I think at some point we’re going to realize algorithmic addiction is worse than addictions to most drugs.
In recent days I have also noticed that the YouTube algorithm will move you towards increasingly scary content. The algorithm will quickly move you from weight training to misogynist videos in less than 30 minutes.
I have lost literal hours to youtube shorts. It generates the same re-dosing compulsions as cocaine or any other drug I've ever experienced.
It. Is. Fucking. Dangerous.
If YouTube don’t learn to understand that “no” means “no” and not “maybe later” (you can just feel the mid-product-owner energy from that phrase), I too will cease using it. Whether I’ll entirely give up on the content is to be seen.
I consume exclusively from my subscription feed (which I review every few months).
In additionu ublock origin element blocker can be used to to remove shorts section in subscriptions - means I haven't seen shorts in a long time.
It’s a strange classification at first because addiction seems like a matter of will and strength.
If we’re going to lump algorithmic addiction in with other addictions there’s a lot of interesting things that would flow from that. For example now that online gambling and sports betting is more common there’s disclaimers and commercials telling people to get help if they have a problem. Should the same thing be true for social media and Candy Crush games?
“Do you have a problem with social media, go to Facebook.com/gethelp for more information”
I remember one of my grand-uncles used to take off his oxygen mask to take puffs from his cigarettes before whatever illness finally killed him back in the 90s. Having seen a number of addictions from a relatively safe distance I will take algorithms 1000 times.
Alcohol and Tobacco aren't most drugs, but I maybe framed things misleadingly, as I see people use caffeine/addictive pharmaceuticals/psychedelics/cannabis a fair bit and those are all in the category of "drugs" and yet I knew few people with serious problems with those and yet I hardly can enter a room where multiple people aren't addicted to some algorithm.
Physical drugs damage organs, cause cancer, leave you with lifelong physical cravings, and go as far as causing death directly.
Is that really relevant to tiktok live?
No one downloads TikTok just to watch lives. You download TikTok because you heard it was entertaining. Or if you were early, because you kept seeing ads for it back when TikTok was buying a lot of ads to promote TikTok.
The algorithms keep you scrolling the normal For You Page (“FYP”).
Every now and then the algorithms put a live stream in the FYP.
So even if the Live algorithm might not be sophisticated (which I don’t know if is true – I don’t work for ByteDance), it is certainly the case that it is the algorithms that draw people into the TikTok live streams in the first place for a lot of people.
And then one day people get unlucky and they are sucked into one of the streams where it seems that everyone is gifting and they get the feeling that the lady in the article talked about when they make an innocent $1 gift, and if they are even more unlucky it spirals out of control for them.
Like Twitch, YouTube and strip clubs the addictive nature of tiktok lives has nothing to do with the algorithm feeding content it thinks you'll like. The addictive part is the attention you get from the performer in an exchange for money.