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Not to be on a high horse but I would actually love if these "scroll" apps all disappeared. So much time collectively (myself included) being spent on nonsense
by robswc 2y ago
Not to be on a high horse but I would actually love if these "scroll" apps all disappeared. So much time collectively (myself included) being spent on nonsense. I have a timer on mine to only let me spent 15 minutes and it just goes by so fast. I'll see something funny or something I like maybe 1/25 videos.
I know I should and could just delete it but my friends send me stuff and usually its pretty good stuff... it just hooks you in tho.
- agumonkey 2y agoIt would be funny to have accounting of time spent on scrolling or mainly-scroll apps, per country or globally.
- amazingamazing 2y agoI’ve never understood this take - no one is being forced to use this stuff. Don’t use it personally if you don’t like it.
- a12k 2y agoSome things are so incredibly harmful for society it is in the governments interest to regulate those things.
- anon7000 2y agoSure, but this isn’t remotely about that. If it was, we’d get some privacy laws and bans on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
- ceejayoz 2y agoWe should, but we won’t. “We need to do something” and “we will do something” are not the same.
- a12k 2y agoSeemed like the comment was. It mentioned wanting to see banning all scrolling apps and was implying because they cause addiction. Did you sense a different implication from the poster?
- gurraman 2y agoI don't know about ban, but parents today are so totally disconnected from the dangers associated with scrolling. Kids today live in their phones. The ones that stay away are going to have such a competitive advantage. So maybe not forbid, albeit that would really serve the community, but the goverment should get off their asses and start informing schools and parents about what their kids are doing to themselves. But it is a super-difficult problem to solve, because a lot of parents depend on just letting their kids sit with their phones a couple of hours every day to enable wfh etc (or in worse cases, go out with friends to socialize). My wife is super-aware and is a stay-at-home mom and even she thinks it is a real challenge (mostly because of what friends are allowed to do). We have rules that say no screens (with exceptions for research, school work, some programming) during weekdays. We banned TikTok and Roblox years ago. The kids get 1 hour per day during weekends. These rules, when my wife introduced them, made a HUGE difference. They're different kids (they get so bored they clean their rooms, play chess, read books, play with Lego, don't have problems with their chores etc).
- ajsnigrutin 2y agoLooking at causes of death, soft drinks and fast food should be at the top of the list. Somehow tiktok is banned and cigarettes are still legal.
- CubsFan1060 2y agoI think it depends on how you define a lot of stuff, and what you think the effects are. If you think there are mental health effects, then it's really no different than outlawing anything with negative effects. "I don't know why we outlaw fentanyl. Nobody is being forced to use it. Don't use it personally if you don't like it." If someone believes that these type of apps pose a real danger to people and society, it's a take that makes sense.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoIt’s designed to be addictive. It’s like saying nobody is forced to use drugs, alcohol or tobacco. There’s a reason those are very difficult to quit.
- Lionga 2y agoHN ist also addictive for many people. So lets also ban it, ok?
- agumonkey 2y agoThere's no endless stream of short videos. That's the hook of these apps. A slow, bare, text only website is probably low on the dopamine trigger scale. Worst case scenario you're now addicted to post graduate conversations.
- amazingamazing 2y agoText can be addictive though, silly and arbitrary distinction.
- agumonkey 2y agoHmm I'm no neurologist but I would place solid money on the fact that it really doesn't activate the same neurological circuits. Saying this because I had issues there and reading really change my brain patterns tangibly.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoPlenty of articles documenting how TikTok is designed to be addictive. Show me equivalents for HN.
- a12k 2y agoEven that is not entirely relevant. I think the criteria here are likely actual addiction combined with harm from that addiction combined with scale of that harm. So even if we showed that HN was addictive, the harm and scale are so low that banning it shouldn't even be a conversation. Under the same framework, we have TikTok, which combines an algorithm designed for addiction, actual or imminent harm from a foreign power, and probably the most massive scale possible. So it seems within the realm of possibility that banning TikTok should be a discussion.
- willmadden 2y agoThere should be an age restriction, the same way 17 year olds can't drink vodka and smoke cigars. But targeting Tiktok specifically spits in the eye of the spirit of the law. The government is doing the bidding of its lobbyists here.
- a12k 2y ago> But targeting Tiktok specifically spits in the eye of the spirit of the law The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the United States and arguably the arbiters of the letter and spirit of the law, disagrees with you.
- Uvix 2y agoThey're only arbiters of the letter. The spirit doesn't have a place in the courtroom.
- ciupicri 2y agoWasn't there a 13 years age limit in the US?
- andrepd 2y agoNobody is forced to gamble, shoot heroin, smoke cigarretes, etc. We still think it's a good idea, at the very least, to restrict them to adults, ban advertising, and similar restrictions. Social media is possibly even more destructive than e.g. gambling. Yet it's routinely peddled to kids and pushed as practically mandatory to live in society.
- __rito__ 2y agoDo you want to unban cocaine, heroine, meth, too? They aren't forced on anyone. This is a question in good faith. I want to understand where people are coming from who oppose TikTok ban- is it the philosophy of unchecked libertarianism, or isbit coming from the faith that social media can never be as harmful as cocaine et al?
- xnx 2y agoIf there's a spectrum of harm that includes speeding 5mph over the limit and abusing heroin, I have a pretty good idea where I might put watching cat videos on your phone.
- ciupicri 2y agoYes, I would like to unban these even if heroine and meth are crap, just put warning labels on them.
- amazingamazing 2y agoYou can't die and OD from TikTok usage, and believe it or not many benefit from it. There's little inherent benefit to cocaine.
- lm28469 2y agoDepressed? Aha just stop being depressed it's that easy Addicted to alcohol? Well just stop drinking, duh?! That's how all these "nobody is forcing you" comments sound to me
- ceejayoz 2y agoWe will all be forced to reckon with the consequences of this stuff. Whether we personally scrolled or not.
- ronnier 2y agoWe aren't capable of self regulation. Just look at what people eat and the size of the general population. In general we have no self control.
- xnx 2y agoShould we outlaw refined sugar? There's definitely debate to be had on a lot of these things, but I'm having a hard time reconciling banning adults from using something that they personally enjoy and doesn't bother anybody else if you care about freedom/liberty.
- ronnier 2y agoIt at least shouldn't be as easily available as it is today. I lived in Japan and been all throughout Asia, returning to the US you realize something is deeply wrong when looking at people. People are suffering.
- dangus 2y agoPerhaps not literally forced but socially, effectively yes. I could drop Instagram/Facebook but that would be me making a choice to drastically change the way I interact with some people that I know and like and want to interact with. I think there's a parallel with app stores. Can you go through modern life right now without using the Play Store or the App Store? Sure, you can, but there's so much more weight on the "use it" side than the "lose it" side.
- UltraSane 2y ago"no one is being forced to use this stuff." No one is forced to use heroin either.
- robswc 2y agoWhat about it is confusing? I just wish they didn't exist. Even if I threw my entire phone away, it wouldn't change that so much time is collectively being wasted. Not to even touch on how its changed social gatherings. The minute something isn't "happening" the phones come out.
- LightBug1 2y ago"I've never understood this take - no one is forcing people to drink, snort drugs, smoke cigarettes, gamble their life away. Don't use it personally if you don't like it"
- amazingamazing 2y agonone of those are banned, dunno what your point is.
- LightBug1 2y ago"Don’t use it personally if you don’t like it" You seem oblivious to the addictive nature of things ... Doesn't matter if it's banned or not. And let me know where snorting drugs is legal so I can plan my weekend. Thanks.
- fragmede 2y agogo to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cocaine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cocaine and sort by legality
- hombre_fatal 2y agoOn the other hand, you have to ask if we want a society where you can generate massive wealth by peddling addictive substances to people. And that's what "just don't get addicted" doesn't track. I'm not sure where to draw that line when it comes to social media, but there's more to the convo and we probably do want to figure out where that line is or isn't.
- electrondood 2y agoNo one forces you to smoke cigarettes, but claiming that it's purely a decision ignores a major confounder: they are addictive. Social media is the product of thousands of A/B tests to arrive at the most engaging (addictive) platform possible.
- InitialBP 2y agoThat's particularly hard when you are in middle school/high school and all of your peers are using them. It might sound easy on principal children are cruel and something as simple as "You don't use tiktok, weird." could be social suicide for a teenager.
- lumost 2y agoI don’t think we should rule out the existence of digital heroin e.g. a digital experience so compelling that humans forget to eat. Whether short form video is this or not is debatable, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a digital media experience even more addictive.
- whimsicalism 2y agomaybe we should have a system where you let the government know and it bans it for you. but frankly, i’m sorry you struggle with addiction to this, i get healthy use out of it - and i would prefer not to be punished for your lack of self control
- robswc 2y agoI'm not addicted to it. I have a 15 minute timer and it locks me out of the app after 15 minutes... and even 15 minutes feels like too much sometimes. I'm not arguing that it should be banned. I'm saying I simply wish these scrolling apps didn't exist. I'm sure people get a nice high from heroin. I wish that simply didn't exist too.
- rolothrow 2y agoI think TikTok was the cleanest of it, in that the social aspect was non existent (other than sharing links to friends as modern equivalent of small talk). The most toxic combo is having fomo as a Hook (social for fb/Instagram, laboral for LinkedIn, etc) pushing you to check frequently and then being hit with the unending feed once inside. At the very least I think we should separate the scroll apps and the social networks by law.
- jimbob45 2y agoVine was the cleanest and the fact that anyone is using BlueSky or any Dorsey-endorsed product after he killed Vine is the strongest possible evidence of the Gell-Mann effect.
- robswc 2y agoThe fact Twitter bought Vine and just shut it down still blows my mind. Sometimes I wonder what things would look like if they kept it alive. At the very least, I don't think Elon could have bought Twitter.
- robswc 2y agoYea. I'm not even arguing for any policies right now, just wishfully thinking it could all disappear. Policies are complex. Headcanon where short form content never existed is easy :)
- electrondood 2y ago"Infinite scroll" apps are harvesting your attention for ad revenue. That's what they are designed to do.
- xnx 2y agoAbsolutely. Also TV, newspapers, radio, streaming services, billboards, gas pumps, professional sports, etc.