16 upvotes, 8 direct replies (showing 8)
No. You aren't the only one that's stupid.
Lots of people are stupid and blame apps for damage to the youth. Just like how people blamed rock and roll for corrupting the youth, and video games, and dungeons and dragons, and controversial books.
Comment by _game_over_man_ at 15/01/2025 at 17:22 UTC
16 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I mean, there are some differences between the influence social media can have on a person and the influence video games, D&D, books, etc can have on a person. Nuance exists.
Comment by [deleted] at 15/01/2025 at 17:23 UTC*
21 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by 745Walt at 15/01/2025 at 17:45 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think people assume that TikTok is all just dumb little dances and stuff that is popular with 10 year olds. Which I mean, if you actively like that stuff that is what you would see. I followed mostly artists and historians so I never even came across your typical “brain rot” things
Comment by FLongis at 15/01/2025 at 22:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You're comparing apples to oranges. Even taking flashy marketing into account, none of those past phenomena were tailor-made to influence large swathes of society or perpetuate (and even *reward*) the spread of harmful misinformation.
Put simply; Rock and roll, video games, D&D, and controversial books largely don't exist explicitly (or even implicitly) to make the general population dumber.
Comment by conformalark at 15/01/2025 at 23:23 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's not even the content that makes tiktok scary to me. It's the fact that the brain just wasn't designed to handle short-term content constantly redirecting our attention every few seconds.
Think about it, if you have an hour to kill, you could watch a few episodes of a TV show, 6-10 YouTube videos, or well over a hundred tiktoks. That's insane and it should be obvious to everyone that this is not healthy, especially for kids.
The difference between tiktok and everything you mentioned above is that your examples require a level of engagement, where as short term content damages our ability to engage for longer than a few seconds at a time. It's designed to be as addictive as possible and the fact that these companies target children is digusting. These sites ought to be treated like cigarettes and have warning labels on them.
There's also a greater conversation to be had about how algorithms expose us to the worst and dumbest of humanity more often than they showcase the most wholesome and brilliant. I think this gives us a darker picture of things and makes us more cynical and mean.
Comment by MrNoseGuy1 at 15/01/2025 at 17:02 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Good answer
Comment by StannisTheMantis93 at 15/01/2025 at 19:05 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The irony of this post being on Reddit with a “Pimp” username.
You’re automatically an idiot as well mate.
Comment by exboi at 15/01/2025 at 17:37 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Tiktok definitely has negative impacts on younger generations, however people like to skip over how Western-made social media does the same shit. Banning TikTok won’t solve any of the problems introduced by social media as a whole.