← Back to context

Comment by CharlesW

2 days ago

The problem with TikTok isn't the form, which is effectively StumbleUpon for short-form video (or Dave Winer's "river of news" in video form, if you prefer).

There's brainrot content on all platforms, but there's also ArtTok, BookTok, CraftTok, EduTok, FoodTok, GardenTok, HistoryTok, MathTok, MusicTok, PoliTok, ScienceTok, TechTok, and lots more.

28 comments

CharlesW

Reply
Zak  2 days ago

Here's a study showing an immediate negative impact on prospective memory from switching context repeatedly on short-form video platforms: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/09658211.2025.252107...

Unlimited skipping until a video is sufficiently stimulating had a negative impact regardless of the content, while people limited to ten skips in ten minutes did not experience a negative impact. This suggests that the format itself has harmful cognitive effects.

  • sieste  2 days ago

    Scrolling through a comment thread in an online forum such as this requires a lot of context switching. Does the context-switching theory of brain rot apply to text based feeds as well, or only video?

    • card_zero  2 days ago

      Or browsing shelves in a bookshop. I've noticed I forget what I was doing ("prospective memory impairment") while looking for a good book. Also sometimes I annoy myself because I want to quit but I can't because I haven't found anything good yet. Whoops, where did the time go? So, ban bookshops.

wolvoleo  2 days ago

The problem I find with it is that it's such a monoculture. Everyone is copying everyone else.

As an example: there's this stupid skit going around. Someone asks a waiter "Could I ask you about the menu please?". The waiter comes really close and goes like "The men I please is none of your business".

It's an ok joke but I've seen literally 20 different people doing the same skit in the last two weeks and it gets so damn annoying. And it's not just this one. There's always one that is viral and everyone copies it.

  • kelipso  2 days ago

    Yeah that’s what memeing is. What is this, 2000s internet and we start discovering what memes are or something.

    • saghm  2 days ago

      Obviously meme formats from when I was younger (images and text) are fine, but meme formats that are newer (video and text) and brainrot. Or maybe it's just the same thing every generation does where they think the generations before them were hopelessly out of touch but the kids nowadays have no taste...

      6 replies →

  • jeron  2 days ago

    >The problem I find with it is that it's such a monoculture. Everyone is copying everyone else.

    congratulations on discovering mimesis

Avicebron  2 days ago

I'm pretty sure BookTok is just porn for women who really like the plot of 50 shades of grey..

edit: which is to say I'm not positive the format isn't the problem.

  • CharlesW  2 days ago

    > I'm pretty sure BookTok is just porn for women…

    Those aren't the kinds of book-related videos that I see, so at some point The Algorithm must've decided I wasn't interested in porn for women (not that there's anything wrong with that).