Comment by oarabbus_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oarabbus_ | Hacker News Reader

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>It's actually the fraying of our social fabric

I honestly don't think it's all that different than other technologies, even though I keep hearing people insist "this time it's different" about Tiktok. Over my life I've heard a similar sentiment of the decay of society regarding Instagram/Youtube/Facebook, about text messaging, about the mobile phone itself, emails, the personal computer/internet, video gaming, and probably other technologies. I grew up decades after television became ubiquitous, and I'm sure the same was said about that.

In fact, take a look at this eloquent essay about digital social media:

>>

>it delivers only... brainless diversions that erode [the] ability to think, inquire, and judge. just another disintegrating toy. Just another medium... for advertisers to use in pestering us

>[They] operate by.. broadcasting so that one... can send his message to millions

>[People just] sit around... if they are feeling particularly loquacious, they may nod to each other. Thus dies the art of conversation. There is now very little danger that [people] will resort to the vice of thinking.

>>

Actually, this isn't an essay about digital social media. It's an excerpt from the essay "Radio - A Blessing Or A Curse?" By Jack Woodford, 1929.

Haha, that's true - human nature hasn't changed much over the millennia, whether it's our desire to invent new ways to communicate and keep ourselves entertained, our fear of new technologies, or love of ragging on the next generation.

Still, I do think it's a bit different each time - these technologies are incrementally more effortless and addictive, feedback loops are incrementally shorter, personalities we "meet" through these technologies incrementally more real and seemingly intimate.

It's a bit analogous to our diets. What our bodies fundamentally need hasn't changed much over the years. And it can be argued that we have constantly experienced changes to our diet throughout human history, and those changes are generally either benign or positive. Yet, it's easy to draw a line between certain "innovations" (trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) to obesity and other health issues. In the same way, we might be able to connect the gradual progress of technology with unprecedented anxiety, depression [1], and loneliness [2].

[1] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt3... (page 35) [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014019712...

I'm confused. It seems like you are implying that trans fat is benign?

Trans fat is absolutely harmful. The FDA banned adding partially hydrogenated oils (source of most trans fats) to foods back in 2015 and said trans fat is no longer generally recognized as safe.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/trans-fat

He put it next to high-fructose corn syrup, so I guess not?

Yeah,re-reading I think they are implying both are bad. I really shouldn't be replying to people at 2am.

Those quotes are right on the money.

It's why daytime talk radio has greatly contributed to the decline of discourse and civility in America; it has a giant captive audience that made divisive blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and many others enormous fortunes.

Cheap and relentless negativity scales much better than positivity and is more addicting. Nobody is happy-scrolling through social media, and the only people still making money on radio are shock jocks.

Sure, the argument that "other things have been heralded as the end of the world before" is certainly valid and probably true. And, yes, no matter how much we cry, TikTok is here to stay, until it is replaced by something even worse. However, we shouldn't treat this as a binary thing, like "well, if it's not the end of the world then why bother discussing it?" Sure somebody complained that radios would ruin human intelligence, but can we objectively say that radios and TikTok operate the same way, because of that? Objectively, I'd say no. It would be the same as saying that an AR-15 rifle is the same as a knife because both can be used to kill people. Surely if teenagers did not have access to rifles, only knifes, they would kill much less people in schools before they're tackled and immobilized? Crack cocaine and marijuana are both drugs, but surely most reasonable people would not say they are both just as bad? Anyway, for me, TikTok is scary. It is deeply optimized to savagely take advantage of every thing that is wrong with the human mind and use it to keep you inside the Skinner box. Literally, the only thing that it has against it right now is "huh you're not forced to use it, just uninstall it!". Yes, let's just close down every rehab center in the world; after all, you can stop using crack cocaine whenever you want, right.

>Anyway, for me, TikTok is scary. It is deeply optimized to savagely take advantage of every thing that is wrong with the human mind and use it to keep you inside the Skinner box.

Also describes Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I've seen a bunch of slippery slope arguments here but no justification for Tiktok being any worse than the previous generation of social media. I'll agree Tiktok is more addictive than radio, sure.

If the argument is "all modern social media is optimized to take advantage of human psychology" I would agree, but if the argument is "tiktok is worse than the previous generation of social media" then I'd need to see some data/studies/evidence supporting the claim.

I think a lot of people are making the mistake of believing that just because Tik Tok isn't any worse than Facebook or Instagram, then it isn't bad at all. They're all bad for a number of reasons.

I don't think anyone is making the claim any of these platforms don't cause harm - at least I haven't seen that claim being made.

More relevant to the article, is it a net good or net bad? It's easy to make a claim motor vehicles are dangerous and bad, as motor accidents kill over a million people per year. It is much more difficult to justify the counter argument that "the benefits of cars bring much more value to the world than the harm caused by the million deaths per year".

The author of this article states that tiktok brings him and the content creators enjoyment and in some cases livelihood. If the net societal harm of social media outweighs the net good, maybe we should get rid of it entirely.

But if the net good outweighs, perhaps it makes more sense to treat it like cars - enact regulations, restrictions, and safety measures, rather than trying to eliminate it completely.

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