4 ms·

Ironic you say that here

blackpill0w 4y ago
Hacker News is definitely better than scrolling in tiktok for countless hours, or watching the perfect life of an "influencer" on Instagram.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  it's really not. there are very smart people posting things on both tiktok and instagram - and there are plenty of dumb takes on here. go on "new", for instance. you can also scroll for hours on here.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    True, but the percentages are different. Signal to noise ratio is way better here.
  - blackpill0w 4y ago
    It is. As far as I can tell, Hacker News is not designed to be addictive, the site doesn't push 10 seconds clips to keep you scrolling, if you find something interesting you stay otherwise you leave, there is no algorithm to recommend the best article for you. There are no groups/pages to subscribe to, the threads get pushed by the users. I believe this is infinitely better than the way Instagram or Tiktok work, sure you can find interesting people there too but you'd have to put up with an uncomfortable amount of nonsense and I don't know if you're really willing to make that sacrifice when better alternatives exist.
wkat4242 4y ago
I think HN is a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity. I still learn interesting things here every day.
- skipnup 4y ago
  You wouldn't believe how much tiktok helps at parenting, giving tiny bits of information every day to help with the problems you have with a newborn. To have you constantly updated on first-aid for newborns... Same thing also goes for a ton of other topics, eg. woodworking. Of course, you have to get into the right circles first, bit there is so much knowledge, easy to grasp, not much time or effort needed. But it takes a couple of days to get there.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    In the same vein we can argue that PornHub helps with some things, too.
  - wkat4242 4y ago
    I guess... It's just the format that doesn't work for me. I'm not really into short video. I'm more of a long read person. Even the long videos that YouTube does don't interest me. I might watch only one YouTube a month, usually because what I need is not available elsewhere. I find written content much more to the point and much more accessible. But short nonsense snippets like Twitter don't interest me either. So with TikTok basically being the Twitter of video it's not useful to me.

Hacker News is definitely better than scrolling in tiktok for countless hours, or watching the perfect life of an "influencer" on Instagram.

endisneigh 4y ago
it's really not. there are very smart people posting things on both tiktok and instagram - and there are plenty of dumb takes on here. go on "new", for instance. you can also scroll for hours on here.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  True, but the percentages are different. Signal to noise ratio is way better here.
- blackpill0w 4y ago
  It is. As far as I can tell, Hacker News is not designed to be addictive, the site doesn't push 10 seconds clips to keep you scrolling, if you find something interesting you stay otherwise you leave, there is no algorithm to recommend the best article for you. There are no groups/pages to subscribe to, the threads get pushed by the users. I believe this is infinitely better than the way Instagram or Tiktok work, sure you can find interesting people there too but you'd have to put up with an uncomfortable amount of nonsense and I don't know if you're really willing to make that sacrifice when better alternatives exist.

wkat4242 4y ago

I think HN is a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity. I still learn interesting things here every day.

skipnup 4y ago
You wouldn't believe how much tiktok helps at parenting, giving tiny bits of information every day to help with the problems you have with a newborn. To have you constantly updated on first-aid for newborns... Same thing also goes for a ton of other topics, eg. woodworking. Of course, you have to get into the right circles first, bit there is so much knowledge, easy to grasp, not much time or effort needed. But it takes a couple of days to get there.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  In the same vein we can argue that PornHub helps with some things, too.
- wkat4242 4y ago
  I guess... It's just the format that doesn't work for me. I'm not really into short video. I'm more of a long read person. Even the long videos that YouTube does don't interest me. I might watch only one YouTube a month, usually because what I need is not available elsewhere. I find written content much more to the point and much more accessible. But short nonsense snippets like Twitter don't interest me either. So with TikTok basically being the Twitter of video it's not useful to me.