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TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

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Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#41

I'm finally in a place where the only website I religiously check is HN. Because of it's nature, for me, it never takes up more than a few minutes every couple of hours. It took hard work to get there. I use Nextdns to block domains of websites and apps when I realize I spend too much time on them. Could I just allowlist domains, sure, and sometimes I do that when I need to look at something on Reddit for instance. B…

Damn man, I was just thinking about how annoying it is that I can't find anything fun to do on my phone. I just check HackerNews and painstakingly slowly type comments in on here at 20 WPM. I can get a tiny glance at the world news through news.google, but that site gets worse every time I load it up. I tried paying for Apple News, but it was all low-quality clickbait. What were some of the things you had to wean you…

Regarding books, most of the books I read recently came from Reddit on /r/suggestmeabook - I am lazy, I just search for “page turner” on the sub, but I also like browsing and seeing people asking for subjects I wouldn’t have thought of.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel completely the opposite. HN has become quite an echo-chamber. Diverse views are not celebrated and encouraged. I usually and deliberately poke popular opinions to get a good discussion out of it and it has been disappointing.

>> I usually and deliberately poke popular opinions to get a good discussion out of it and it has been disappointing. Perhaps it's apparent on some level to your audience that you're doing this to raise some sort response, not because you have a strong affinity for a particular position? The last thing I want to do is gorge on the junkfood emotion of false outrage.

We can use above comment as an example. I disagree with GP, my experience has been totally opposite lately on HN. That's genuine and not trying to evoke rage or what-have-you. Sometimes, I poke to see what the opposing views are. X is all the rage right now. So, if there is a thread about it, I'll ask or point to all the ways you can shoot yourself in the foot with X.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#43

I'm flabbergasted by the appeal Tiktok apparently has over the average Joe. I can't stand it. Vertical videos, combined with the exact duration of a short term memory loss affected person's attention span, make me want to throw my eyes into a furnace. I block Youtube shorts for this same stupid reason, even great channels can't resist Google's whip "incentivizing" them to make these AMAZING short vertical pieces of s…

I am wholly amused by the fact that you write your disappointment in a comment that is consumable faster than a TikTok video.

The same goes for the person replying to your comment sharing in your flabbergast.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#44

I'm flabbergasted by the appeal Tiktok apparently has over the average Joe. I can't stand it. Vertical videos, combined with the exact duration of a short term memory loss affected person's attention span, make me want to throw my eyes into a furnace. I block Youtube shorts for this same stupid reason, even great channels can't resist Google's whip "incentivizing" them to make these AMAZING short vertical pieces of s…

The popularity does not surprise me considering the popularity of reality tv shows.

It seems completely alien to me to watch a scripted show that pretends to be real, and enjoy it. But people eat it up.

And people eat up all the fake stuff in TikTok.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#45

TikTok Android data collected: https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.zhiliao... - Location - Personal info: Name, Email, User IDs, Address, Phone Number - Financial info: User payment info, purchase history, other financial info - Messages: Other in-app messages - Photos & Videos - Audio voice & sound recordings - Contacts - App activity: App interactions, in-app search history, other user generated co…

What purchases, from what source? Same with financial information.

Contact info and contacts, only if you allow it?

User content, what does that even mean?

Search and browsing history is likely just from within the app, I don't see how they would get it from elsewhere.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#47

I'm finally in a place where the only website I religiously check is HN. Because of it's nature, for me, it never takes up more than a few minutes every couple of hours. It took hard work to get there. I use Nextdns to block domains of websites and apps when I realize I spend too much time on them. Could I just allowlist domains, sure, and sometimes I do that when I need to look at something on Reddit for instance. B…

I killed off Facebook and Twitter years ago, but opted out of the news for the most part when the pandemic kicked off.

I don't really intend to go back.

I skim enough to get a grasp of what's going on about once or twice a day (a la reading the evening paper of yore) but tend to stick to aggregated/curated sources and investigate personal curiosity rather than succumbing to salaciousness and surface-deep echo chambered "news" content about some dumb tweet from some misguided soul.

I am a lighter man, but part of me began to wonder what the cost was: will society pass me by? The longer I have spent operating in this fashion, the less I care.

I find I have so much more empathy, especially for my kids & wife. It has truly given me a fresh outlook, and allowed me to focus on spending my time in ways I actually value.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#48

I'm finally in a place where the only website I religiously check is HN. Because of it's nature, for me, it never takes up more than a few minutes every couple of hours. It took hard work to get there. I use Nextdns to block domains of websites and apps when I realize I spend too much time on them. Could I just allowlist domains, sure, and sometimes I do that when I need to look at something on Reddit for instance. B…

After realizing that HN can be a rather challenging place (highlighted in the shocking moderation of the Queen E death announcement thread), I actually took a substantial break from HN. And it made me quite a bit happier. I recommend you make your own HN with RSS. It is substantially better that way. You won't be at the mercy of one moderators personal belief system and your 'main page' will hopefully better reflect your interests.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#49

I'm finally in a place where the only website I religiously check is HN. Because of it's nature, for me, it never takes up more than a few minutes every couple of hours. It took hard work to get there. I use Nextdns to block domains of websites and apps when I realize I spend too much time on them. Could I just allowlist domains, sure, and sometimes I do that when I need to look at something on Reddit for instance. B…

Damn man, I was just thinking about how annoying it is that I can't find anything fun to do on my phone. I just check HackerNews and painstakingly slowly type comments in on here at 20 WPM. I can get a tiny glance at the world news through news.google, but that site gets worse every time I load it up. I tried paying for Apple News, but it was all low-quality clickbait. What were some of the things you had to wean you…

For games, I recommend small puzzle games. Microsoft freecell/solitaire. Match 3 games. There's some good ones, but you want the ones that really lean into being a mobile game and is not just a poor version of a full game (e.g. diablo immortal)

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#50
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Diverse views are not celebrated and encouraged. Can you elaborate? Are they downvoted, or just not presented in the first place?

Yea sure. I won't give specific examples, otherwise the discussion will get derailed into bickering about extreme specifics to overthrow overall argument. Try to see which comments are flagged and analyze why should they be flagged because of politics, spam, rudeness, ideology, not-factual, bigotry, etc. I'd say a significant portion of them are completely legitimate or interesting, just doesn't fit the ideology/poli…

> I won't give specific examples

That's too bad! I usually find honing in on specific examples as the most effective way to explore a topic. But I understand the possibility that it could take the conversation down a rabbit hole.

> I'd say a significant portion of them are completely legitimate or interesting, just doesn't fit the ideology/politics here

I've yet to come across many flagged comments (or had any of my own flagged) but this feels like a strange motivation on its own. I feel like flagging should be reserved for comments that break the site guidelines?

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