Do I Regret TikTok?

IT'S A MESS!!!

But Pizzamas isn't! The Pizzamas app is free and here:
----

[mohe]

This discussion of TikTok and the "neighborhoods" of online platforms makes me all the more appreciative of nerdfighteria. For 15 years now I've been able to "live" in a neighborhood full of caring and thoughtful people. At the same time, I've gotten on and off of many different platforms and communities and I left them because they didn't nurture the parts of myself I wanted to be nurtured. They made me angrier and more afraid of the world but thankfully I had this community to come back to, to make me hopeful about the world again.

[Nighthawkinlight]

That the user doesn't intentionally select what content they'd like to put into their brain but rather the machine simply starts pumping in whatever appeals to the most basic attention grabbing emotions I think is a great way to destroy everything that's good in a person.

[andybearchan]

I have 3 rules for shorts on TikTok and YouTube. 1. Focus on people I follow. As long as I am not doom scrolling, there is plenty of stuff that I know I like.
2. Interact with everything you truly like. Make it clear where your interests lie.👍 for recipes, funny bits, and how-to vids.
3. When something is offensive, anxious, or divisive, turn off the app. Don't just swipe away. The app wants your non-stop attention. If a vid makes people run, it will be gone very fast.

[juliegolick]

The idea of "neighbourhoods" on content platforms is one of the reasons I don't like questions along the lines of "do you get your news from Facebook?" or "what do you think about YouTube?" Like... what PARTS of Facebook? What PARTS of YouTube? There's a difference between saying "I get my news from a public health scientist's Facebook page" and "I get my news from my uncle who posts random conspiracies on Facebook." Both are technically "Facebook, " but the content is WAY different.

[Angel-xssz]

“If there’s a coyote on the path” is a saying that I will immediately adopt

[danielmullanewrites]

A mentor in my life was giving a speech, when she mentioned that it took 13 year olds only a few months to start discovering depressive, antisocial and suicidal parts of tiktok after downloading, as per some research she had read, and it made me realise for the first time that 13yos really shouldn't be able to access voices telling them that there is no hope / to be outraged / etc... Because I'd grown up with it, so it was just a normal part of life to me...

[tommorgan]

I manage a small town public library. I find sorting and shelving books to be an adequate "rope braiding" activity. Most libraries will let ya volunteer to shelve books.

Edit: I'll also give the high school kids their volunteer hours, and I can write a killer recommendation letter. I had a lot of community service hours applying to college, and I attribute getting into a pretty good school well below the average GPA because of it.
Unfortunately, there is only enough money in the budget for one paid student intern.

[levilukeskytrekker]

As a twenty-nothing-year-old who never touched TikTok I have to say I feel better about that decision all the time. I don't like autoplay, or short form video, or ceaseless algorithmic scrolling without exit points, and the petty part of me feels vindicated that TikTok turned out to just be evil like Twitter (although that's mostly because of the ceaseless algorithmic scrolling without exit points—exit points have been a core part of ethical design in interactive systems for years).

[avsgriffy]

I am so grateful that the algorithm directs me to educational channels like SciShow, MinuteEarth, Tom Scott, and Technology Connections.

[mariobotellou]

I want to take a moment to also appreciate the fact that the comment section in vlogbrothers videos is always filled with thoughtful, meaningful, intentional conversation giving a sense of continuity to the ideas brought up by Hank/John, as opposed to just the same cookie cutter meme format "jokes" that add nothing of value to the video... Thanks Nerdfighteria

[PhatPazzo]

As an IT security specialist I thank you for this. I feel like an old man yelling at the clouds, but there are few things that scare me as much as TikTok does. It’s such a good example of weaponized social engineering, and it’s so wide spread that it could actually be an existential threat to democracy.

[frickenna]

i intentionally avoided ever using tiktok because friends told me how toxically addictive it was for them, and i mostly don’t regret that but as a 25 year old woman hell if it hasn’t been socially isolating. completely out of touch with my peers and it feels like the only way to be where culture and conversations mainly happen nowadays is to cook my brain in the algo deep fryer. :/

[SylviusTheMad]

I used to work in charitable fundraising, and it was generally agreed upon that there were three ways to get people to give money:

1. Make them sad.
2. Make them mad.
3. Make them glad.

And that was also their order of effectiveness.

[ponyote]

As one citizen in Nerdfighteria, I am very glad to be part of this community. Watching the progress of two amazing humans - Hank and John - through their lives has provided me comfort. The wisdom, the courage, the sadness, the determination, and the joy that y'all have brought me has been genuinely amazing. Thank you.

[noviatoria]

Seeing social platforms as places really highlights how dystopian things are. Like, our governments in the real world are far from ideal or even positive, but at least we can vote. The governments of the digital world are exclusively corporate dictatorships, and if we're going to be living in these platforms maybe something should be done to make them at least as democratic as countries like the US pretend to be.

[JohnRuble]

They need to get you in front of a congressional hearing

[pruina]

A few months ago I decided to stop looking at short form content, and I’m convinced it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

[amasterofone]

I left tiktok last August and im so glad i did. Now i only watch ones people send me. Do i sometimes feel out of the loop? Yes. But i feel like its a net positive for my mental health and free time.

[luistorres]

Choosing to watch/read/listen is choosing to consume content.
With short form content and the doom scrolling format u don't choose, the choosing is done for you, and you have to choose to skip the consume bit.

I want to choose what I consume

[OneWingedRose]

Wannabe screenwriter here, and this is a topic I find a lot of my stories ending up having themes of.
Not social media exactly, but the mass spreading of distrust, hate, and fear.
This phenomenon lives rent free in my head and it depresses me to no end...