Avoiding TikTok is discipline.
I didn’t have many channels growing up. DirectTV, Comcast, who knows what we had. I remember a black cable box with red alarm clock font, the focal point of the television series, 24. I’m 29 yet still haven’t seen it. My dad, a man who could laugh at the most inappropriate times, enjoyed Comedy Central for a brief time back then. 64 was Cartoon Network for a bit.
One thing I remember well. Channel surfing. We had an old CRTV at a point, a massive Sanyo model. When it was on, you could hold your hand near the surface of the screen and feel static. Channels you didn’t have were a black and white scramble, like composition notebook covers or that one clip of the skirmish by the docks. A guy actually dove in the water and swam to join in.
Flipping channels would cut for a second to the scramble, and a unique sound followed with it. The crash of a tidal wave interrupted, each flip of the channel required verification by the cable company against your list of paid-for channels. At first, I think we had all the channels given to us by the cable guy. Someone was worried about paying for cable packages, so we mentioned the fact to the company. Then, they made sure we didn’t have it anymore since we weren’t paying for it. Honesty, my favorite policy.
If you flipped channels consecutively, crashing waves cut between hiccups of Magic Jack infomercials, Empire Today jingles, reruns of The Days of Our Lives. My father made a point to explain that behavior wasn’t encouraged. Pick something you want to see and navigate. Surfing was disruptive, I couldn’t argue.
Channel surfing wears down the mind, because each switch cuts hard from the last to the next. Unlike the cable box, the mind cannot handle the sheer number of channels.
Avoiding TikTok is discipline. Today, everyone has a portable computer in hand. It’s also a phone. Its Retina display makes it one of the best TV screens to display a cartoon (almost anything). And TikTok was made for flipping channels.
Flipping through TV channels is a lot like scrolling on TikTok. Back in the day, the annoyance was skimming because it’s loud. Unfocused. You had to share a viewing experience with a room, too. Today, everyone sets up their own living room wherever they wish, their heads sitting on their necks like couches, and start scrolling, little kids playing with the remote.
The whole thing feels like an indecisive person flipping channels with the remote. Doing that activity isn’t helping you; you’re disrupting others, too. Just pick something! The static shock between channels scrambles your brain.
Scroll immersion and fun have something in common; with both, time slips by without noticing. Take your 15, pull out your phone to check something, start a timer, watch a clip. Boom. Break's over.
In short, it reduces the space to process. Sure, seeing a new thing with the swipe of a thumb keeps your attention. Yet can we claim we are engaged if the mind is not? Paying attention to nonsense sounds like losing the most valuable currency of all, time.
You scroll for half an hour, but don't decide on dinner... Consider the plot lost.
Avoiding TikTok is not taste.
The abundance of the internet is the wealth and variety of subject matter discussions. A web browser stretches wide with open tabs. I come across a unique link of engaging imagery crossing over battle rap and anime, mobility and physical fitness, ambition and desire. Despite the risk of scroll immersion leading to more time spent than intended, we pop up and close the windows with our clicks, wearing out our thumbs, swiping on our screens.
I find myself unable to say there is no value at all within TikTok. I essentially healed some serious lower back stiffness with flows learned from clips. Yet, with such a controversial nature, I must take the approach of writers of old and suggest elimination. TikTok isn’t good for people because of its nature, the inherent design compelling people to watch more.
Your boyfriend or girlfriend, brother, sister, father-in-law, classmate, guildmate don't see the problem. TikTok may keep people engaged without helping them think.
Just the other day, March 25th, a jury found Meta and YouTube liable in a lawsuit alleging their products are harmful to young people. The question of social media companies' platform design finally evolved into a serious public argument.
Preference is a kind of remote control, and people call using it taste. When platforms leverage our preferences over us, the right response is to leverage our preferences over them. Prefer intentions that involve the interruption of immersion: get up to change TV channels, pick one to watch. The choices we make inform what we see, like cable packages.
You are both the cable company and customer; so pay attention to what you pay attention to.
The very mobility videos I watched to recover myself constantly pointed out that sedentary lifestyles and forward head posture are direct results of long periods of screen time. The thought that most people are 1-2 inches shorter than their true heights due to posture bends the mind.
Repeated exposure shapes the body and the mind alike; stretches break one kind of rigidity, and stopping breaks another.
In isolation, I would not call any tool or service dangerous, so long as you remember your reasons. Determine what you want from your visit. To leave your activities up to the algorithm is to relinquish control.
Avoiding TikTok is not fear of adaption.
It may throw some, but for all my thoughts on the matter, I tried to use the platform. It did serve me well to see some things. I have saved a lot about thrift, earning money, career advancement, mobility and anatomy, cooking, film, shows, music and jokes about every single situation one can fathom. In fact, a lot of the humor explores the unfathomable. Many my age agree early Lil Wayne made music perfect for aux while driving the tank in World War III.
At the same time, I see all the scandals that make people rubber neck. Fights, crashes, cheaters exposed, interviews with ex-CIA, robbers stopped, chases ending either way, and base plays at human curiosity.
None of it asks anything of you except your attention. That is the genius of it and the danger. The feed does not need to nourish you to keep you there.
It only needs to keep producing reasons not to leave.
Once my family confessed about the free extra channels, the problem of channel surfing was solved. You knew 11 was for CW, channel 2 was for PBS Kids and that was it. Though the channels and how we watch may have changed, the remote is still in our hands.
I question intention when the goal is attention.
