop that carries porn and mein Kampf.
Like not even close. Even if we aren’t judging each on the difficulty of memorizing a two second emote or dance versus an entire novel, things that are physical are more easily learned.
Ask yourself this, did they have to commit themselves to memorizing all of if? No, they casually memorized them all through watching it. No one has ever casually memorized a novel on accident.
Plus memorizing literature is unquestionably more valuable than learning what some micro-celebrity that doesn’t fucking matter is making faces about.
The fact that people have been concerned about this for generations doesn’t automatically nullify the point. Attention and focus are skills which children must develop through boredom and long-form focus. TikTok brain is making that harder and harder for children to learn.
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