Earlier today I saw that Tik Tok has 2 billion monthly active users and the average user uses it for 100 minutes a day. The app is so addictive that I feel it’s not right to say the user using it every day for 100 minutes at a time is enjoying themselves. To me this doesn’t look like an organic expression of the youth’s desire to explore and create in ways different from precious generations.

1/4th of the humans in the world (many of them youth) are mindlessly scrolling short form content for almost 2 hours a day (and this is just Tik Tok). That’s a problem!

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teekert 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's indeed true, I share your concern, and I think most will call 2 hr/day rookie numbers. But there is also youth out there that do things differently. And (most) laws and understanding of the situation are changing for the better.

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ColdStream 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Based on that stat, if the average life time is 80 years, Tik tok burns up 4,800 lifetimes a day. (380,000 years) Ouch!

	▲	teekert 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But it's life-spent on what otherwise? I agree it's better spend creating and socializing, but will it be, if there was no tiktok? I guess socializing, yes.

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hhjinks 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Every generation has its own vilified time waster. Can I truthfully say that time spent on TikTok is worse than the 4+ hours a day I spent playing Skyrim in 2011?

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GPerson 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’d bet it is. Playing Skyrim involves a least some thinking from the player. Have you ever succumbed to a scrolling binge? It’s honestly painful. You just sit there for many hours in a row not feeling fulfilled by anything.

A better comparison in my opinion is to television of the 80s-90s. Though I do think longer form content is better for you.

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teekert 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or reading comics/watching TV in the 80s?

	▲	GPerson 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The average viewer only actually watches something like 10 seconds of every video. It’s not like in comics or TV where you actually follow a story, though tv binges did feel to me similar to scrolling short form content. The latter led to binging every time I used it and tv did not, however.