You don't need to understand the allure. Are you not also absorbed by your phone in other ways? What wrong with people smiling, laughing and dancing? I'm an old parent trying to be open minded as well.
>Are you not also absorbed by your phone in other ways?
Honestly, no, and I feel very disconnected from modern culture as a result. I use my phone like a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy: to have access to everything we know as humans at my fingertips, in my pockets, at all times.
Otherwise, I don't use it. That said, I have nothing against people using their phone for enjoyment, and there's nothing wrong with people smiling, laughing, and dancing. It's just not easy to relate to the obsession with applications like Instagram, Vine, TikTok, and so on.
I'm a fan of the "Digital Wellbeing" features that ship with newer phones.
I have a social media account which I check approximately biweekly and definitely considered myself someone who wasn't falling into the attention trap in my pocket. I only read HN, a few news sites, send texts, and play chess on my phone.
I was amazed to see just how much time I spent doing these things. Even if in some way how I'm using the phone is more virtuous or less problematic ("this hour-long article about the architecture of the classic XBox gratifies my curiosity, is informative and gives me more context with which to understand my field!"), that time and attention sink still comes at the cost of everything else in life.
The parent commenter asked if anyone could describe what is positive about the app. Since they apparently have no first-hand experience with it, and do not understand the allure from what they've heard or seen so far.
You're responding to him or her with "You don't need to understand the allure". And somehow seem offended that he or she doesn't understand what people are laughing about.
Really? Almost the entirety of where I see this is people recording and re-uploading content from tik tok onto Twitter. It’s certainly a distinct communication culture. I mean “Instagram dance” was never a thing the way “Tik tok dance” is a thing.
I guess what I'm saying is just because it's distinct doesn't mean it's alluring. It might be a different form of expression but what is being expressed is that entertaining or different from Instagram. It's just a bit less objectifying than Instagram but still feels lacking.
I think the dances came from musical.ly, which part of Tiktok used to be. Then, it's just people doing what other people are doing, one upping each other, trying to get popular, etc. Same social media stuff and Tiktok's recommendation algorithm is really good, so people get into it really quickly.
Are you not also absorbed by your phone in other ways?
> I would argue it is one thing to be absorbed by reading in your phone HN or other productive sources. Laughing and dancing on the other hand, after a certain period of time not so much useful.
> Yeah, actually I wish HN would make me laugh and dance, this comment makes tiktok sound pretty good!
LOL. I find HN highly entertaining. Well...not to the point of breaking into a dance...but entertaining. Quite often I just jump straight to the comments.
Honestly, no, and I feel very disconnected from modern culture as a result. I use my phone like a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy: to have access to everything we know as humans at my fingertips, in my pockets, at all times.
Otherwise, I don't use it. That said, I have nothing against people using their phone for enjoyment, and there's nothing wrong with people smiling, laughing, and dancing. It's just not easy to relate to the obsession with applications like Instagram, Vine, TikTok, and so on.