Comment by vjk800
6 hours ago
> So many people these days spend hours watching short-form videos spray endlessly from a screen while they stare dumbly at it. They aren't even picking which videos to watch, just letting the algorithm do it.
This is how TV broadcasts also work, though. You could even argue there's an algorithm behind TV broadcasts too - it's just a kinda poor human-run algorithm trying to maximize viewer numbers.
Unlike many people, I still often watch TV broadcasts to relax for exactly this reason - there's no decision fatigue since I don't need to choose what to watch. Usually there's only one channel with something that's even remotely interesting and it's kind of an obvious choice.
With the (somehow sadly) added value that the TV broadcast algorithm is kinda known by everyone (morning programs, prime time etc), and that if there wasn't nothing interesting to watch, we would just do something else.
yeah shared “did you this weeks X” is lame, but it was social glue for a long time.