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You're tearing me apart! (startrek.website)

submitted 5 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website to c/memes@lemmy.world

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[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 53 points 5 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 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 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 29 points 5 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 8 points 5 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 7 points 5 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 8 points 5 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 3 points 5 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 6 points 5 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....?

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

60 Minutes did a spread on it way back when, it's on YouTube I believe

[-] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

thank you

[-] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Absolutely reasonable thing to ask.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tristan-harris-social-media-political-polarization-60-minutes-2022-11-06/

Grep for "Companies like TikTok" to find the relevant portion.

The guy talking isn't exactly a scientist and this ain't a rigourous peer-reviewed study, but it does seem like he knows at least a little about what he's talking about. Take it with a grain of salt.

[-] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 months ago

I want to see a sampling of this "educational and uplifting" content.

[-] markon@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

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

[+] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml -19 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 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.

[-] Gabu@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

Why are you lying? Every Chinese company is under the CCP's boot, as made evident by the one time Tencent tried to fight it

[-] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Xenophobia and jingoism have so thoroughly riddled most American brains that you require no evidence of anything, and just exist in a “vibes based reality” where you accept entirely false information as truth because it fits your preconceptions. The US government has spent years at this point trying to prove what you’ve said about TikTok, and they’ve been entirely unable to do so, because it’s literally not true. And as I said, their US board is filled with US intelligence spooks, not Chinese ones.

Next you’ll tell me China is pushing pro-Palestinian content on TikTok, instead of the youth just being rabidly pro-Palestine.