This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I know everyone wants to rile against the next generations stuff, people said the same shit about the internet, and reddit, and Twitter, now tiktok.
But this article is just regurgitating old articles from other places and throwing tiktok in there because they know everyone over 25 gets riled up just reading the name tik tok.
To some extent you’re most probably correct, however you can’t deny that the length of consumed media has been getting shorter and shorter.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some decent studies on this out there. I don’t care about which app people use, but it’s interesting to see if the media we consume does affect us.
I saw an interview of a professional on this matter. Unfortunately I don't remember his name but the points he made were thought provoking.
Today we consume more and faster media than ever, but few people ever spent all their time reading alone quietly or even watched TV focusing solely on the program. We listen to radio or a have conversation simultaneously. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors listened to each other's stories while doing small tasks in their homes. Conversations between people flow and change subjects constantly. Almost like TikToks.
The point is that it's nothing new that we engage in a combination of activities and like to surround ourselves with multiple or fast paced sources of information and stimulation.
My personal view is that TikToks being short or fast paced isn't an issue. But there are other aspects that worry me. Social media videos cause many people to develop various degrees of parasocial relationships with the creators, and the content satisfies the need for actual relationships and can make real life and people seem boring.
I'm going to point to a large number of 2 hour + Youtube videos. I can't tell you who's watching them, or if more people are, but there wasn't anything like that 25 years ago. I'll also point to podcasts and the plethora of 3-6 hour or more - isn't Joe Rogan's like 8 hours long? And it's one of the most popular ones.
There's more novels today than ever before, and people reading via Kindle Unlimited and just up and buying them.
Prestige TV is often 60 minutes or 90 minutes, in comparison to 42 being a "normal hour long broadcast show".
There's more kinds of content, but I disagree that the length of consumed media in general is getting shorter and shorter.
I remember seeing something basically disproving the claim that our attention span is getting shorter. Brb searching the source
The Pomodoro Technique has been well known for a while, and things like Vine, TikTok, Shorts are essentially the polar opposite of this and training your brain to be less focused.
TikTok was absolutely chosen because it's the current bogyman, but those types of short content are basically the enemy of your long term focus.
Are you suggesting that anything about the internet hasn't reduced attention spans?
Especially as it's becoming more accessible and common for younger people to get more exposure during key points in brain development.
It goes beyond simple accessibility and engagement, if young people are not participating in these social medias it can become harder to connect with your peers - so you're almost socially punished for not embracing and participating in brain rot (all social media, not just Tik Tok).
I have been trying to work on my attention span ever since quitting Reddit. There's this great book I'm reading, it has everything in it that I love, I would have been pulled in if this was 20 years ago (yeah, I'm old). But I find I can only handle about 5 minutes or so before I feel that urge for "fresh" information. It sucks!
No. I'm saying that this is rage bait and been said about everything from rock music to pokemon.
I didn't click on any of the white papers linked inside the news article either, who knows what those Chinese university students put it there...
I'm 25 and I'm surprised by how many people I know that are addicted to TikTok and YouTube shorts
Bruh, they said it about TV, radio, magazines, even printed books.
There was a time when older generations literally said that the printing press was going to ruin the next generations brains because they'd be reading all the time.
This has been happening for centuries.
Imo there's a fundamental difference between "traditional media" and algorithmic content generation designed to give you continuous endorphin hits (often induced rage) to keep you plugged into a virtual skinner box. I don't think TikTok does it more harmfully than other social media but I do think there's probably harm to all of them.
Ok, but this is a different argument than "ruining your attention span".
How did you come to conclusion they weren’t (mostly) correct? The average attention span is getting shorter every generation, maybe they were right all along ;)
I personally think that needs some definition and study. People are less interested in being bored because they can avoid it. It really depends on what's going on and what the task is. If I'm standing in line, it's not a lack of attention being on my phone. It's a lack of interest in being immersed in staring at the floor waiting in line. If I'm in a meeting of someone talking to hear their own voice, I'm going to look at my e-mail. I guess in the past I zoned out, but neither is indicative of my attention span.
I always see these things not making a distinction on whether someone is actually trying to pay attention or not. I'm also kind of less sure that attention is trained - that your kids attention span is primarily set by whether they watch TikTok vs full Disney movies. This seems like a bit of a facile comparison.
For instance, if I'm actively working on something, I can pay attention to it for at least a few hours. It's just that I'm often blocked, waiting on another person or process to complete. Or I'm actively responding to e-mails, which again looks like blipping from task to task, but really isn't. Of course, I'm not a kid, but I recall all the "soundbites rather than analysis" from the 90s when I was a teen.
You know what I did before the internet? Be bored. A lot. It was fucking boring. It was unbearably dull. If people want to fill their lives with tiktok when they are waiting at a bus stop instead of just staring into nothing, more power to them.
I used to watch boring, crap fucking TV just because there was four TV channels and it was raining outside. Already read all my books twice over. Awful.
Alright, doesn’t mean it didn’t lower your attention span. Just that you’re less bored :D
My almost 50 year old officemate watches this shit all day long. It 100% affects her negatively in a multitude of ways, including her attending span. It's not just the kiddos.
Exactly. My gf can't sit and do anything. She always had to be on phone watching shit vids.
Can't tell me what she's watched or what she's looking for. It's just overloaded brain fart
Yep boomer family does this all day and nothing else.
The part about tiktok and youtube shorts that feels different to me is the short form videos giving a quick little hit of enjoyment, and the drive to view more short form is strong. I absolutely hate short form, but have found myself checking youtube for some new little short video.
That type of conditional feels detrimental to me.
Odysee doesn't have that, it feels nice. I wish all my favorite YouTube channels were synced there.
Odysee has videos? I've been using it for... 3D printing.
Title got that "ok boomer" vibe to it
I'm sure we should have a name for the phenomenon of how consuming shortform videos (at the frequency and volume as platforms like tiktok or instagram want us to) affects how our brain decides to process info in all other facets of our life.
Idk, like, Doomscrolling Brain sounds like a fad because, imo, not everyone uses the word doomscrolling. Tiktok is pretty much the face of endless scrolling short form vids, and everybody knows what it is. Calling it tiktok brain also puts the onus on the platform subconsciously affecting how we consume information anywhere else.
My generation was told violent video games will cause me to become a inhumane murder machine.
This is definitely a thing. The amount of people claiming to have ADHD now is out of control when in reality they can’t not pick up their phone for a dopamine hit every five seconds. This is a lot different than books and media of the past.
There’s almost never a time I’m in public anymore without people glued to their phones playing Tik Toks on speaker and acting like no one exists, or using their phones in a movie theatre etc etc. it’s a problem. Not to mention the other anti-social behavioural aspects I’m seeing young kids exhibit.
Its weird but I actually use videos as a last resort. I hate having to sit through a 10 minute video to find out how to do a 2 minute task.
Videos are good for "reading" long books that you'll probably never finish otherwise or seeing how to do an intricate task where you almost need to do it alongside them in order to do it properly. I can't invest in short videos like that exemplified by tiktok (like Peter's 6 second interview in the millenials episode; I guess thats more of a vine than titok...)
Not weird. I generally hate videos for stuff that I just need some basic reference on. Where I find them useful is for visual stuff (obviously) that I'm less familiar with. For instance, if I need to twiddle with Windows Server 2022 to do something, I find text by far the best, because I do not need to see how to click on the start menu.
If I need to replace the AVR on a portable generator, the video is very helpful.
Same. I prefer reading to watching videos since it's easier to scroll to the information I need.
100% agree, if those TikTok videos, deliver the same bit of valuable info that you are looking for compared to a 10 min or longer video filled with whatever Sponsorblock blocks I fail to see how shorts media is the culprit here.
Joke's on you, I don't have kids!
If you live on Earth and aren't a member of the owner class, you're almost certainly irrevocably fucked. Hell, those asshole's bunkers probably won't even be sufficient to protect them, given how far climate change is outpacing projections.
Just enjoy yourself until the infrastructure breaks and the entertaining toys/social opiates with it.
If you want to make a last stand to save the Earth and, in the US at least representative democracy, you'd need a time machine to your last reasonable chance half a century ago.
TikTok being unhealthy for developing minds is just a hilarious hill to die on in 2023. Your body is filled with toxic forever chemicals from sociopathic, greedy, all powerful capitalist industry right fucking now. Talk about complaining about the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic...
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/forever-chemicals-called-pfas-show-your-food-clothes-and-home
But hey, sorry for being a downer. For what it's worth, for one shining moment in time, humanity created a lot of value for shareholders!
Yes, you're right, my mistake.
TikTok is a separate issue from humanity's self-imposed apocalypse. Whether civilization collapses or not in the short to medium term, a fleshed out age appropriateness policy for the TikTok social media platform still needs to be established and adopted, whether TikTok continues to exist or not.
Vsauce made a video about attention spans getting shorter when it's more so humans just get bored easily. If TikTok didn't exist we would just find other means to cure our boredom. It was rock and roll music, comic books, then TVs, and now TikTok is the current generation thing to hate. It's all about moderation.
True. It can be hard to moderate consumption without a fully disciplined prefrontal cortex.
How do we measure the extent to which addiction to an opiod is the addict's fault vs the manufacturer & marketers of said opiod?
I heard this same argument about certain kinds of media reducing attention spans in fear mongering news releases back in the 90's and that, like this likely is, was a bunch of unfounded bullshit.
