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Comment by TranquilMarmot | Hacker News Reader

Your comment assumes there is nothing creative, industrious, or thoughtful on TikTok. The fact that you think it's just dancing teens and "women complaining" (yikes dude) shows that you've never given it a chance. As the article suggests, you _can_ "train" it to give you the content that you want, and it can be more fulfilling.

I'm not saying that it doesn't have issues, and it does feel like it's trying REALLY hard to keep me hooked in some pretty morally ambiguous ways, but it's not as toxic as the media would like you to believe.

I assume you also don't go on Twitter or watch TV or movies when you're bored since then you're not "pursuing" anything. People are allowed to just chill and turn their brain off for a bit.

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There is indeed a lot of good content on TikTok. And it's eerily good at showing me things I'm interested in, in a way other social media sites utterly fail at.

But (not having deliberately tried to "train" TikTok), it also shows me plenty of content I find depressing or juvenile. And I am firmly convinced that the experience of continuous scrolling through very short videos damages my brain and attention span much more than watching a traditional TV show or movie.

You do need to train it. It’s very easy to train it to show you stuff you don’t want to see too often. You can mark things as not being interested in to avoid that.

When I had TikTok for the first time - I was like, “is this really for everyone? I don’t get it. I’m getting endless videos of hot women dancing or showing off their figure. I could see why teenage boys get into this but women???” I didn’t even watch many of them but you watch a few (cause boobs) then it can sometimes think that’s the only thing it should show you until forever.

It’s not a perfect algo by any stretch. I was not the only guy who fell victim to this pattern and was interested in TikTok at first but gave it up for a bit because it was showing nothing but booba.

Same with a lot of videos. You watch a few and it decides you should see them forever even if you just had an interest for a few minutes one particular day. It requires specifically saying you’re not interested in order to get it to go away. It requires adjusting.

You don't need to say "not interested" to get rid of a niche that you watched a little bit of a while ago. You just need to stop watching those videos. The "not interested" option certainly speeds up the process, but if you reliably skip past videos of a given type then TikTok will start suppressing them.

First, I don't want to train a commercial product so that it can make money with me. How crazy is that?

Secondly, I've been told it takes 20 minutes of browsing and it would train automagically. Well after 30 minutes that I regret spending, it was still showing me the most terrible content humanity has ever produced and my eye were bleeding.

I uninstalled the app and won't touch it again. It feels like being a teen forcing oneself to start smoking cigarets.

Do you use Netflix? YouTube? Twitter? Facebook? You're training all of these just by using them. I've seen way worse stuff on Twitter than I ever have on TikTok.

As usual, people love giving opinions about things and products they've never used. It took me maybe 2 minutes of browsing TikTok for the first time for it to stop showing me dancing teens in favor of things I actually wanted to see. The people who complain about this being the only content either never used the app or actually secretly engage with this content.

TikTok quickly realized all I wanted to see was beautiful women (not teens) dancing, and I'm okay with that. Interestingly, I've been getting more and more funny and language/culture-oriented videos that also fit my interests.

Every time I try these apps (Instagram, TikTok), before long all I see are females with large butts and Subarus. I'd rather not even engage.

I had to uninstall it because this particular format made me quite addicted very fast.

And it might contain creative things but enough is very repetitive.

Oh, I've noticed that too. I'll look into TikTok once every couple of weeks and I have a timed lockout set, so I don't endlessly scroll through it. It's certainly incredibly addictive.

> (yikes dude)

Bruh, get real. TikTok is filled with women complaining about dating. Why not just admit what is staring you in the face? There is an entire segment of the universe that just responds to those videos.

And there is plenty on TikTok that is good.

But even if you can "train" it, the problem is that it's scientifically engineered to keep your scrolling. I think that part you missed.

Watch Wall-E where everyone sits in special "TikTok" chairs, have food delivered to them and the screen continually scrolls. That movie was before its time man.

Watch here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw7WAq_GZY8]

Unfortunately, you will not get the message until you have to go out with friends that are tuned out to you because they're constantly scrolling TikTok on their phones.

(And yes, I have installed TikTok for weeks and months at a time and always ended up deleting it and washing down my phone. Even after "Training" it.)

> Bruh, get real. TikTok is filled with women complaining about dating. Why not just admit what is staring you in the face?

I’ve never see a video with a woman complaining about dating on TikTok. In years of use.

I’m not saying you are not seeing them, just that I have not seen one.

Plenty of guys complaining about dating on TikTok too. It’s an absolutely massive platform and there’s videos on just about anything especially interpersonal relationships (coach industry)

People really seem to miss that complaining about the kind of content on one of the biggest social media platforms on the planet that algorithmically shows you more of what you watch is a huge self-report.

I literally acknowledge its addictiveness in my comment. Spending 30 minutes watching TV or doomscrolling on Twitter or 30 minutes watching TikTok, it's all the same to me. I think if you acknowledge the time that you "waste" and keep it in check, it's fine.

> Unfortunately, you will not get the message until you have to go out with friends that are tuned out to you because they're constantly scrolling TikTok on their phones.

Maybe you need better friends. Or you could try being more assertive and saying something like, "when you are looking at your phone instead of paying attention to me, I feel ignored. If you continue to do that, I will leave and do something else." And then ACTUALLY leave if they don't stop! They will learn quickly that if they want to enjoy your company (if it is indeed enjoyable) then they will need to have self restraint.

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