Short-form content is one of the worst plagues to have spawned from modern technology (Tik-Tok, Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts). Seriously, if you are an adult and engage with these platforms AT ALL you need to take a long hard think regarding what it is you value in your life. This medium is designed to make you an unconscious consumer, an electronic cattle; your brain is just active enough to remember to swipe to the next fifteen second over-edited clip of some meaningless time wasting bullshit. There is something evil and sinister about the nature of the videos as well. They all present an uncanny sort of 'hyper-reality' that feels like it spawned from the minds of the MK-ULTRA practitioners. Not to mention that fact that the Tiktok application is literally a CCP spying tool (as well as being a psychological weapon designed to weaken Western countries). The amount of data it openly collects is beyond horrifying. To the point where if you are part of the military in the US they will not allow you to have it installed on your phone because they understand the potential it presents foreign surveillance / the leaking of sensitive information. Please do anything else with your time.

it's funny that people suddenly care about privacy when it's tik tok, but when it's an american app spying on them thats somehow ok. It's not like tik tok is collecting any data that youtube isn't. Or even moreso windows. But le china bad america good i guess.

i don't care about the ccp any more or less than nsa or whatever corpo ad network. all the same shit imo.
but as far as content goes, the short form style tiktok does contributes to a worse form of brainrot than longer form content. yes, you can find that on yt, but that's user error, tiktok doesn't have anything but that kind of content. BigO live app might be the literal worst tho. but it's so terrible that most people don't even talk about it's existence because how obviously bad it is. im 90% sure it's less a twitch alternative and more a twitch simulator game, with 100% gamified numbers with no reflection in reality.

the platform formerly known as twitter is as bad as tiktok for most of the same reasons.

i am somewhat curious if these shortform styles of content formed because of a real desire in the consumer base. obviously it is addictive because human psychology, but do most people want to have their soul drained through the Nygma box, or where they hypnotized to accept it over longer time frame?

>>2
I am not American and believe that it is just as terrible when they engage in data theft (I use linux and do not use social media). However China is a large foreign nation with potentially hostile intentions, that is the difference here. Besides that was not the main point either, that was just the cherry on top. The primary point was that the content is meaningless and terrible for your brain.

>>3

but do most people want to have their soul drained through the Nygma box, or where they hypnotized to accept it over longer time frame?

I believe the widow for what is considered acceptable has just been slowly shifted for such a long time now that nobody has noticed. If you were to even go back to the early 2000's and show people the types of content people today consume for hours at a time I am sure they would be repulsed and saddened.

Indeed. I think the tangent on the privacy aspect (while important) is detracting from the main point here.

This form of fast-paced, superficial, and uninspiring content once turned me into a digital crackhead, unable to converse normally unless it was a short message here and there; even those blurbs were filled with obscure, borderline chronically online words that none of my family members or close friends knew about.

My friends became estranged, and I was isolated from my social circle. These symptoms foster and encourage the addiction even more—it's an ever-worsening feedback loop. It has always been a problem with social media in general, but it is so, so much worse for the short-form digital soylent that is TikTok and its many flavors (Reels, Shorts)

>>4
That's fair then
Yeah i'm sure scrolling tik tok all day is probably not the best thing you can do for your brain, but sometimes I have to admit, I watch youtube shorts while I'm on the toilet.

Agreed. Short form content has always sucked. It's brain rot incarnate.

>>6
Don't feel bad that you lacerated your mind temporarily especially in regards to word choice, perhaps your sensitivity to this sort of content makes you understand better than most how it works leading you to avoid it altogether.
In the moment short-form content is an anxiolytic on par with alcohol as it allows one to surf one's hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, the content is so densely packed with visual-linguistic subliminal cues and general eye-crack that the subconscious becomes scarred deeply enough to etch an alternate personality, which is namely accessible by the algorithms of these services. Not only that, but some of these videos are produced automatically by sophisticated systems of bot accounts designed to push very specific cohorts of people, if not just one individual, to think in a certain way. Dissenting content is softly filtered while any engagement with it informs the algorithms how to hypnotize the author out of such sentiments.
These platforms designed the most powerful tools of large-scale sociological control ever conceived and know it; anyone with enough money can rally millions to sign up to fight in a war. For the world to be yours, just pay elon or mark to tell others what you want them to think, no need to have any memetic talent of your own.