I read this micro essay by a guy called Ewen Bell over on Mastodon the other day: Videos yell at you. Photos invite you in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. The minimal presence of video on Mastodon is absolutely wonderful. When social media moved away from posting snapshots of moments, and
I run social media for an organisation I volunteer with, and I'm trying to find an 18 year old among our members to run our TikTok account. They're all obsessive consumers of TikTok, but run screaming at the thought of having to create videos.
Our 30 year old IT guy with ADHD is also an obsessive consumer of TikTok but was absolutely no use in trying to explain to a 46 year comms team leader (me) how the hell I was supposed to create content for this thing that will talk to the yoof. It left me feeling very old and out of touch 😭
i got a bit sucked in to watching reels on IG there for a while and saved the best ones. That small kid who tries wasabi and looks at the phone and says "help" in a very small voice is hilarious. But it was hard trying to train the algorithm to give me what i wanted - it kept trying to push bikini clad women until it finally flicks over to comedy that looks like it isnt just fake (it'll throw a thirst trap in there every now and again but they get short thrift and disappear again until normal programming of the short form funniest home videos re establish). Ultimately though - it just gets boring and i even picked up a book the other day. A book! i haven't had time for the printed word in ages (time will tell if this trend continues and i get to finish it)
Stuff that happens in "real time" is unbearably slow, except actual, face-to-face reality, and sometimes even then. Especially meetings. Reason why I generally avoid podcasts too. Just don't have the time. Text is great. Photos also good, especially if they're good. Tea and biscuits: meh. Time for more coffee.
but I agree it seems an accurate observation, though I would like to see some double blind experiments run across different cohorts based on age, socio-economic groups, ethnicities, gender and experience before confirming the hypothesis.
Because you really like rigorous and repeatable experiments?
Isn't the fact that both Facebook/Meta and Twitter (renowned attention thieves) are heavily promoting video, and that TikTok appears to be eating both of their lunches enough circumstantial evidence to be damning?
Have some friends from Cowaramup. My sis worked on a sheep station there yrs ago in an exchange . They have been over here a couple times so I picked up a few words. The first night my sis spent with em they asked if she got enough to eat . She’s said oh yeah I’m stuffed. Their son start laughing and they told her it has a different meaning in Australia. Lots of debates about who’s tougher Aussie rules footballers or American . Fantastic back and forth over a bunch of beers with nothing ever settled.
"but I never picked up the Tik Tok bug".... well that's the young'ns demographic lost to you then
I run social media for an organisation I volunteer with, and I'm trying to find an 18 year old among our members to run our TikTok account. They're all obsessive consumers of TikTok, but run screaming at the thought of having to create videos.
Our 30 year old IT guy with ADHD is also an obsessive consumer of TikTok but was absolutely no use in trying to explain to a 46 year comms team leader (me) how the hell I was supposed to create content for this thing that will talk to the yoof. It left me feeling very old and out of touch 😭
i got a bit sucked in to watching reels on IG there for a while and saved the best ones. That small kid who tries wasabi and looks at the phone and says "help" in a very small voice is hilarious. But it was hard trying to train the algorithm to give me what i wanted - it kept trying to push bikini clad women until it finally flicks over to comedy that looks like it isnt just fake (it'll throw a thirst trap in there every now and again but they get short thrift and disappear again until normal programming of the short form funniest home videos re establish). Ultimately though - it just gets boring and i even picked up a book the other day. A book! i haven't had time for the printed word in ages (time will tell if this trend continues and i get to finish it)
Stuff that happens in "real time" is unbearably slow, except actual, face-to-face reality, and sometimes even then. Especially meetings. Reason why I generally avoid podcasts too. Just don't have the time. Text is great. Photos also good, especially if they're good. Tea and biscuits: meh. Time for more coffee.
but I agree it seems an accurate observation, though I would like to see some double blind experiments run across different cohorts based on age, socio-economic groups, ethnicities, gender and experience before confirming the hypothesis.
Because you really like rigorous and repeatable experiments?
Isn't the fact that both Facebook/Meta and Twitter (renowned attention thieves) are heavily promoting video, and that TikTok appears to be eating both of their lunches enough circumstantial evidence to be damning?
I would certainly consider such a ringing endorsement.
I agree
Have some friends from Cowaramup. My sis worked on a sheep station there yrs ago in an exchange . They have been over here a couple times so I picked up a few words. The first night my sis spent with em they asked if she got enough to eat . She’s said oh yeah I’m stuffed. Their son start laughing and they told her it has a different meaning in Australia. Lots of debates about who’s tougher Aussie rules footballers or American . Fantastic back and forth over a bunch of beers with nothing ever settled.
I don't know why you're even debating???
Tik Tok, aka as "Data Harvesting AI create by the Chinese MSS. Age isn't the only reason not to use Tik Tok.