I think apps like TikTok or YouTube Shorts literally brainwash people. It’s one of the dumbest things ever invented on the Internet, yet incredibly addictive at the same time.
However, now I think it's the same infinite scroll we already had in twitter and reddit -- but instead of text and images, now it's just videos.
At the beginning the content was really dumb and bad, but after some time it became way better. Now my feed is basically cooking recipes, chemistry experiments, interesting physics facts, bits from my favorite comedians, etc. Maybe Youtube learned my tastes, or maybe the content creators learned how to exploit better the platform. Either way I'd say I'm happy with the result now.
I still think some people are getting brainwashed by certain content, but in the same way as they were getting brainwashed in twitter and reddit.
For short videos, it is a continuous stream of video's where a new video is automatically started after the last one. This is what makes shorts so horrible. You are forced to watch a new video every 15s to 1 min. Versus actively deciding yourself how long you look on a particular item. It becomes bad as your brain gets trained to loose interest after 1min.
Both are like using slot machines but on tiktok you win (dopamine hit) more often - or at whatever rate the house wants you to.
Videos cram so much stimulation over such a short period of time
Text you still have to read
Hypothesis: video is more addiction, regardless of content
I frequently give up on reading a thread midway down the page because it's requiring *too much focus*, and, get this, I might even interrupt my break and just go back to work early instead!
I don't think that would ever happen on a neverending infinite scroll of hyperengaging video.
Because at least for physics and chemistry, those are topics where, in my experience, you need deep, sustained engagement to make any personal progress on them.
Sure, you can probably learn a few fun facts through TikTok but really what's the point?
There are only 24 hours in a day. The hours you spend doomscrolling through - in the best case - fun facts about physics and chemistry are hours you spend not doing anything of value, like learning about actual physics or chemistry.
I get that you don't need to be doing something super productive all the time, what I'm saying is that I think you're fooling yourself if you believe that TikTok and co. are anything more than the shallowest form of entertainment available.
I think you might have a point..
its very telling how, while youtube (classic) also has these same ingredients, the ux of looking through a menu is far less addicting than the slot machine mechanism from swiping up
Then again, we lost that battle with misogynistic, language-rotting, and violent rap music because we were too worried about being called racists, so there might not be hope we'll do better this time around.
It wasn’t the gutting of the educational system, that’s far too simple an explanation.
But at this point, we also have a separate category of things that pretty much on their own are having a negative effect on society. That would be things like TikTok (including Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts).
The fact that they're not trying to come up with a new UI paradigm, or discovery mechanism is very telling. They keep focusing on semi-random swipe-directed discovery, and that tells me they're not interested in making the best content available to you as the interested-consumer. They want you wasting time and generating N-counts of redundant ad views/impressions/things before finding that one thing you wanted or might find interesting.
Youtube is probably the best at at-least trying to not force you to swipe (when watching normal videos). But even there, we can see how much people complain about "The Feed" or "The Algorithm". With all of Google's money and effort, they couldn't (or chose not to) find a better way at matching viewers with good content.
Out of curiosity, how deeply have you considered the question? And, might that depth not be a function of the norms in the forum?
It is so easy to find reports and evidence of how Tiktok could be of great value to people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/dining/tiktok-ban-cooking...
https://www.today.com/popculture/books/what-is-booktok-meani...
And OP didn't even mention all the small businesses that took off due to TikTok giving them an avenue. This notion that people have to dismiss TikTok as merely mindless dopamine is really just wilful ignorance.
Wow, it goes deeeeeeep.