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Comment by SamuelAdams | Hacker News Reader

> Ask a tik tok user to tell you even 10% of the videos they saw within the last hour. I'd be surprised if they could.

Heck you could ask the same for any HN user as well :)

Yes this is social media. Yes some of it is mindless time wasting. For me personally I sometimes get useful information that helps improve my work / profession. At least that’s how I justify it.

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Haha, true! Tbh tho I usually only click on a few of the posts on here, the one's that interest me. The signal to noise ratio just seems awful on tiktok, marginally better on reddit and HN. There you can scan the page and see what interests you. On these new "endless scroll" types you have to at least invest a few seconds time into each video. Say you skip ~10 videos, that's ~10 seconds to just find a 10 second video you wish to watch.

At the very least I think we have to admit a 15 min session on HN will be more productive, memorable and engaging than 15 minutes on tiktok. Again, if your goal is mindless scroll, I get it, I do it too... but still, lol

Not to get all high and mighty but I dunno, I guess I see it like alcohol. A little is fine but I can't imagine a barrage of second-sized content being optimized to perfection (to keep you scrolling) is a "good" thing for any long period of time.

Other humans often perceive updates on their friends, family, and connected entities as much more valuable than the discussion we are having. The most important rule for HN is that this forum and the people on it are not representative of the general population.

For sure... but I wonder just how many people are actually doing that vs mindless scrolling, even on FB.

Especially when it seems these companies are doing everything they can to emulate tiktok.

Again, people can value even mindless scrolling for 6 hours a day. My OP was more about how not even 10 years ago, having quick and mindless content spoon-fed to you was seen as a satirical exaggeration of future humans. We're much closer to that now than we were 10 years ago.

That picture gets distorted quickly, as people have 200 "friends" on social media, most of whom share a rather filtered and polished image of themselves online. People in many cases don't really get an accurat idea.

Yep. Pulling a number out of thin air, I'd be shocked if even 10% of people use facebook in the "keep up with friends and family" way.

And that is fine. But that's what there's much fewer on Tiktok than on other social media

In fact tiktok sounds like an endless "$Country's got talent" show, and not a spontaneous stream of posts

> Heck you could ask the same for any HN user as well

I remember reading some article about the sunset of social media and TikTok and Facebook and stuff.

Link?

of course you compare HN somewhat in jest (I think), but HN is also generally long-form content that doesn't just slip in and out of your head in 15 seconds. additionally I remember it better because it's written down

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