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TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

bbc.com

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Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#131

Post by d4v3 »

Liftyee wrote: post #123

Fundamentally, I think having a source of "free dopamine" on tap is not going to do any good. If I can get distracted from my real world tasks anytime, anywhere, the immediate incentives to work on real things disappear. Effectively, one can get stuck in a local minimum. I don't know how to solve it, but personally I've chosen to block as many feeds/algorithms as I can, so I have to make a conscious decision to searc…

> If I can get distracted from my real world tasks anytime, anywhere, the immediate incentives to work on real things disappear. Effectively, one can get stuck in a local minimum.

> I don't know how to solve it, ...

> but personally I've chosen to block as many feeds/algorithms as I can, ...

I think you solved it :) (at least, for yourself)

There are many things "out there" that are addictive and distracting and thus unhealthy, but we all have to find some way to overcome

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#133

Post by lateforwork »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #21

I 100% agree with the premise that TikTok is addictive and even dangerous to consume in large amounts (that's why I don't consume it at all). But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers. Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting? Again, I get the danger here, and I don't like TikTok as a whole. I just don't really know where the line is between something that the parent is all…

China imposes strong restrictions on the Chinese version of TikTok, see here:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-ti...

Excerpts: Douyin [Chinese version of TikTok] introduced in-app parental controls, banned underage users from appearing in livestreams, and released a “teenager mode” that only shows whitelisted content, much like YouTube Kids. In 2019, Douyin limited users in teenager mode to 40 minutes per day, accessible only between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Then, in 2021, it made the use of teenager mode mandatory for users under 14.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#134

Post by NoPicklez »

direwolf20 wrote: post #117
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #21

I 100% agree with the premise that TikTok is addictive and even dangerous to consume in large amounts (that's why I don't consume it at all). But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers. Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting? Again, I get the danger here, and I don't like TikTok as a whole. I just don't really know where the line is between something that the parent is all…

Yes, you should be able to recover damages from McDonald's if they made their food addictive on purpose.

I don't know if I agree with that.

I don't know how to draw even a blurred line between I've made my burger taste better because I added salt to it, but has now make it more addictive as a result.

You could argue an Oreo has been developed to taste good such that you want to eat them again.

I understand your point and I agree to an extent but I don't know how you do that. Becoming addicted to things comes with a level of personal accountability, to a degree.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#135

Post by basilgohar »

kurthr wrote: post #129
basilgohar wrote: post #107

The elephant in the room of all of this is that TikTok was the social media platform that allowed for the genocide taking place in Palestine by Israel to reach audiences directly. All other major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) heavily censored this information or outright deplatformed and canceled accounts of prominent dissemination of information about the war crimes being committed by Isr…

I'm fully against censorship, and I don't want it covered up, but at some point profiting off of the suffering of others and distracting people with holocaust porn or influencer virtue signaling is self defeating. What did all of that social audience gain? Clicks, entertainment, dollars, while children died? That's disgusting. And in the end is there anything of value left, any documentation of what happened, or how…

All media, newspapers, and social media networks do this. I'm not sure why you're raising this specifically in response to the fact I was stating TikTok was uniquely able to bring awareness to the issue of the genocide in Palestine.

Many people were completely unfamiliar with the plight of the Palestinians over the past 100 years and TikTok (and, to a much less degree, other platforms) brought the issue to their attention. Israel is no longer untouchable and many have recognized them for what they are now - the last remaining Western imperialist settler colony. This was not the case merely 4 years ago. The transformation is stark and real.

What can people do with that knowledge? That's up to them.

I don't really get the rest of your comment, unfortunately.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#136

Post by card_zero »

davewritescode wrote: post #105
dankwizard wrote: post #75

Not sure why poeple don't just put the phone down? We really are the most sheltered gentle generation. Oh no, this app is taking up my time, we need to BAN IT.

Nice straw man. Nobody is talking about banning anything, we’re talking specifically about holding social media companies accountable for marketing to children a product that is knowingly addictive and potentially harmful to their health. Part of the issue with social media is that no reasonable parent lets their 12 year old watch porn or drink but Instagram and ticktock are on a lot more 12 year old’s phone’s than y…

This stuff is still unclear to me. The addictive drugs, ones that punish a quitter chemically, are not mysterious, but gambling addiction certainly is. "Dopamine" won't work as an explanation - for instance I was once hooked on building a wooden table, which sucked up two months of my free time and lots of money, and damaged my thumbs, and no doubt I was driven by the dopamine rush of learning through the repetitive process of chiseling. But gambling is assumed to be a glitch, not a wholesome obsession. In what way does it differ? The addiction is very old, I'm sure there are accounts from the 1700s, and it doesn't even require a house to reel the gambler in - it could all be about informal games and wagers, still leading to huge debts. It's tempting to blame it on dumb ideas about luck and fate, but the dumb ideas involved could be varied and complex.

That's similar to dumb ideas involving social pressure. When people have a tendency to be dumb about a thing we use the law to restrict the thing, apparently. But this involves, in effect, an authoritative declaration of "that's dumb" by law. I feel personally threatened, then, in activities such as my woodwork, which might have been an equally dumb obsession! I know nobody's at all likely to regulate woodwork, but that's only because it's relatively unpopular. I could imagine a parallel universe where woodwork (portable somehow) becomes a trend that makes a young person feel socially relevant, and then it gets regulated. I think I disapprove of this interference with people's dumb notions.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#137

Post by NoPicklez »

dmix wrote: post #94
flumpcakes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how addiction works. If you could "just stop" then it isn't really an addiction.

Huh, that's exactly the solution to addiction? Step 1 is always changing your behaviour patterns to break out of habits and avoid things that draw you into it. Make your bedroom a phone-free zone, charge it in the living room overnight, use the built in parenting and screentime controls that every modern phone OS has, don't let your kids stare at the screen all day. Etc. This isn't rocket science. Self control is one…

I think we can all agree that the solution is to stop, but that it is difficult to do so.

I'm not addicted to alcohol or gambling, but I know that it takes significantly more willpower for those that are to just stop than it does for me to not have that chocolate bar at night.

There is a proportionality to it

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#138

Post by NoPicklez »

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #4

Why is TikTok always singled out in these social media addiction lawsuits? Instagram and YouTube are just as guilty, if not more so.

Because TikTok basically popularitised short form content, which is considered a more addictive form that what instagram and youtube does outside of their reels and shorts.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#139

Post by LoganDark »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #21

I 100% agree with the premise that TikTok is addictive and even dangerous to consume in large amounts (that's why I don't consume it at all). But I feel the exact same about cheeseburgers. Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting? Again, I get the danger here, and I don't like TikTok as a whole. I just don't really know where the line is between something that the parent is all…

> Should I be able to sue McDonalds if I let my kid eat 100 of them in one sitting?

Should you be able to sue McDonald's if they delivered you unlimited cheeseburgers for free, said nothing of the dangers, and even encouraged you to eat more, and then you became obese/sick from it? Sure, it may have been your choice to accept/eat them, but you did so uninformed, and based on false premises, and the risks were hidden from you, or even explicitly downplayed.

That's what social media is. It's free delivery of unlimited cheeseburgers, but for your brain.

In the above example, you were tempted with something that seemed good, but that carried great risks, to generate business for another who knew of the risks, but either didn't tell you, or even lied to you. When the risks backfire on you -- the risks they knew about from the very start -- or even have already been backfiring on you for a while, I think it's absolutely fair to blame that business for knowingly tempting you into it, and that it's also absolutely fair to seek damages. Proving those damages is another matter, but I think it's absolutely fair to try.

Re: TikTok settles just before social media addiction trial to begin

#140

Post by j45 »

Liftyee wrote: post #123

Fundamentally, I think having a source of "free dopamine" on tap is not going to do any good. If I can get distracted from my real world tasks anytime, anywhere, the immediate incentives to work on real things disappear. Effectively, one can get stuck in a local minimum. I don't know how to solve it, but personally I've chosen to block as many feeds/algorithms as I can, so I have to make a conscious decision to searc…

I was reading a few weeks ago that it's more about easy dopamine rather than free that is so incredibly destructive.

Scrolling for hits of satisfying novelty is a proposition that will not be sustainably met.

Part of me also wonders if things like this can be used for not so great things, can they be used for good things?

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