It's not surprising that TikTok is this damaging--YT Shorts, IG Reels, Twitter's auto play video feature after finishing any video clip originally embedded on a post are all lumped into that for my anecdote here.
Throughout the past four years or so, as more of my friends (all range 22-35) in my wider social bubble have started consuming shortform content in general, I've noticed that I'm unable to hold a conversation without my friends making reference to some obscure shortform video they saw.
It's fine, I don't think thats the crux of the issue I'm griping about. Reverberating things recently-seen is common in all conversations--I'd be a hypocrite to say I don't do the same. The only shortform content I consume are things only sent to me by my friends who would think I would enjoy it--most of which I do, but I leave my consumption at that. Having my social sphere as a filter in which I consume that stuff is the best way to keep it at arms length, at the expense of knowing everyone around you scrolls endlessly and deeper into it.
What's really the issue is when your friends are unable to talk about anything without prefacing that what I've said reminds them of something they saw, or reciting an opinion of someone else without actually forming their own. I'm seeing my creative friends drop their hobbies because they feel like they have no time for it anymore when they don't realize how much time they waste scrolling. While I'm in between tech jobs amongst the chaos of the market right now and moving across the country, two of my closest friends that I'm happy to be working with as they referred me this nice warehouse job alongside them, do nothing but scroll youtube shorts in between our tasks at the office and it's mind numbing and just sad to see. When I met them nearly a decade ago, they were making music and learning new ways to make art and perform, now it's just tiktok slop and memes and bottom of the barrel stuff.
I'm just one of two friends out here spurring them to make art again in an environment that is robbing people of their creative thinking, they're having a hard time finding how to even get into that flow state of creativity again. I can't imaging what that's going to do to children who want to scroll and never play.
Throughout the past four years or so, as more of my friends (all range 22-35) in my wider social bubble have started consuming shortform content in general, I've noticed that I'm unable to hold a conversation without my friends making reference to some obscure shortform video they saw.
It's fine, I don't think thats the crux of the issue I'm griping about. Reverberating things recently-seen is common in all conversations--I'd be a hypocrite to say I don't do the same. The only shortform content I consume are things only sent to me by my friends who would think I would enjoy it--most of which I do, but I leave my consumption at that. Having my social sphere as a filter in which I consume that stuff is the best way to keep it at arms length, at the expense of knowing everyone around you scrolls endlessly and deeper into it.
What's really the issue is when your friends are unable to talk about anything without prefacing that what I've said reminds them of something they saw, or reciting an opinion of someone else without actually forming their own. I'm seeing my creative friends drop their hobbies because they feel like they have no time for it anymore when they don't realize how much time they waste scrolling. While I'm in between tech jobs amongst the chaos of the market right now and moving across the country, two of my closest friends that I'm happy to be working with as they referred me this nice warehouse job alongside them, do nothing but scroll youtube shorts in between our tasks at the office and it's mind numbing and just sad to see. When I met them nearly a decade ago, they were making music and learning new ways to make art and perform, now it's just tiktok slop and memes and bottom of the barrel stuff.
I'm just one of two friends out here spurring them to make art again in an environment that is robbing people of their creative thinking, they're having a hard time finding how to even get into that flow state of creativity again. I can't imaging what that's going to do to children who want to scroll and never play.