Comment by BiteCode_dev
6 hours ago
Pretty sure it destroys something in you as well. So many context changes with no relation whatsoever and regular hooks that give you a pinch.
We haven't evolved for that. Our brain is trying to figure out a narrative between two things following each other. It needs time to process stuff. And there is so much shock it can absorb at once. So many "?!" and open loops in a day.
I made a TikTok account to at least know what people were talking about. After 3 months, I got it.
And I deleted it.
I felt noticeably worse when using it, in a way that nothing bad for me, including the news, refined sugar and pron, ever made me feel. The destruction was more intense, more structural. I could feel it gnarling.
In a way, such fast feedback is good, because it makes it easy to stop, while I'm still eating tons of refined sugar.
Thirty years ago, I read a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, in which he made very similar points about broadcast television. I don't remember all his points, but I vividly remember how talked about how you'll be watching a news story about something awful, maybe an earthquake in which hundreds of people died, and then with practically no warning you'll be hearing a happy jingle from a toothpaste commercial. The juxtaposition, he said, was bad for the human mind, and was going to create a generation that couldn't focus on important things.
I suspect that the rapid-fire progression of one one-minute video after another does something similar, and is also equally bad for you.