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TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

thenexus.media

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Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#51

Post by forgotoldacc »

crazygringo wrote: post #19
keiferski wrote: post #12

Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…

Came here to say exactly this. People also listen to individual podcast episodes that clock in at 2 or 3 hours, and are hugely popular. Movies are getting longer at the cinema too -- what used to be 85 minutes is now 150 minutes. TikTok has not "won" at all. There's a place for content of all different lengths. The death of the attention span has been greatly exaggerated.

With movies, I feel like that's a bit of return to form. I know lots of older greats were around 2-3 hours in length, and I feel like things moved to 90 minutes basically overnight around the 2000s. Though I feel like a lot of long recent movies are more padded, while older 2+ hour movies felt like they had to cut content to make it a reasonable length.

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#52

Post by accrual »

I'm going to be the odd duck here and suggest TikTok has been helpful for me. I view it as a tool. It can be used in a harmful way (scrolling for hours, reduced attention span) but it can also be helpful if used correctly.

It's kind of like Reddit and other "customize your feed" social media. If you subscribe to the defaults, yeah, it's hot garbage. If you select content creators or topics that support your individual growth then you get a much different outcome.

Of course not to say I couldn't have benefited from the same topics via another type of media. But I enjoy the few minutes I spend on TT per day, seeing what my favorites have posted, etc. I even met a cool dummer named Zooich in Japan who I enjoy following and interacting with each week. And I've made a bit of content myself which I'm proud of.

Lastly, in no way does my positive experience diminish the negative issues surrounding TT. I fully agree it contributes to reduced attention span, spreading misinformation, etc. -- just like most other forms of social media. And there's a very real risk of it becoming state media in the future. I just wanted to provide a different perspective other than "TT is terrible in every way, ban it!".

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#53

Post by mrtksn »

Yea, because it's a superior format.

I love YouTube but my problem with the content of YouTube is that almost all videos are introducing you to everything every time.

For example, there's this science video about this interesting property of fire right? They start with what's fire, when it was invented, what led to be studied this way and then they deliver the money shot. It is O.K. to be introduced to a topic once but it is brain wrecking to be 101ed every time. They are doing it to increase the watch time and the ad revenue and its horrible.

Forcing the videos to be short makes them deliver the gist quickly, TikTok videos that are trying to the introduction 101 thing are just as horrible, when a video is over 1min I'm very skeptical and feel the urge to move on.

Of course in-depth videos need to be long but those are not that many actually. From the pop-sci genre Veritasuim does it well but that kind of production takes long time and they publish videos every now and then. With the race to pump videos as quickly as possible, the short format is the better since you can get the content quickly and if you want to know more about it you can actually read about it. Which is how you actually learn anything BTW.

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#55

Post by koolba »

crazygringo wrote: post #19
keiferski wrote: post #12

Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…

Came here to say exactly this. People also listen to individual podcast episodes that clock in at 2 or 3 hours, and are hugely popular. Movies are getting longer at the cinema too -- what used to be 85 minutes is now 150 minutes. TikTok has not "won" at all. There's a place for content of all different lengths. The death of the attention span has been greatly exaggerated.

> The death of the attention span has been greatly exaggerated.

Spend 15 minutes with the median 7-30 year old and you’ll think differently. Yes it’s not everybody. But it’s clearly most of them.

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#56

Post by rglullis »

crazygringo wrote: post #19
keiferski wrote: post #12

Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…

Came here to say exactly this. People also listen to individual podcast episodes that clock in at 2 or 3 hours, and are hugely popular. Movies are getting longer at the cinema too -- what used to be 85 minutes is now 150 minutes. TikTok has not "won" at all. There's a place for content of all different lengths. The death of the attention span has been greatly exaggerated.

These are definitely not the same. How many people are actually paying full attention to a 3 hour podcast?

The majority will be listening to it while on their commute, or at the gym, or doing chores around the house. My wife (a civil engineer) has a podcast going in the background even while working. I asked her how she actually manages to pay attention to it and she says that it's mostly for the background noise.

> Movies are getting longer at the cinema too -- what used to be 85 minutes is now 150 minutes.

Because these movies are not made for the cinema anymore, but for streaming platforms, where people can consume in the same way they consume their podcasts.

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#58

Post by linhns »

keiferski wrote: post #12

Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…

Sadly, some of the best contents aer 5-10 minutes, I pick up some investing tips from those, although some longer ones can be 2x-ed or seeked to only view a chunk.

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#59

Post by bogtog »

dcchambers wrote: post #16

> TikTok won. Now everything is 60 seconds. It's true and it's devastating. I intentionally never signed up for TikTok because of the dangers of hyper-addictive short form content. Ultra-processed, junk food content. But my Instagram became TikTok - so now I don't use Instagram. My YouTube is becoming TikTok - so now I don't use YouTube. Everything is implementing autoplaying short form content. X/Twitter. Reddit. et…

> But my Instagram became TikTok - so now I don't use Instagram. My YouTube is becoming TikTok - so now I don't use YouTube. Everything is implementing autoplaying short form content. X/Twitter. Reddit. etc.

There are notably numerous Chrome/Firefox extensions that will hide Shorts from the YouTube homescreen. Plenty of creators are still focusing on normal-length content

Re: TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

#60

Post by nottorp »

Funes- wrote: post #50
nottorp wrote: post #6

... but everything was mostly crap and not worth your time even before it was 60 seconds long. If you spend your days watching "content" it's your fault.

The "shit" to "good" ratio in literally every field was much less skewed to the "shit" side before smartphones and social media came along. It's always this same fallacy: "hey, that was always a thing!". Sure, drugs have "always" been a thing, but did you have fentanyl producing real-life zombie parades in the streets just ten years ago? If we make these reductionist claims, we can say just about every phenomenon was…

You missed my second statement, I think.

How about instead of lamenting the existence of social networking and smartphones (by the way, social networking has the same effect on a laptop), we try to educate people to not waste their time on "content"?

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