Little videos are cooking our brains: How do we reclaim our attention? | Hacker News Reader

Little videos are cooking our brains: How do we reclaim our attention?

vox.com

I haven't read the article (yet) because I was triggered by the title.

I absolutely hate how video-based social media has normalized blasting audio in public.

Playing music over speakers in public spaces used to be taboo, or at least I remember that being the case. Hearing those 2-5 second blasts of whatever crap pops up on people's feeds is slowly driving me insane.

It feels like this happens FUCKING EVERYWHERE too. Subway. Restaurant. Movie theaters. Doesn't matter. It's irritating. Doubly so for people who have AirPods or other headphones LITERALLY in their pocket.

Step 0. Uninstall TikTok, Instagram, Threads, X, and Facebook. These are shit, distraction pipelines.

Step 1..n. Focus on long-form content and setting screens down, reading, and going outside.

I guess some people can handle it, but I cannot. Once I start, I can't stop, and then it's hard for me to focus on anything else.

Simple. Use a capable ad-blocker, and configure your browser to not autoplay anything. Don't use other apps which deny doing that, or only when absolutely necessary, and then close them again.

Supply of Content can grow to infinity. But Demand is constrained by Time and Eyeballs available. So what happens when Supply overshoots Demand by a massive factor?

We've had the power all along: put down your device and walk away; if you must use your device, stop watching videos.

This kind of has the same energy as advising a depressed person with "just be happy".

Certainly some people are unable to escape addiction cycles on their own. But others, under the right circumstances, can take control of their own accord. But that's ancillary to my point, which is that it takes a change in mindset; nobody is going to physically wrest our phones from us, and even if they did, we would fight to get them back.

The article is mess of garbage. That's what's cooking our brains

Jumping from racism to misusing the Gen Z word brainrot like an old lamer.

Pinning it down to attention spans -

1. Plenty of people who don't use TikTok or clones have the attention span issue.

2. Studies aren't backing it. There is no reason why short form video is worse than lets say HN or Reddit.

There is no theoretical reason, there is limited proof.

I'm not sure this article has a link to attention and short form video. It ends off topic on dark patterns and addiction.

The article is just a shotgun trying to get you to feel anxiety.

TikTok Vs pre-internet society with 40 stories being ads and news in 30 mins. Sorry I'm going to choose eastern Europeans hobby tunneling and silkscreen easter eggs over McDonalds ads and baseball scores.

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