Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thenexus.media

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 222 posts

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

#101

Post by linhns »

jonbiggums22 wrote: post #94
linhns wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wish they'd give you more than 2x speed in the web player. Lots of videos seem to talk extra slowly to drag things out to the point 2x speed sounds like normal conversational speed.

It’s hard to talk that slow and still be able to keep the viewers attentive to the content. I often put on 1.5 or 1.75x as most since I’m not a natural English speaker, though that may be different for born speakers.

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

#102

Post by tsunamifury »

Zak wrote: post #10
nextworddev wrote: post #3

At whose expense?

The article offers several options depending on the question's perspective. The commercial answer would be publishers of longer-form content, but the more sociologically important one would be that it is harming the ability of the average person to engage with long-form information, making the phenomenon costly to the whole world.

The idea that long form = good is absurd and this type of thinking shows how over-confident this author is in their own intelligence.

Information compression and storage is the baseline of our species evolution.

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

#103

Post by apparent »

moduspol wrote: post #84
zoba wrote: post #7

So strange to think about how Vine could’ve won this and an American company could’ve been the leader here.

And remember Quibi [1]? Short-form video in vertical format specifically for mobile devices? They didn't have every aspect nailed, but they were definitely trailblazers on that front. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibi

Was that at all like TikTok? I thought it was professional creators, not community-sourced.

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

#104

Post by rrgok »

jquery wrote: post #86
rrgok wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. The problem is not that we don't have attention or concentration. Otherwise how can he watch hour long fast paced video. This a different form of attention. I would like to call it the intensity of attention. Reading a book, require attention but of lower intensity. While watching an hour long fast paced video, require a high intensity attention.

They put reading a book and watching slow paced television in the same category, which to me seems like a category error entirely. I see nothing wrong with avoiding slow-paced video… life is short, time is precious. If slow video is not your thing, that’s fine . However, books are a different matter entirely. Not all books are worth reading, but being unable to read any book is definitely a sign that your attention s…

I don't know. I have a hard time reading most books because they are indeed slow-paced. And by "books" I mean novels and fantasy books. But I can read an HN/Reddit discussion of several pages without a problem. Heck, sometimes I spend hours reading a specific subreddit.

I like to think that books (novels and fantasy) are low-resolution prose, so the crux of the matter is distributed — mostly useless info — across several pages. While forums — like HN or Reddit — are high-resolution prose. I don't know if I make sense.

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

#105

Post by loloquwowndueo »

crazygringo wrote: post #64
rglullis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. >…

When I do chores or shower or commute, I'm paying attention. It's not background noise. The people are saying interesting things about interesting subjects. If I wanted background noise I'd put on music. Just because one person uses a podcast as background noise, doesn't mean everybody else is.

> If I wanted background noise I'd put on music.

My dude you’re using music wrong. Noise generators do exist - you can even pick a color for your noise!

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

#106

Post by RankingMember »

echelon wrote: post #85
xhrpost wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a 2 hour video on the history of computer RPGs, I think it was specific to DND, and found it captivating. Would also like to hear your recs.

I hate this bifurcation. I almost never want 2-hour documentary style videos, yet 1-minute teasers leave me even more dissatisfied. I want 5-minute to 15-minute videos. They can be either overviews or summaries that cover broad stretches or super focused essays that go deeply in depth on just a singular hyper-focused point. Long-form typically means opinionated and written for a lay audience. Filled with unnecessary…

Some channels do both since people have different tastes/levels of free time. I think it's a good strategy, though I don't know how it plays out on the money side. For example, a YouTube channel about automotive fabrication and tuning ("Gingium" in this case) will release high-detail build videos in series, then when the project is over, add a "Building a [x, e.g. Supercharged Off-road Miata] in 10 Minutes" condensed video with all the key moments.

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

#108

Post by Mistletoe »

linhns wrote: post #58
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.

Can you share some of these YouTube investing tips?

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

#109

Post by linhns »

Mistletoe wrote: post #108
linhns wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you share some of these YouTube investing tips?

I pick some random suggested videos then do the opposite.

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

#110

Post by mystifyingpoi »

moduspol wrote: post #79
quxbar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't even look at a youtube video essay about an obscure vintage RPG (my preferred form of guilty pleasure viewing) if it's under 20 minutes long.

I prefer my movie reviews to be longer in duration than the movies themselves.

Me too, but then it's no longer a review honestly. More like a breakdown or analysis.
Post reply on HN