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What's up, everybody? Michael here.
I don't know about you,
but in this chaotic world, I've found there's no better cure
for ongoing feelings of dread than,
no, not a carton of Cherry Garcia,
but some dopamine-inducing videos
of people acting like dogs.
I'm talking about TikTok.
As of last year, the app had 1 billion active users,
making it one of the largest and fastest growing
social media platforms.
But as the app and its algorithm become more ubiquitous,
we're learning in real time how it's affecting our society
and even our brains.
And some worry it's doing so for the worst.
- Who created the air fryer?
Really?
Really, because I can't do it anymore.
- Are these concerns legit or a tad overblown?
Let's find out in this Wisecrack edition,
is TikTok evil?
But before we dive in,
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And now, back to the show.
There's a lot of debate about whether TikTok
is a societal good or a societal evil.
On the downside,
it's been shown to increase anxiety, depression,
and body image issues.
And though, I don't know, it also allows a Chinese company
to collect your personal data and possibly
maybe collude with the Chinese government for funds,
censorship, or propaganda reasons,
then again, Facebook misinformation played a key role
in influencing elections, but Hey, who's keeping score?
But TikTok, isn't all bad.
It's great for making friends
and expanding your community of people with a niche interest
like a Midwest mom cooking hacks.
Plus, it's an accessible creative outlet
that's super entertaining.
- [Woman] Look at the butterfly.
- That was stupid.
- [Micheal] I mean, where else could you see this?
(dramatic music)
Or this?
- I added these tassels to it,
and our lives have never been the same.
- Or this?
(bouncy music)
I could go on for literal hours, but I'll stop now.
And it's this level of addiction that sets TikTok apart
from other social media platforms.
TikTok has a top-of-the-line algorithm
that consistently gives you what you want.
This never-ending quest for dopamine
is what some researchers now refer to as TikTok brain.
(dramatic music)
And parents and experts are worried
about the impact it has on kids' shrinking attention spans.
TikTok hasn't been around long enough
for researchers to discern whether it permanently alters
or damages kids' brains, but we couldn't help but notice
these concerns are reminiscent of debates
over whether violent video games cause increased aggression
or whether heavy metal gives you an unquenchable thirst
for goat blood.
So is it possible we're projecting
our deeply embedded societal fears onto TikTok?
Odds are yes.
Fear almost always rides on the coattails of new technology.
For example, Plato and Socrates
both believed writing would destroy the oral tradition
and make everyone forgetful.
When trains were first invented,
everyone thought centrifugal force
would make women's uterus fly out.
They didn't do that.
And in the late 19th century,
experts warned that riding a bicycle could result
in bicycle face, a condition where your face
would permanently look blown back by a mighty wind.
There was even a CNN article published in 2005
that said email hurt the IQ more than marijuana.
These hypotheses all beg the question.
Why are we so freaked out by technology?
And is TikTok the latest centrifugal uterus ejecting force
in human development?
Prior to the 18th century,
science and technology were separate
non-threatening entities.
Science was mostly based in heady theories
while technology was composed of skills
passed down through the generations
like blacksmithing or cobbling.
Then in a classic romcom meet cute scenario,
18th century scientists, Priestley and Lavoisier,
introduced these fields to each other
via chemical discoveries
that led to large scale electricity.
Just like that, science had practical applications
and technology had a role in scientific progress.
They completed each other.
By the beginning of the 19th century,
everyone was hyped on this new technology thing.
Scientists and craftsman intersected to create the engineer
and the world seemed full of possibilities.
Flying machines, submarines,
and the ability to talk to the dead
were surely just around the corner, right?
Technology transformed into a chiral
for the human condition, society, and the world,
which is exactly how I used to feel about improv.
Yes, and much like improv,
the movement picked up cult level enthusiasm.
It became known as positivism.
Auguste Comte, a French philosopher and positivist,
dreamed of a utopian society
where all the best scientists were in power
and that they unified everyone
through scientific and political progress.
If that were true today,
we'd be reciting the scientific method
instead of the pledge of allegiance,
which when I really think about it, wouldn't be so bad.
Unfortunately, before this utopia could take shape,
people's enthusiasm and excitement for technology
took a turn for the worse.
The start of the Industrial Revolution
kicked off a rise in collective tech anxiety.
The landscape of people's lives,
literally and figuratively, seemed to transform overnight.
The new bourgeois emerged,
and as they profited off new technologies,
they didn't promote peace, fairness, and equality
like people expected.
Instead, they scooped up their money without regard
for how it affected people around them.
Meanwhile, workers were afraid of losing their jobs
to machines and didn't have any social protections
if that did happen.
People's anxiety over tech
boiled down to three big questions.
One, could technology be destructive
in the hands of the wrong people?
Two, could this power make humans into gods?
And three, could humans be automated out of a job
or purpose?
Then a couple of world wars came around,
you may have heard of them,
and answered those first two questions
with a resounding yes.
It became crystal clear that humans could
and would use science and technology
to kill millions of people.
While the rise of the internet in Silicon Valley
revived a vision of technological utopia,
anxiety surrounding tech would never vanish completely.
Something about lightning fast innovation
continues to freak a lot of us out.
Philosophers included, Martin Heidegger,
a German philosopher who we must note was in the Nazi Party,
was one of the first thinkers to associate technology
with the devastation of humanity's desire
for truth and meaning.
Heidegger theorized that technology pulls us away
from the true meaning of human existence,
which he called dasein,
which describes our way of being in the world,
always marked by the fact that our being is oriented
towards our inevitable finitude, i.e. our death.
In other words,
Heidegger thought that when we stop looking for meaning
and things like art and poetry
and instead rely on technology to make sense of the world,
things start to have a primarily instrumental value.
The next generation of German philosophers
doubled down on this idea.
The Frankfurt School theorized
that post-war capitalist societies
could become a kind of invisible totalitarianism
founded on the domination of technology-fueled consumerism.
People would slowly lose their willpower
and be controlled through the manipulation of their desires.
You know, like how TikTok does.
Jurgen Habermas,
one of the last living members at the Frankfurt School,
believed technology has its own logic
and threatens to destroy not only politics,
culture, and human life, but the world.
Because, again, technology can pull us away
from both the essence of our human subjectivity
and our desire to find meaning
beyond profit and productivity.
But as it turns out,
technology hasn't destroyed everything yet,
except for my relationship with my uncle Rob
after he kept posting on Facebook.
We can now communicate with far-flowing friends and family
more easily than ever before, which is rad, again,
except for with my uncle Rob.
we can have a lifesaving bacon, egg, and cheese
sent to our homes with the tap of a button
As we ride in bed hungover.
Hell, you can even get a pacemaker
that tracks your cardiac health
and sends potentially life saving status updates
to your doctor.
But in spite of countless net positive developments,
new innovations like TikTok can still freak us out.
And the anxiety around tech is alive and well.
And some of this is valid.
For one, social media and other database innovations
collect, circulate, share, and profit off of our data
on a global level.
It's scary when our personal data is used
for purposes outside of our control.
It's double scary when TikTok's algorithm
can so accurately predict and control our behavior.
If technology can make us watch cat videos for hours,
what's to stop it from taking over our lives completely?
And what happens when the videos it serves us
aren't just fun time wasters,
but less fun conspiracy theories?
Now, obviously, misinformation clogs up
every social media platform
as the Uncle robs of the Facebook world
unite to convince you that there's now a microchip
in your happily vaccinated arm.
but journalist and author, Chris Stokel-Walker
argues that TikTok's algorithm,
coupled with the immediacy of its format,
makes it especially right for misinformation.
He writes, "Emotive videos can cause people to overlook
whether or not information is legitimate."
This can have real consequences.
Analysis for media from NewsGuard
determined that misinformation about COVID
reached a staggering eight out of nine children
after just 35 minutes on the app.
Many adults are concerned in particular
about potentially misleading videos
on what's known as therapy tok.
This is a trend in which Gen Z's
self-diagnosis mental disorders,
after watching influencer's videos
chronicling their own struggles.
Experts are split on whether this is good or bad.
On the one hand,
influencers help normalize discussions around mental health,
but on the other, misdiagnosing mental health issues
can have serious consequences.
To say nothing about the apps
that are making it easier than ever for young people
to get psych meds,
they may or may not need sent directly to their homes.
However, what's at the crux of this issue
is our very human tendency to trust popular people,
even if they have no idea what they're talking about.
Historically, the most popular people around
have been celebrities,
and the masses have loved following their examples.
Whether they're channeling their inner Lord Byrons
with roughly shirts, raising AIDS awareness
like Bono and Angelina Jolie, or drinking high-end tequila
because George Clooney and his buddies make it.
But celebrity influence can also backfire.
Remember Jenny McCarthy?
Well, back in 2005, she used her expertise as a parent
to widely propagate the idea
that the MMR vaccine caused her son's autism.
Even today, you might have noticed that many Americans
still aren't sure about vaccines.
But whether you're turning to Tom Brady
for nutritional advice, JLo for her hair care routine,
or buying a Subway foot long
because Steph Curry told you to,
at the end of the day, celebrities,
they're just like us is a punchline for a reason.
They are not like us.
So where does a feeling of true trust and kinship exist
in today's media landscape?
TikTok, of course, where folks who are just like you
are able to have a celebrity-like influence
just by virtue of being themselves.
As you take in the sheer volume of content
from your favorite creators, it's easy to form what's called
a parasocial relationship with them,
i.e. one in which you feel like
you already know that person in real life,
even though they have no idea you exist.
What's more, scholars Bhandari and Bimo
suggested in their analysis of TikTok
that in contrast to other social media platforms,
"The crux of interaction is not between users
and their social network, but between a user in what we call
an algorithmized version of self."
So essentially,
TikTok compounds these parasocial relationships
with such algorithmic precision,
but not only are you looking at your favorite creator,
but it also feels like you're looking into a mirror
at yourself.
You might be asking yourself,
"Why are we, as a human race,
predisposed to listening to celebrities and influencers
instead of qualified experts?"
Well, there are evolutionary and psychological reasons
behind why we trust who we trust.
As far as influencers are concerned,
we often fall victim to prestige, biased, social learning.
In basic terms, this is the tendency to trust
and learn from people who have gained attention,
respect, and admiration for success in a particular domain.
In this case, TikTok subscribers and views.
This adaptive social learning strategy
developed as a shortcut to identifying group members
who are thriving without needing to assess
a 16-year-old superstar's individual merits.
So is potentially harmful and dangerous misinformation
being spread on TikTok?
Absolutely.
But again, this isn't unique to TikTok.
And Gen Z's reliance on therapy tok for advice and guidance
isn't what's standing in the way
of them seeking mental healthcare.
As many have pointed out,
inaccessibility to mental healthcare
is what drives young people to therapy tok for answers
in the first place.
So far, TikTok doesn't seem particularly evil,
but what about TikTok sides,
AKA little niche communities or echo chambers on the app?
Could these result in greater political polarization?
Not really.
Ironically, political polarization
currently occurs most in generations
that use social media the least, AKA the olds.
Plus, political polarization has been growing in the US
since the 1970s,
long before Noodles ever had a no bones day.
But hey, it's a lot easier to blame TikTok
than to address the real problems behind polarization
like growing income equality lack of access to education,
resistance to multiculturalism and globalization,
stagnant wages, and Taco Bell continuing to tease us
with the return of the Mexican pizza.
So then TikTok could and probably does cause polarization,
but it's probably not the main culprit.
In other words, human behavior may be to blame
and that makes us uncomfortable,
so we use TikTok as a scapegoat for serious societal issues.
For example, there are lots of studies floating around
arguing that social media increases anxiety, depression,
and poor self-esteem.
The problem is many of those are correlational.
Researchers sort people into two groups;
people who consume TikTok
and people who suffer from anxiety and depression.
Then they check the Venn diagram to see who's at the center.
If it's enough people, eureka,
TikTok must cause all sorts of mental illnesses.
Yeah, but not really.
Correlational studies only tell us
these two groups are interconnected.
They don't tell us whether TikTok or depression
is the chicken or the egg,
but longitudinal studies on social media do.
These aren't as common because longitudinal studies
take more time and money,
and unless you're Santa Claus, it's not exactly cheap
to track thousands of kids over the years.
However, researchers from Brigham Young University,
Finland and Canada,
were able to secure the funding for this very purpose
and found no true correlation
between social media and anxiety and depression.
Conversely, German and Canadian studies
found depressed and or anxious people
were more likely to use social media,
and that depressive symptoms could even predict
social media usage.
This could indicate
that people dealing with mental illnesses
might be drawn to the hyper stimulation, dopamine rewards,
and so on that social media facilitates.
All of this strongly suggests that our society's anxiety
and depression is the chicken and social media is the egg.
So yes,
TikTok is absolutely changing the social media landscape,
but it's not fundamentally changing us.
In a tale as old as time, we've hyper-focused on technology
and ignored the power of our own psychology.
To be clear, we're not trying to say that TikTok
is a societal good.
As we discussed in our previous episode
on Elon's potential acquisition of Twitter,
calling platforms good or bad is kind of missing the point.
TikTok is used by influencers and wanna-be influencers.
It's used by nurses, teachers, and therapists.
It's also used by, say, radical extremists.
However, the knee jerk reaction to judge it
as inherently evil or dangerous is misguided.
A more apt description might be TikTok is chaotic neutral.
The reality is that TikTok is a free product
whose chief source of income is ad revenue.
And the only way to increase that income
is to keep people on the app for as long as possible.
Our attention is a valuable resource
and boy, oh boy, is it in demand.
In this new attention economy,
focus is our scarcest and most valuable resource.
So how do we keep social media companies like TikTok
from stealing it right out of our time wallets?
Author Mark Manson proposes an attention diet
where we identify worthwhile information in relationships,
cut out the junk, and cultivate habits
that foster deeper focus and longer attention spans.
The goal is to focus on what adds value to your life
by being more intentional
about what we consume on social media
and how long we spend there.
This is obviously easier said than done.
But maybe, just maybe, if we can build our mental fortitude
like we build our imaginary investment portfolios,
we might just be able to beat the algorithm after all.
But what do you guys think?
Can we win our attention back
from the world's most effective algorithm?
Do we even want our attention back
if it means being bored as?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
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