On TikTok, There Is No Time
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Oh, just like how casinos don't have any clocks or windows. I guess it's a step towards social media admitting that it's just there to milk users without providing anything of value in the same way a slot machine does.
Sure, both provide some positive value, but that's ignoring the negative side of the balance equation. That makes it where one is net positive on someone's life and the other is net negative on someone's life.
To build on the slot machine analogy, do you think an RNG that occasionally gives you money (but generally takes it) in a windowless, clockless room has value? And is that value worth the issues caused by them? Does the answer differ for social media?
I don't know the answer, but I think they're questions worth asking.
Same goes for many things in life, not just casinos. It isn't simple.
One wouldn't expect a status bar on a TV or movie theater, I don't see why it's different for any other screen.
EDIT: Looks like some tabs hide the clock, others don't.
Maybe it's not possible to hide on "x" type phones - here's an 11-pro: https://imgur.com/UPrpSOc
10.03.2019 07:00 AM
near the title
For me that's a good indication that the site is some kind of content farm, probably with articles written by people who aren't credited by name, and the whole thing is a waste of time.
TikTok breaks that. They don't want conflict. They don't particular care about your social network. And even if stuff is new.
They will show me for example some random girl dancing (not particular) well, some koreans doing a magic trick, something local. Lots of bad jokes.
You are basically playing with an algorithm; they obviously have some way of measuring feedback. But everything is kept in a certain mood: fast, youthful, cheerful. And also amateurish which just makes you want to participate.
It is quite different from Facebook, Twitter and Instragram.
And I think it is a major evolution of social media.
and content curation - which is about maximizing viewer-curator interaction (websites like twitch where an intimate experience can be created between one streamer and an audience numbering in the tens of thousands) through chat-streamer and chat-chat feedback loops and the democratic curation of of content on other platforms being re-broadcast and experienced in that shared environment. the most successful streamers are on for 6 to 12 hours a day, every day, and they essentially play the role of friend-babysitter-curator-community leader. often the 'content' being curated is pseudo-creator content, broadcasting walking through a city, videogames being played or scripted podcast/talent shows, but the niche of shared watching is growing. both re-watching of other short content created on the same platform, and long-form shared watching of sponsored documentaries, viewer donated video clips and even loops of watching others watching others. a type of 'best of the internet today' interactive and in real time.
this tracks the emergence of reality internet, where it becomes impossible to distinguish between an online and offline person, as online time increases. very similar to what andy kaufman was doing, tangentially related to the society of the spectacle and neil postman's critique of modern technology becoming a prison; fatalistic soliloquy on the doomed nature of mankind, trapped in self-reflection about nothing.
the outside becomes another experience on the inside of a screen. the internet is an extremely potent example of an old type of addiction, the 'information drug'. i often find myself listening to things online between 3x and 4x speed, the spread of information has greatly reduced the depth and quality, i might spend 20 minutes researching an the editorial board and journalist of a news piece after a brief 10-20 second glance over the actual piece. heavy users might be the first to see the fraying edges of the future to come. confusion, apathy, opportunistic tyranny to fill the void.
Let's take the other side of what you just said. More information today is available than at any other time in human history. Their are those who choose to spend time in a futile fashion, and there are those who choose to learn. Perceptions of which is which vary person-to-person. For instance, I read HN because there are a lot of very smart, technically-savvy people. Others might believe it a waste of time. Maybe someone spends time on pinterest, but wishes to be an interior decorator and does further homework on the pictures found. I think most of us would agree tick tock is an abject waste of time, but so what? Adults have been watching tv long before "kids these days".
Now let's consider the benefits that the information age brings. A life expectancy double what we might achieve in the wild, plentiful food, a good job, and so much more. Though some people waste their time, all this information has opened greater orders of learning to those with the inclination.
On the whole, I believe "modern technology" to be a marvelous innovation, rather than a prison. While it certainly ought to remain open to critique, this sort of nihilistic opinion has never made sense.
Outdoor time has dropped precipitously. Coordination and physical agility are reputed to have dropped. Social interaction has been reduced to worse than sound bytes.
Despite its good intentions, the internet is fabulously addictive. This should not be brushed aside Pollyanna style.
I can see how both of the above views are valid, but I also tend to agree with the optimistic one, that it's better to have a lot of information and let the users choose/get manipulated, than not have the option at all.
But that being said, my personal observations of the communications and social interactions of kids and very young adults these days scares me a bit because it seriously lacks depth. People are growing up optimizing their behavior and brains (including socially) for the internet of memes, soundbites, and impermanence, and not for the "real" human world of meaningful and fruitful long-term human connections.
I'm not a believer in an artificial future singularity point, but this stuff sure looks a lot like what a singularity-believer would expect: the early stages of a trend away from humans as individual thinkers with higher-bandwidth/quality interpersonal interactions, and towards interactions that are very light and content-free because they're just the unthinking synapse firings of some larger emergent consciousness in the form of overlapping memetic mobs of humans. Perhaps this has a role in explaining political polarization/isolation as well?
This sounds like we're missing the "trusted editor" role. In a vaccuum of trusted editors, I'd like to see lineage information of all kinds of information saved, whether it be assertions, opinions, data, etc. This would be lineage metadata showing the evolution of a piece of information. All the way back to reproducible code or first source material. By "reproducible code", I mean a kind of code that does not exist yet today, but I hope to see, a Terraform/Pulumi-like <science/engineering/endeavor>-as-Code, expressing in automated code a way to reproduce or at best record in granular detail a scientific (chemistry, astronomy, climate, etc.), engineering (mechanical, pipefitting, construction, etc.), or human endeavor (legislation, law, regulatory compliance, etc.) conclusion or outcome. Then we'd have a path forward to automatically test the reproducibility of information, and at least have the automated start of the evaluation of "truth".
We're in the infancy of the Internet's potential, and already the energetic and cognitive load is significantly, notably expensive to ascertain even the reproducibility of facts, not to speak of the veracity of information. I've toyed around with creating my own private information repository in the form of my own Internet Archive, tagging and adding metadata/metacommentary with my own private evaluations, as I've found myself increasingly taking notes of information I consume to avoid duplicating work I did earlier to find source material while establishing the veracity of what I'm consuming (which ranges from "damifino" to "I reproduced this first-hand"), but the notes are becoming too cumbersome to maintain in Emacs Org.