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Comment by Milank | Hacker News Reader

It's the flow of nature. Nothing lasts forever.

Looking from addiction perspective, TikTok is even worse. But, as the author said, it's more shallow, so it should be easier to move away from.

I hope that people (or at least majority) will find a way to move from this mindless fun and finally start using all the technology we have at our disposal in some more meaningful way.

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Many recent boycotts and other activist causes have achieved critical mass through organizing on TikTok. A ton of content there is historical and educational. People misunderstand short-form as shallow and that has never sit right with me. I find creators on TikTok to often go deeper and communicate more clearly than the cacophony of text posts on reddit or Facebook.

It's true that you can find useful content on TikTok.

But, let's be realistic - percentage of people using TikTok to learn something is... probably negligible.

But there's an example on how the technology can be used in good purpose.

Yeah I don't have numbers to back it up so I can't say for certain. I wouldn't agree it's negligible though, because I often am served educational content that's not an interest of mine (eg nutrition, DIY repair, writing). So the algorithm knows that content is desirable to some users, but is testing if I'm personally interested. Anecdotally I am constantly hearing friends talk about stuff they 'learned on TikTok'. Qualitatively, the content consistently seems more serious and useful than content I see on YouTube, Twitter, or Reddit. So my experience of TikTok has been that it's a mixture of entertainment and serious discussion. I think that balance is a large part of why it's so engaging.

Do you have any basis for your negligible statement?

About half the videos I watch on TT are 'educational'

Ok, I must take a step back. I have only my personal feeling to back the claim. And that doesn't mean much, considering the fact that I barely ever used TikTok.

So you might be right. My kids (6 and 8) told me a couple of times about life hacks that they saw on YouTube. And that's the only place they visit online, even that being restricted to less than an hour a day on average.

So yeah, new generations might be using that content a bit differently from what I thought.

If true, that is great news.

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