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I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked o

I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked on that crack, because they are burning their potential. It's scary, and if I had one far fetched easy theory to make, I'd say TikTok is a way for China to mitigate the threat coming from the west's upcoming generations, by ensuring their collective capabilities are as limited as possible. That theory doesn't stand though, as TikTok (Douyin) also operates in China. No kid is spared. But, two things: - What they collect is literally nothing special. Worse things happen, and have happened in mobile apps/mobile SDKs. (remember Onavo, acquired by Facebook? Way worse). What do we think Google and Apple know about our devices (Check Apple terms, it's good fun [0])? Isn't this again about the recurring fear/shock that a Chinese company should not hold data about western citizens? - the article isn't about how much TikTok can know by being in our phones, despite what most comments here imply. Instead, it's about how deeply TikTok taps in users minds by leveraging the unhealthy and addictive relationship we have with phones, acting as "prosthetic extension of our [my] corporeal being". > What matters is that we rely on these external tools in the way we rely on our brain; if those objects are similarly accessible, endorsed, and integrated into cognition, we should simply consider them part of the mind. [0] https://twitter.com/mysk_co/status/1589239911219331072 https://twitter.com/mysk_co/status/1589239911219331072

gherkinnn 4y ago
And I burned my potential hooked on Club Penguin and rottendotcom. Why else would I continue to argue with people online?
mrweasel 4y ago
> What they collect is literally nothing special. For the most part I agree, but it depends on the owner of the phone. Danish politicians have increasingly been using TikTok. It doesn't take a Chinese genius to correlate the location of two or more MPs during the current talks, regarding how to form the next government, to gain insights into how that could possibly pan out. They've basically stuffed a tracking device into the pockets of the most important politicians in the country and are now able to know when they meet.
- clement_b 4y ago
  Yes, true. I didn't think about that, but again, this isn't something new, relying on a more agressive than average tracking tech. West is just concerned about how it may be used. Strava was similarly dangerous at times [0]. The difference is that the west has a strong grasp on western companies and what they do with the data, but what prevents the US to use the location data from, say, key Twitter users in other countries? From my understanding, it's legally possible for the govt to access that data. No one (really) budges. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42853072.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42853072.amp
- sofixa 4y ago
  Isn't this one of the reasons why phone permissions (at least on Android) have the option to share location data with an app only when it's in use?
  - slashtab 4y ago
    I don't know for sure but sneaky apps stills gets the location data through scanning nearby devices, looking for nearby wifi addresses, bluetooth, network traingulation etc. Few of these doesn't give them the exact location but still if you're a person of interest thar may be enough to connect the dots.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > sneaky apps stills gets the location data through scanning nearby devices, looking for nearby wifi addresses, bluetooth, network traingulation All of those are also gated behind permissions like location, at least on Android.
RHSman2 4y ago
I interviewed for a data science product manager role (I am one) at a games company. They were doing very interesting things with generative models however the person running it’s speciality was a Phd in addiction (and plenty of work in the field) Was so interesting from an intellectual stand point but so very very evil.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  What was the company name?
  - RHSman2 4y ago
    Playtika
- machinekob 4y ago
  Sounds like EA but I'm not sure if you can even speak about that right now :D
  - RHSman2 4y ago
    I am in no way interested in not letting people know about this. It is outrageous. How to give the gift of dopamine no matter where you are in your gaming journey. Introduce ‘gifts’, monitor effect and then mass deploy. All using ML tools. Clever but oh so awful.
- xphx 4y ago
  A 2016 talk by Tribeflame CEO Torulf Jernström about the monetization of mobile games called "Let's Go Whaling!" also caused a bit of a ruffle a while ago. Ominously delivered with smug smirk, met by smug laughter: "I'll leave the morality of it out of the talk. We can discuss it, if we have time, later." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 Turns out they would have had time later but for some reason opted not to.
  - RHSman2 4y ago
MikePlacid 4y ago
> TikTok (Douyin) also operates in China. No kid is spared. Can’t vouch for the following observation, since I’ve never used either one, but: "In their version of TikTok, if you're under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos," said Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. "And they also limit it to only 40 minutes per day. Now they don't ship that version of TikTok to the rest of the world. So it's almost like they recognize that technology's influencing kids' development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world," https://thepostmillennial.com/tiktoks-chinese-platform-enriches-kids-while-us-version-dumbs-them-down-report https://thepostmillennial.com/tiktoks-chinese-platform-enric...
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  When have we ever expected companies to do the right thing? Governments are needed to come up with regulations for that, but restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies. So the otus is then on parents...
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies No. We have industry-voluntary schemes such as PEGI ratings, and most products have kid-friendly modes. Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime all have kid-specific modes, for example. They're selling to parents, and that's what parents want, so that's what they get. You're right that governments are needed to make regulations, but not that regulations are needed.
    - Arainach 4y ago
      Parents also want cheap gas and big engines that make them feel macho, and to be able to use hand me down car seats of dubious safety. Sometimes what's good for society takes precedence over what people want.
petesergeant 4y ago
> What they collect is literally nothing special I added my local pharmacist on WhatsApp once when I was waiting for an order to come in. Instagram is very keen for me to be his friend and frequently suggests him. He hasn’t posted anything, but I did look at who he follows, and it’s a collection of glamour models in skimpy clothing, which given the amount of Jesus paraphernalia in his store I’m not sure is something he particularly wants me to know. TikTok, which attempts to divine your interests by noticing how long you spend looking at certain videos, probably knows the sexuality of its users, and niche interests that may not be public knowledge — there is for sure a family-first politician somewhere who spends a little bit longer than they’d like you to know looking at young-looking topless guys. This information strikes me as “special”
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  > probably knows the sexuality of its users Nope, they think I prefer brunettes, while actually I’m an equal opportunity uhm.. watcher.
dagenix 4y ago
> I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I have lots of concerns about TikTok and refuse to use it myself. But this is ridiculous - and that upsets me quite a bit because is delegitimizes the actual problems with TikTok. TikTok will not lower anyone's IQ. This is straight up just old man yelling at cloud. And that does us all a disservice.
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  Previous generations spouted the same strawman about TV, and in general, all previous forms of media
  - bfgoodrich 4y ago
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    I am pretty damn sure if I didn't waste tons of time as a kid in front of TV and even more in front of computer playing highly addictive games my IQ score would be higher, I would have much wider breadth of knowledge and would be a more complete person. I caught up on that later on life, but no thanx to this addictive media, but rather by cutting them off and spending time better, much better. Let's not normalize addictions, human brains for some evolutionary reason we don't grok completely yet have this weakness, which was probably a strength in distant past. Have you seen many kids these days where parents don't curate their access to internet? My friend there is no big difference between rock-bottom heroin addict and them. Trying all kinds of mind tricks, extortion, fists, lying, stealing (devices) just to get more tiktok time, watch more streams, play more online games. It is a sad view, and normalizing it hurt those victims badly. My kiddos are too small for this (1 i almost and another a bit more than a year) but I can already see how addictive screens are to those, even if we play them old bedtime tales from youtube that we used to watch as kids. Now active screens are on completely different levels and kids have no way to defend themselves. Heck look at how many adults are addicted to that. Many even refuse to admit it, like word "addict" means failure, rock-bottom, needle sticking out of forehand instead of spectrum of impairments, ie higher restlessness, being more nervous etc. Just like sugar of nicotine withdrawals.
t20 4y ago
I made an account to reply to this. I don't think this is a China/TikTok issue but more an issue of how the west is treating its people. Sure, social media/TikTok shows impressionable people that you can earn a (good) living by making content (as does YouTube, Twitch, and OnlyFans). Still, western civilizations aren't offering an attractive alternative. Look at all the layoffs in tech and all the outsourcing that has happened with companies that earn record profits. If I were a young kid growing up now, seeing my parents getting laid off for no reason and switching jobs every few years/months, I'd think this might not be how I want to live my life. As a result, young people grow up chasing careers in content rather than science, infrastructure, tech, or health care because they now know that going down that path opens them up to massive vulnerabilities and possibly a low quality of life. After a couple of generations, there might not be enough people working in those necessary fields, which can hurt.
vagrantJin 4y ago
> I'd say TikTok is a way for China to mitigate the threat coming from the west's upcoming generations, by ensuring their collective capabilities are as limited as possible. I wonder how much the flavour of commentary would change if you swapped "China" with "Israel"...here comes the deep water.
huijzer 4y ago
> I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked on that crack, because they are burning their potential People in 1991 were complaining about the same with regards to newspapers (https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/10/why-the-news-makes-us-dumb https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/10/why-the-news-mak...) and you can probably find the same sentiment around the time that the first magazines were published around the 1740s (https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/poor-richards-almanack https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-tra...).

gherkinnn 4y ago

And I burned my potential hooked on Club Penguin and rottendotcom. Why else would I continue to argue with people online?

mrweasel 4y ago

> What they collect is literally nothing special. For the most part I agree, but it depends on the owner of the phone. Danish politicians have increasingly been using TikTok. It doesn't take a Chinese genius to correlate the location of two or more MPs during the current talks, regarding how to form the next government, to gain insights into how that could possibly pan out. They've basically stuffed a tracking device into the pockets of the most important politicians in the country and are now able to know when they meet.

clement_b 4y ago
Yes, true. I didn't think about that, but again, this isn't something new, relying on a more agressive than average tracking tech. West is just concerned about how it may be used. Strava was similarly dangerous at times [0]. The difference is that the west has a strong grasp on western companies and what they do with the data, but what prevents the US to use the location data from, say, key Twitter users in other countries? From my understanding, it's legally possible for the govt to access that data. No one (really) budges. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42853072.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42853072.amp
sofixa 4y ago
Isn't this one of the reasons why phone permissions (at least on Android) have the option to share location data with an app only when it's in use?
- slashtab 4y ago
  I don't know for sure but sneaky apps stills gets the location data through scanning nearby devices, looking for nearby wifi addresses, bluetooth, network traingulation etc. Few of these doesn't give them the exact location but still if you're a person of interest thar may be enough to connect the dots.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > sneaky apps stills gets the location data through scanning nearby devices, looking for nearby wifi addresses, bluetooth, network traingulation All of those are also gated behind permissions like location, at least on Android.

RHSman2 4y ago

I interviewed for a data science product manager role (I am one) at a games company. They were doing very interesting things with generative models however the person running it’s speciality was a Phd in addiction (and plenty of work in the field) Was so interesting from an intellectual stand point but so very very evil.

cinntaile 4y ago
What was the company name?
- RHSman2 4y ago
  Playtika
machinekob 4y ago
Sounds like EA but I'm not sure if you can even speak about that right now :D
- RHSman2 4y ago
  I am in no way interested in not letting people know about this. It is outrageous. How to give the gift of dopamine no matter where you are in your gaming journey. Introduce ‘gifts’, monitor effect and then mass deploy. All using ML tools. Clever but oh so awful.
xphx 4y ago
A 2016 talk by Tribeflame CEO Torulf Jernström about the monetization of mobile games called "Let's Go Whaling!" also caused a bit of a ruffle a while ago. Ominously delivered with smug smirk, met by smug laughter: "I'll leave the morality of it out of the talk. We can discuss it, if we have time, later." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 Turns out they would have had time later but for some reason opted not to.
- RHSman2 4y ago

MikePlacid 4y ago

> TikTok (Douyin) also operates in China. No kid is spared. Can’t vouch for the following observation, since I’ve never used either one, but: "In their version of TikTok, if you're under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos," said Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. "And they also limit it to only 40 minutes per day. Now they don't ship that version of TikTok to the rest of the world. So it's almost like they recognize that technology's influencing kids' development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world," https://thepostmillennial.com/tiktoks-chinese-platform-enriches-kids-while-us-version-dumbs-them-down-report https://thepostmillennial.com/tiktoks-chinese-platform-enric...

bakuninsbart 4y ago
When have we ever expected companies to do the right thing? Governments are needed to come up with regulations for that, but restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies. So the otus is then on parents...
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies No. We have industry-voluntary schemes such as PEGI ratings, and most products have kid-friendly modes. Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime all have kid-specific modes, for example. They're selling to parents, and that's what parents want, so that's what they get. You're right that governments are needed to make regulations, but not that regulations are needed.
  - Arainach 4y ago
    Parents also want cheap gas and big engines that make them feel macho, and to be able to use hand me down car seats of dubious safety. Sometimes what's good for society takes precedence over what people want.

petesergeant 4y ago

> What they collect is literally nothing special I added my local pharmacist on WhatsApp once when I was waiting for an order to come in. Instagram is very keen for me to be his friend and frequently suggests him. He hasn’t posted anything, but I did look at who he follows, and it’s a collection of glamour models in skimpy clothing, which given the amount of Jesus paraphernalia in his store I’m not sure is something he particularly wants me to know. TikTok, which attempts to divine your interests by noticing how long you spend looking at certain videos, probably knows the sexuality of its users, and niche interests that may not be public knowledge — there is for sure a family-first politician somewhere who spends a little bit longer than they’d like you to know looking at young-looking topless guys. This information strikes me as “special”

MikePlacid 4y ago
> probably knows the sexuality of its users Nope, they think I prefer brunettes, while actually I’m an equal opportunity uhm.. watcher.

dagenix 4y ago

> I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I have lots of concerns about TikTok and refuse to use it myself. But this is ridiculous - and that upsets me quite a bit because is delegitimizes the actual problems with TikTok. TikTok will not lower anyone's IQ. This is straight up just old man yelling at cloud. And that does us all a disservice.

was_a_dev 4y ago
Previous generations spouted the same strawman about TV, and in general, all previous forms of media
- bfgoodrich 4y ago
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  I am pretty damn sure if I didn't waste tons of time as a kid in front of TV and even more in front of computer playing highly addictive games my IQ score would be higher, I would have much wider breadth of knowledge and would be a more complete person. I caught up on that later on life, but no thanx to this addictive media, but rather by cutting them off and spending time better, much better. Let's not normalize addictions, human brains for some evolutionary reason we don't grok completely yet have this weakness, which was probably a strength in distant past. Have you seen many kids these days where parents don't curate their access to internet? My friend there is no big difference between rock-bottom heroin addict and them. Trying all kinds of mind tricks, extortion, fists, lying, stealing (devices) just to get more tiktok time, watch more streams, play more online games. It is a sad view, and normalizing it hurt those victims badly. My kiddos are too small for this (1 i almost and another a bit more than a year) but I can already see how addictive screens are to those, even if we play them old bedtime tales from youtube that we used to watch as kids. Now active screens are on completely different levels and kids have no way to defend themselves. Heck look at how many adults are addicted to that. Many even refuse to admit it, like word "addict" means failure, rock-bottom, needle sticking out of forehand instead of spectrum of impairments, ie higher restlessness, being more nervous etc. Just like sugar of nicotine withdrawals.

t20 4y ago

I made an account to reply to this. I don't think this is a China/TikTok issue but more an issue of how the west is treating its people. Sure, social media/TikTok shows impressionable people that you can earn a (good) living by making content (as does YouTube, Twitch, and OnlyFans). Still, western civilizations aren't offering an attractive alternative. Look at all the layoffs in tech and all the outsourcing that has happened with companies that earn record profits. If I were a young kid growing up now, seeing my parents getting laid off for no reason and switching jobs every few years/months, I'd think this might not be how I want to live my life. As a result, young people grow up chasing careers in content rather than science, infrastructure, tech, or health care because they now know that going down that path opens them up to massive vulnerabilities and possibly a low quality of life. After a couple of generations, there might not be enough people working in those necessary fields, which can hurt.

vagrantJin 4y ago

> I'd say TikTok is a way for China to mitigate the threat coming from the west's upcoming generations, by ensuring their collective capabilities are as limited as possible. I wonder how much the flavour of commentary would change if you swapped "China" with "Israel"...here comes the deep water.

huijzer 4y ago

> I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked on that crack, because they are burning their potential People in 1991 were complaining about the same with regards to newspapers (https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/10/why-the-news-makes-us-dumb https://www.firstthings.com/article/1991/10/why-the-news-mak...) and you can probably find the same sentiment around the time that the first magazines were published around the 1740s (https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/poor-richards-almanack https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-tra...).