TikTok bills itself as “the last sunny corner of the internet”
But many people see a dark side.
Beneath the app’s surface lies incredibly advanced artificial
intelligence that has learned what people like with stunning impact.
TikTok signed up 1 billion users in half the time it took Facebook.
Facebook launched in 2004 and hit 1 billion users in 2012, so took 8 years). TikTok, launched in
2016, reached the milestone in just five years, in 2021 - can we show this on-screen simply?
The West has always accused China of copying technological advances, but now,
Silicon Valley is rushing to mimic the Chinese app.
In response to TikTok’s short video format, YouTube
introduced Shorts. And Instagram released Reels.
Unlike Instagram, where your feed consists of photos and videos from people you follow,
TikTok relies on a strategy of recommendations first.
You find yourself watching videos from people you never chose to watch, who you don’t follow.
It’s what TikTok believes will most appeal to you.
Imagine the effect of binging on an endless stream of 15 or 30-second videos…for an
hour and a half a day - the average amount of time users spend on TikTok.
That dopamine rush is addictive.
And, a study from the Technical University of Denmark found that the constant stream
of information from social media can shorten our attention span over time.
“...and that this effect occurs - not only on social media - but also across
diverse domains including books, web searches, movie popularity, and more.”
In other words, a shorter attention span impacts every aspect of your life.
When was the last time you sat through an entire movie at home?
Can you even bear to watch older movies that are slower paced?
No Mr. Matuschek, it’s not for us.
Or worse: what happens when our society is filled with people who lack the focus to
think things through over long periods or complete projects that take a lot of time?
In the way that TV news in the seventies shortened reports to 1 minute 30 seconds
to keep the attention of the television audience,
TikTok is now shortening our attention span from minutes to seconds.
Anything longer isn’t worth our time, unless we’re really, really interested in the subject matter.
Does a 30-minute YouTube video now feel like an unbearably long documentary?
Our addiction to the screen is literally damaging our brains.
Multiple studies have shown that those addicted to gaming and the
internet have a reduced volume of gray matter in their brain.
Gray matter has a large number of neurons present,
which allows it to process information in the brain.
So, spending too much time on your phone is literally causing your brain tissue to atrophy.
Much of the damage occurs in the frontal lobe - the area
that largely determines success in life - be it academics, career, or relationships.
Then there’s the issue of the quality of the videos you’re watching.
There’s been a lot of talk lately that TikTok in the US is different
from the version shown in China, where TikTok is known as Douyin.
A user wrote on Quora that his TikTok feed “is filled with teenagers doing stupid things.”
Whereas his Douyin feed is “filled with self-improvement, photography, travel,
calligraphy, life hacks, trivia, interesting new products, and of course, cute dog/cat videos.”
By the way, in China, those aged 14 and under are limited to using Douyin
for 40 minutes a day and are blocked from using it between 10 pm to 6 am.
The differences between the two TikToks is stark,
as social media expert Tristan Harris told 60 Minutes.
“...they make their domestic version a spinach version of
TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world.”
Perhaps that speaks to the difference in career aspirations of Chinese and American children.
In China, most kids dream of becoming an astronaut.
In America, most kids aspire to be social media influencers.
Toward the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, he tried and failed to ban TikTok in the U.S. or
force the Beijing company that owns it, ByteDance, to sell TikTok’s American arm to a domestic owner.
The most frequent criticism of TikTok is privacy issues.
China can demand whatever information it likes from companies based in its country.
A damning report from BuzzFeed in June 2022 claimed “U.S. user
data was repeatedly accessed from (TikTok staff in) China”
TikTok has always insisted that information from the U.S. is stored in the U.S,
which right now is on the servers of American company Oracle.
And at a recent New York Times event, its CEO denied handing over Americans’ data to China.
No foreign government has asked us for U.S. data before,
really they haven’t, and if they did, we would say no.
But Washington isn’t buying it. In December,
lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would ban
TikTok in the U.S. after the FBI warned it could be used by China for spying.
The Senate has voted to ban TikTok from all government-issued phones. As of this video,
TikTok is growing exponentially.
It was the most downloaded app in 2021 and remains on top in 2022.
Although it may have started off as a dancing app,
it is increasingly becoming a news source for Gen Z.
Like during Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
My dog stepped on a bee
Newsthink does have a TikTok account,
where I hope to educate and enlighten people…in a short span of time.
But…it’s exactly that short span of time that’s problematic.
We constantly crave more and more information in less and less time.
And THAT may one day, spell disaster.
TikTok is slowly becoming a news source.
There’s a lot of news these days about climate change.
It will take a lot to end the crisis. And one
company is trying to tackle it simply and effectively.
Wren is a website and app that makes it easy for you to calculate your carbon footprint.
By answering a few questions about your lifestyle,
you can discover your carbon footprint and how to reduce it.
You can make a monthly contribution. This will go toward projects like this one which provides clean
cooking fuel to refugees in Uganda. You’ll receive monthly updates on the projects you support.
Since Wrench launched in 2019, they’ve sent over $1 million in funding to projects
planting trees, protecting rainforests, and otherwise fighting the climate crisis.
You can offset your carbon footprint today on Wren by
signing up with the custom link in my description.
The first 100 people who sign up will have 10 extra trees planted in their name.
Thanks for watching. For Newsthink, I'm Cindy Pom.