• tal@lemmy.today
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    7 months ago

    My brief forays into both TikTok and YouTube Shorts have left me profoundly unimpressed with the short-form video.

    • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s all vertical video as well. YouTube pushes Shorts fairly aggressively on the desktop website, and it’s a crappy experience.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Be glad Youtube still works on the desktop at all. A very large majority of users watch on their phones and YouTube only cares about profits.

        • Franklin@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I already knew this but still what a terrifying prospect, I love my phone but there are some things a desktop is just better for

          • Plopp@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Yeah I’m one of the ten people who can’t stand watching videos on my phone. I draw the line at gifs.

            • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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              7 months ago

              I’ll do football film on iPad or desktop. I’ll very occasionally do a video class format on one of those. That’s it. Anything else is going on a TV.

              Games I love handheld, though, so IDK.

        • thejml@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          I tend to watch YouTube on my phone while traveling, waiting, relaxing and don’t feel like turning on the TV… but always in landscape orientation. I can’t stand vertical videos.

        • Snazz@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I uninstalled the YT app on my phone and use the desktop site exclusively now. Can’t stand watching without ad block and sponsor block. I also blocked shorts.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        7 months ago

        Literally proven to ruin attention span in children and essentially cause ADHD, can also easily cause depression by constantly seeing (usually) fake people flaunting their (usually) fake life and wealth.

        Not to mention the proliferation of insane conspiracy theories, absolute nonsense and usually harmful ‘advice’ of one kind or another, ‘being rich is the only thing that matters so here is a scam to show you how!’ of all kinds of flavors…

        Brain rot.

        • far_university1990@feddit.de
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          7 months ago

          Literally proven to ruin attention span in children and essentially cause ADHD

          Please link source, interested in reading.

          • Plopp@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Having recently been diagnosed with ADHD I’ve taken part in several classes on ADHD to learn more about it. And the consensus is that no external factors like that cause ADHD. However, I’m sure this topic of algorithm driven addictive short form videos for a very young audience is being studied more now than ever so who knows what the consensus on that will be in the future. Causing ADHD or not, I don’t think it’s healthy either way.

            • ayaya@lemdro.id
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              7 months ago

              Yeah it can certainly cause problems, it’s just not ADHD.

              ADHD doesn’t even really mean short attention spans, it’s more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It’s the same way people incorrectly use “OCD” to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.

              I have ADHD and I’ve had times where I’ve done the same thing for 14 hours straight (even forgetting to eat) when my brain decides it wants to latch onto that thing. You just need to be sufficiently stimulated, hence why stimulants can work as a treatment.

              • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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                7 months ago

                ADHD doesn’t even really mean short attention spans, it’s more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It’s the same way people incorrectly use “OCD” to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.

                Both of these are the product of needing constant stimulation. I understand your point that hyper-focus is also part of ADD/ADHD, and I certainly am not going to make claims about how your brain is changing structurally without evidence behind it.


                So this is mere conjecture for a mechanism:

                What these apps (with short format video being the worst) do is train your brain to expect a constant stream of dopamine hits. Novelty (presumably even trash novelty like TikTok) triggers dopamine, your brain becomes dependent on that steady stream of dopamine fix, and your body starts craving it once you remove that pattern of behavior.

                This is very similar to ADHD, which is also strongly connected to problems with how dopamine is regulated. It’s not as simple as just not enough dopamine or poor uptake or whatever, but it’s reasonably clear that it plays a role.

                So both cases are a result of poor dopamine regulation causing a need for stimulation that has a negative impact on ability to function from day to day. They’re probably at minimum relatively similar.

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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            7 months ago

            So, perhaps ‘essentially cause ADHD’ is a bit strong, but there are absolutely studies that show that exposure to / addiction to short form video content impair focus, cause/exacerbate attention deficits, cause/exacerbate difficulty maintaining attention, as well as impair the ability to study and perform academically, worsen overall mental health etc.

            Oh, and short form video content is also found to be addictive as well.

            https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2151512

            https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)06377-1

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9127725/

            In summary, brain rot.

            Theres also studies which show, hilariously, that a good amount of mental health ‘advice’ on such short form content platforms is garbage.

            This one studies the top posts on ADHD and finds half of them to be misleading.

            https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/07067437221082854

            And to round it out, heres a study on negative body image perception and self objectification amongst girls/women by short form content:

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144523000876?via%3Dihub

            In fairness, this study does find that negative self perception and self objectification increase with viewing either short or long form video content or images featuring ‘ideal’ women, which makes sense, as this sort of thing has been long studied before ‘social media’ even existed (TV, Magazines, Movies, etc).

            So, while objectification and body image problems from media exposure are not new, the proliferation and exposure amount are increased dramatically in the age of widespread social media.

            I would be willing to bet that had a similar study as this one been done on boys/men it would show similar results.

        • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          can also easily cause depression by constantly seeing (usually) fake people flaunting their (usually) fake life and wealth

          That’s a problem with many social media platforms and the “influencer” culture they host. Instagram has been particularly criticised for this.

          These heavily curated content posted on these platforms does not reflect the warts and all reality of real life. People who get too engrossed in it can quickly start to feel their lives are inadequate.

          I’m not sure what the solution is for this, other than trying to better regulate the algorithms used by these platforms.

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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            7 months ago

            Well, better regulation of algorithms is not a thing that is going to happen.

            Assuming you could actually specify this kind of content… which you probably can with some degree from the standpoint of the engineers behind the things… theres basically no way to ban or limit this kind of content in a law.

            1: Giant Freedom of Speech based opposition. To some extent, yeah if you penalize it, well you are limiting free speech and artistic expression, is what will be claimed.

            2: Without literally having access to the way the algorithm works, it’d be a massive tome of a law to try to pass. And also software changes, so … you can probably rewrite your way around a specific way to limit this kind of content.

            I don’t know. Maybe you could pass a law that mandates if your platform has x many users or daily views, you must provide to the user far, far more in depth means to manage their own content they are thrown up.

            Or perhaps you could have some kind of FAA type entity created, which is supposed to be deeply involved in the behind the scenes aspects of basically standard operation of the social media industry, as the FAA is with aircraft manufacture/airspace/airports.

            Of course the counter point to that is well just look at the FAA and Boeing ot even SpaceX. Regulatory capture is a thing, and with both Boeing and SpaceX it seems like the FAA (and in SpaceX’s case the EPA) either don’t really care to do their jobs, or actual enforcement mechanisms are just too slow or cumbersome.

          • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            Coming to lemmy has made me have more negative views of how much I use and should be using Linux.

            I only have it on one device atm…

              • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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                7 months ago

                Shhh, its now time for Hasan to interview another violent religious fundamentalist to remind us that Houthis are good actually and wanton piracy is the same thing as being a good Tankie.

                Don’t mention that the Houthis have actually targeted Chinese vessels, and that China also has naval forces on escort and anti piracy operations faaaar from their territorial waters.

                Modern American leftism has to a great extent devolved into ‘any and all of America’s enemies are good actually and can do no wrong’. Except Russia. Because MAGA likes Russia, so Russia bad.

                Bleck.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      7 months ago

      There was that brief period of time where Vine existed and had actual quality content.

      Then the short video format was shittified after everyone began doing it, and fairly rapidly devolved into mindless attention seeking nonsense / micro personal update vlog… or worse.

      • dmtalon@infosec.pub
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        7 months ago

        Well humans are making them. Vine and other early adopter places (Lemmy) are nice until the “masses” find it.

        It’s awful, but people eat it up. Add in profit margins and companies jump on smelling that sweet sweet profit.

        Tik Tok is blocked in my house but unfortunately reels/yt shorts have no easy way to block without affecting the rest of the service.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          Yep, same story with basically every cool or neat thing ever: once it gets popular, it gets exploited and/or exploitative.

          I still remember the moment my and all my friend’s parents joined Facebook and I realized I wasn’t seeing stuff from my friends any more, instead, inane drek about pets and clouds and bible verses.

          God I miss the MySpace days.

          Well, I do hope reddit dies an awful death, but I also fear the influx of insufferable people.

          It really sucks that I actually am a leftist but just immediately blocked ml and hexbear, because if you say certain things or have certain opinions that are not in line with the views of basically delusional tankies, everyone screams until youre banned.

          At least we dont have a huge amount of right wing fuckos as they seem to have just gone to ferment in their own echo chambers elsewhere.

      • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        I think long videos are expensive.

        Social media companies like engagement. So 3 20s videos would give you more data from the user than 1 60s video.

        • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It’s three times the marketing data. And then if you’re watching 2 22nd videos and 122nd ad that’s a full third of your watch time as ads.

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Brief is the ticket. The more you hot ot not it, the better it gets at matching you. After a couple days of swipes, you’ll get a constant stream of stuff you’ll actually want to see. IG and TT are good at this, yt shorts are pretty bad at it.

      I’ve been trying to stay out of the algorithms. I watch YT by channels only, left Reddit for Lemmy, listed fb to friends walls. TT and IG only make it to me if friends or family share it. I’ll go watch it then GTFO.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      What a great way to dismiss an entire problems based that affects our society. It’s easier to just hand wave it away as someone else’s problem than to actually consider it…

      When a problem becomes systematic it’s now a societal and cultural problem and not an individual responsibility problem. Individual responsibility isn’t working so it’s now down to the society this is occurring in to solve the systematic problem in a systematic way.

      That’s how almost everything works

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah none of those kids should have cell phones. They should be about old enough to drive before they get one even.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Yup. I have kids (three under 10), and the only time my kids use my phone is when I’m literally there with them, letting them pick a video (usually Pat and Mat, Bert and Ernie, or similar). It’s not every day, and never more than 30 min, usually like 15-20 min, and we take turns picking.

        I’m not letting my kids have their own phone until I trust them with one, and that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon with how many of our other rules they break.

      • spez_@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Our schools have banned phones. They need to have the right to destroy phones

    • Buttons@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      Yeah, parents are getting ruined by social media algorithms too.

      Our government seems to be moving towards an “we only care about the children, but everyone, including adults, upload your government papers” approach.

      Y’all got any of those protections for adults? I remember reading regulations that companies couldn’t show children advertisements. Can I have some of that regulation too?

      I just can’t stop being cynical that there is little focus on homeless or underpaid adults, or other adult issues, but the one problem we’re focused on just so happens to include everyone giving up anonymity on the Internet.

      We do need to help kids with social media, but there’s a lot of other challenges they will soon face as adults that we’re ignoring.

      • slumberlust@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Are there any examples of ‘for the kids’ legislation that isn’t just something like backdoor encryption masquerading as protecting the young?

    • tamal3@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yes, but it’s also new territory for us as a species. I’m sure the guidance and monitors will be significantly improved in the next decade, but a decade ago… It was the wild west, baby.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      So does a kid snapping and shooting up the school, but it doesn’t mean we ignore guns.

      • Cavemanfreak@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        but it doesn’t mean we ignore guns.

        Uuuh, you sure about that? It seems like that shit keeps happening and nothing at all is being done about it.

      • mPony@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        oh please. if guns became sentient someone would stack three of them in a trenchcoat and give them the right to vote.

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Children can’t do that if you’re a responsible parent that keeps an eye on what their child is doing. Y’know, the bare minimum of parenting.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          if you’re a responsible parent that keeps an eye on what their child is doing.

          Unfortunately you can’t run a society based on how people should behave. That’s the entire reason we have a legal system and the means to implement safeguards for our population.

        • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Imagine not realizing that people have to work for a living… Or that adult mental health is at an all time low. Or that social media manipulation affects people who are parents as well as their kids.

          Similarly just kicking the problem down the road like you’re doing doesn’t actually solve it. It just inhibits solutions and contributes to the problem.

          So in this instance people that think like your comment states actually are indirectly part of the problem. Which is ironic.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          That’s sort of true, but “rules for thee and not for me” just kicks the can down the road. They’re going to copy you, so it’s really important to set a good example, at least when your kids can see you.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            It’s not “rules for thee and not for me,” unless you consider that true for things like drinking alcohol. It’s protecting children from something they are not cognitively developed enough to be dealing with.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              7 months ago

              The difference is that it’s easy to point to reasons why a child shouldn’t be drinking alcohol (illegal, liver immaturity, etc), and less easy to point to why they shouldn’t be on social media, esp. if their friends are using it.

              Where the line is more fuzzy, I think parents should set a more strict standard for themselves, at least in front of their children.

              • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                I think the line is, TikTok pulls a video at random it thinks you’ll want to watch. This means that you may be exposed to basically anything a person felt like filming. This includes violent or pornographic content, which children should not be exposed to.

                Being a parent is telling your children no sometimes. Being a parent means that you should vet the media that your child is being exposed to, which is impossible on a platform like TikTok, and sometimes make the decision for them that they are not old enough to be exposed to certain material.

                It really feels like folks don’t want to be parents - they want to hand the iPad over to the screaming toddler so that they can be babysat by their own phone. I don’t understand why one would have children, if they weren’t interested in doing the work of parenting those kids.

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 months ago

                  My thoughts exactly.

                  I will say, however, that I’m generally against content filtering. My kids know the rules, and they know if they violate them, they lose device privileges. Simple as that. If I put parental controls on, they’ll just circumvent them (and I’ll teach them how to if they ask). I know because I was a kid and constantly got around stupid content filters at school.

                  Either I trust them with the device, or I don’t, no half-measures. For example:

                  • TV - “kids” profiles, but they’re free to use our “adult” profiles if the filtering sucks
                  • computers and tablets - they ask for access, tell me what they want to do, and I unlock it for them
                  • Switch - child lock, but only because my 4yo keeps taking it when not allowed; my older kids know the code

                  That’s it. I generally allow them to use devices unsupervised, though in a public area so I can walk over and check on them. I intend to give them their own devices as they get older (i.e. they’ll set their own passwords). But if they violate my trust, it’s their fault, not the content filter’s, and they lose privileges.

  • Hal-5700X@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    The next generation is so fucked. Wait…they be the ones who take care of me in the old person home. I’m fucked as will.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      People have been claiming that new media will destroy society at least since we invented writing, and probably before.

      • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        No I get that, but this is different honestly. Look up rates of teenage depression/anxiety/suicide attempts, it’s a stunning correlation with the advent of smartphones and social media. Millenials got out just in time.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I think it has a lot more to do with social media than smart phones. I remember kids being bullied through tombstone messages on Oregon Trail floppies.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      They’re gonna put a camera in your room and post all your old people antics on future tik tok

    • Buttons@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      Karma.

      The young treat the old however they do. But then the young grow old and get treated the same.

  • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I managed to almost completly keep my children away from it for now (8 and 10). But it is a struggle. And I will soon lose that struggle. So many children at age 8 or 9 have smartphones for fs sake.

    I plan to slowly introduce them to stuff like this, so they will be able to deal with it. I did so rather successfully with the other bullshit, like Roblox. They are only allowed to play it when I am in the room, and I check that they follow that rule (they do).

    Feels like walking on the edge though. Still unsure when to open the TikTok thing. Too early is bad, but too late and they will somehow already he on tiktok and I just don’t know about it.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      my siblings managed to keep their kids away from smartphones until 4th grade. And even that was a struggle.

      sadly it just falls into the camp of ‘everyone else is doing it’. and if your kid isn’t they will be socially ostracized.

      • tamal3@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Some kids also get obsessive about phones once they get one, or obsessed with other people’s phones until then.

    • tmcgh@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Do you have any tips? My kids are still pretty young (3 and 2) and I really want to avoid them having acess to these sorts of things.

      • vimdiesel@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        the main thing for you is to stay off your phone as well. Kids watch their parents closely and humans have an in built need for “fairness”, if they see you addicted to it they will never stop wanting to do the same.

        • tmcgh@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Yea, that makes sense. Whenever I’m home from work, I make sure the phone goes on the counter. Thankfully, I’m not into social media all that much.

          • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I’d add the “have clear rules” concept to this and enforce the rules. Don’t be wishy washy. But communicate the rules and be prepared to explain the rules.
            But also accept that theory and practice are not the same. Imo you should allow them enough, that they don’t isolated from their friends experiences. That is why I allow them to play Roblox under supervision or why I set up a Minecraft Server so that they can play online with their friend in a safe environment (but only on weekends for a fixed time period).

    • endhits@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      “In my household, the only addictive spyware we use is made in the USA!!!”

      Edit: everyone below me is proving my point exactly.

      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I’m not saying it’s a good parental choice. But the ban can help the kids.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          I doubt it, parents will just move them to YouTube, Instagram, or some other platform. The TikTok ban is intended to limit misinformation by the CCP, and that doesn’t really matter for this age of kids.

          • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I’m a parent. YouTube is watched but you can see what they are watching.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              7 months ago

              The more important thing to me is building habits. I care less about how much they’re watching vs how they’re spending their time generally.

              We have a rule where our kids need to read to be able to watch/play games, and we cap at 2hr/day. If they read 1hr, they can watch/play for 30min. My kids seem to have a pretty good mix of reading, watching/playing, and playing outside w/ friends, so I think it works.

              • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Yea. We do something similar. It’s an electronic allowance. If you use it it’s done for the day. I change it for rainy days and vacations if we are traveling in the car or whatever. But it’s easy to set up with Google family. And then you can see what they are doing. Not to be snoopy. Just to teach them the right way to protect themselves online. I don’t want them to turn 18 and be completely lost.

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 months ago

                  I give my kids 30 min “free” on Saturdays, which gets doubled if they spend it in a game with a sibling. For trips, I make my kids all do the same thing, so either watch the same show, listen to the same audiobook, etc.

                  I personally don’t digitally track what my kids do at all, I instead rely on trust and keeping devices in a public space. I tell them what’s acceptable, and occasionally hang out with them while they’re doing whatever. As they follow the rules, I give them more autonomy (e.g. my oldest may get their own PC soon-ish), but if they break the rules, they lose access. The only parental controls I use is for my 4yo, because she keeps getting into my Steam Deck and Switch w/o asking, but my other kids know the passcode on the Switch (not my Steam Deck, that’s mine).

                  It’s a bit bumpy, but I’m hopeful that having rules but no actual walls teaches them to learn to self-regulate and will help them in the long-run. It worked for me as a kid.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Wait, is there another psyops software the CCP has deployed in the US?

        • BlueJayOakerson@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Probably plenty. Tik tok is just the biggest owned by a foreign government that also is showing pretty immediate extreme negative effects on children’s attention spans and learning capabilities.

          But people are still gonna whine because they’re 25 year olds who need to watch 80 videos of unboxing shoes in 4 minutes . That’s really the only pro tik tok argument there is.

          • neo (he/him)@lemmy.comfysnug.space
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            7 months ago

            It sets a pretty chilling precedent that non-American competition can be forced to sell to Americans for (insert arbitrary reason here).

            I am in favor of TikTok at least becoming restricted to adults only if not outright banned, just warning about the consequences of doing it this way.

            • jaschen@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              It’s owned by the CCP who is currently trying to undermine our election. It tried to do it in Taiwan where I currently live.

              • exanime@lemmy.today
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                7 months ago

                It’s owned by the CCP who is currently trying to undermine our election

                Not that this may not be true, but the USA undermines it’s own foundation of democracy

                • jaschen@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  While the US government is not perfect, it still is OUR own government. The CCP is a literal adversary.

                • BlueJayOakerson@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Wtf kind of response is that? “The Chinese government should get a say in our government because our government isn’t perfect.”

                  Nothing but Chinese shills or boys here. It’s wild anyone is stupid enough to say this

            • BlueJayOakerson@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              It really doesn’t set a bad precedent forcing a foreign adversary to have less control over the US population. We should really force the sale of a lot of Chinese properties in the US as well. A foreign government should not have so much control over rental and housing prices in the US.

              Why are you pro foreign adversary controlling the daily lives of Americans? It’s a very odd stance to take and openly say unless you’re not American obviously.

          • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I’m guessing you’ve never been on TikTok. It’s a pretty good news source and information disseminator. Your algorithm feeds you what you pick so if you linger on posts from physical therapists and psychologists about child development, that’s what you learn about. If you linger on political posts highlighting our local and federal government’s corruption, you get that.

            I’m all for banning it (and all social media) for children, but if you think TikTok is all trash TV, you’ve been successfully propagandized.

            • BlueJayOakerson@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Wtf? You see nothing wrong with your first two sentences??? “It’s great at disseminating information. The Chinese government learns how I think then starts to show me propaganda they want that will align with my opinions so they can drive how I think and what I learn in the future”

              That’s fucking wild that you’re saying all of this is a positive thing.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        It’s not in American businesses best interest overthrow a government. Can’t say the same for the CCP tho. Fuck the CCP.

          • jaschen@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Wow, that is literally 1 example of an obscure time in the early 19th century.

            A mass majority of an American company has zero interest to hurt the community it is based in. The stability of a government and the strength of it’s community determines if people would buy/use a product. It also supplies a competent workforce and a network of security that helps a company prosper.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I use TikTok routinely. I actually spend time on Chinese parts of TikTok, because I know a little Chinese. I’ve seen content that the CCP would be very much opposed to - including discussions of the Tank Man from Tiananmen Square and homosexuality in Chinese history.

      TikTok has censorship certainly, but it’s more targeted towards the Gaza conflict.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        I use TikTok routinely.

        Your experience is different from other experience. That’s the main issue. They are and can target specific people in specific groups and in specific regions. You seeing this content just means you’re not important enough for them to target.

        • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          As can/do Facebook and every other social media platform. But I find it hard to take this idea that TikTok is an arm of the CCP seriously when I routinely discuss Ughyur Muslims and Tiananmen square with folks, and see depictions of Chairman Mao as Pooh Bear.

          The more shady shit is the shop and how every third video is an unlabeled ad. TikTok wants to make money first and foremost. I don’t think TikTok is some force for good in the world, but what they are doing is no different from what Meta and Google are doing.

          • jaschen@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Tiktok has one of the worse/non existent monetization programs. Its clearly not important to them how bad it is.

            My extended family in Taiwan would routinely see fake news on Tiktok during the Taiwan elections.

            That’s the thing. You don’t know. Nobody knows except the CCP. That’s the problem.

            • pop
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              That’s the thing. You don’t know. Nobody knows except the CCP. That’s the problem.

              But you do about every other social media platform?

              Fake news is not exclusive to a single platform. Teach your family about reputable news sources and stop trying to shoehorn US propaganda down everyone’s throats like it makes you look smart. Tiktok learned everything it does by the likes of facebook, Google and Twitter.

              Why do you think US social media is everywhere all over the world with near instant or sometimes even get higher bandwidth preference in some countries? If you don’t think the US government has nothing to do with the level of complexities that entails dealing with local governments/infrastructure and planning, then I guess “ignorance is a bliss”, and I hope the US government will bring you peace and much freedumb. Don’t complain when they come in blasting tho.

              • jaschen@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                It’s one thing to have fake news that is uncontrolled. It’s another thing when a literal adversary uses fake news as a tool to create discourse.

                A social media company has one thing in mind. Profits. Even if it means that a byproduct of profits is discourse. But TikTok sole purpose is discourse. They literally don’t care about profits.

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    7 months ago

    What does “on tiktok” mean?

    Unsupervised with their own accounts? I feel like that’s difficult to believe. Watching a few tiktoks before dinner with their parents? That doesn’t really strike me as a problem.

    While I don’t entirely disagree with the author, I feel like this is a far too superficial look at what is a larger societal problem: young people have checked out.

    He makes the argument that mental health is in decline, and I’m not sure if that’s true or we’ve just removed the stigma from therapy… But of more concern to me is that young people just DGAF, and I think that’s because older generations have left nothing for younger generations to inherit, besides ruin. Kids 5-7 aren’t gonna understand that, but they’re gonna pick up the vibes from their parents.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      I don’t think its difficult to imagine 30% of 5 to 7s with their own phones on tiktok nearly all the time.

      Raising kids is hard, especially when youre poor and stressed out or tired all the time, its waaay easier to just get them a phone.

      The number of people I’ve met in the last couple of years? Yeah, I live amongst the poors, the abusive parents and single moms and drunk/drug addicted dads… all their kids either have their own phones or the family has one for all the kids, who basically fight over it and get smacked by a parent or older sibling when theyre being too rowdy.

      A few weeks ago I was walking, puffing on a nicotine vape. A school bus pulls up and drops off what could not have been older than 2nd graders, who began hounding me: Lemme hit that wax bro, Share your wax!

      These are those 5 to 7s that are on TikTok, or close to it. I didnt even realize what Wax was at first, literally had to scurry home and lookup that wax is now the term for basically dab pens.

      So yeah, theres huge segments of the population where 7 year olds want a highly concentrated dose of MJ from a literal random person theyve never seen before.

      Devo: It’s a beautiful world we live in… for you, but not for me.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        I mean, that’s kind of my point - in situations like that, it seems like using Tiktok is small potatoes compared to the more significant issues that’d cause problem behavior. The Tiktok consumption is just another symptom, and if it wasn’t tiktok it’d be some other escape mechanism.

        To me, the article seems lazy, complaining about a superficial problem without spending effort to even consider or mention underlying root causes that could give rise to it and must be solved first.

        And to be clear I’m not blaming the parents, they’re not the “root cause” I’m talking about. They’re victims too, in large part. They and their kids are stuck in a harmful cycle, and people with the ability to break that cycle are unwilling to do so.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          You explicitly said you couldnt imagine 30% of 5-7 year olds having essentially unfettered access to TikTok, and you said the TikTok problem is a symptom of general mental health decline in youths.

          You did not say your point was that 30% of 5-7s are using TikTok habitually, you expressed incredulity to this, to which I responded.

          Anyway, you want a root cause?

          Poverty, drug addiction, poor parenting.

          Yeah, I am going to blame the parents, at least partially.

          Oh you have kids and you are not able to actually raise them, hand them off to TikTok instead? You shouldn’t have had kids you can’t actually raise.

          Obviously, this would happen a lot less if maybe we redistributed some wealth from the top to the bottom, actually had an economy and society that allowed for all people to live well.

          Sure the article is superficial in the sense it isnt exploring root causes, but it doesnt really purport to try. That would probably end up being a completely different and much more complex piece of writing.

          Further, this is honest-broker, a website for basically well to do yuppies who were born into connections and managed to maintain the socio economic strata they were born into, where they fret about how the poors are poor because theyre stupid, and minutiae about their investments.

          What did you expect?

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            Yeah, I know I shouldn’t expect much from a site like that, but since it’s shared here I felt like I should shine a little light on the deeper issues.

            This kind of superficial “journalism” rage-baiting boomers for clicks is really frustrating to me. Shit like this is brain-rot at least as bad as Tiktok is. It has always existed, but the extent to which it has replaced actual analysis and investigation is depressing.

            Yes, the parents are partially at fault, of course. But as you indicated, there are significant societal pressures that force families into dynamics like this and it’s not realistic to expect an overwhelming majority to be able to resist it, alone. And since we’re not about to engage in class-based eugenics, it’s up to society to give them a serviceable ladder to climb out of their situation.

            So, TLDR; I wanted to shine a light on deeper issues, so that people don’t think that this is solely a moral failing of parents, and that they DO understand that we have a collective responsibility to help families.

  • profdc9@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    You would think that with all those kids watching, Xi would lean into the whole Winnie the Pooh resemblance.

  • theherk@lemmy.world
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    I’m not completely convinced. It is possible but sounds a bit high to me. It is based on a survey of less than 3k parents, and although I found the BBC article, it doesn’t seem to link to the actual source. It is therefore difficult to take this too seriously without seeing exactly who was interviewed and how the questions were worded.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      It’s probably not that bad, but I wouldn’t be surprised just based on anecdotal experience.

      I’m a provider at a children’s hospital and phones have always been an issue during appointments. Before, it was mostly an issue with getting parents to pay attention or answer questions during the evaluation.

      However since COVID, we’ve noticed a large increase of parents using tablets and phones as a constant babysitter. These children are so emotionally attached to their screens that they will tantrum until they have access to their screen again.

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah, it sounds real high to me. Perhaps the criteria is have ever seen a tt video.

      Now yt, easily > 50%. It’s practically a babysitter. Putting cocomellon in front of your 3yo to get 30 minutes of peace is a parental guilty pleasure.

      Tweens, sure. IG, TT, whatever.