[rustyhancock]

As is the incessant stream. If there is a pause at all in the next video loading the addicted user can break free.

One of the issues with federated anything is that there will be good servers and bad servers.

Good servers get hammered, and if you're popular you might end up perversely paying for people to watch your videos having to fund your server to maintain its performance.

This happened with mastadon, matrix and will be far worse if they want to deliver tiktoks insane performance.

[echelon]

Birth rates took a dip with broadband, smartphones, and TikTok.

Dopamine and attention sinks are pulling society in directions counter to evolutionary programming. Our runtime algorithms optimize for different things.

No value judgment, but it's interesting. I haven't had kids (yet?), and I feel the internet (and the career that revolves around it) is the biggest reason why.

[wiseowise]

> No value judgment, but it's interesting. I haven't had kids (yet?), and I feel the internet (and the career that revolves around it) is the biggest reason why.

How exactly the internet and the career prevented you from having kids? Have you discussed this with your partner?

[aaronbrethorst]

Citation needed

[echelon]

I actually looked at several graphs before posting. Wasn't easy to share crude data so I didn't link it.

Now that I'm googling for more deliberate correlations, I see other people are talking about this:

https://roytriggs.medium.com/internet-use-and-birth-rates-an...

https://fortune.com/well/2025/03/28/phones-declining-birth-r...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/opinion/dating-marriage-c...

"The phone killed babies" tracks with my intuition about this. Data correlates.

Finances aren't keeping me from having kids. The internet is. Smartphones are. Weird as that sounds. I can unpack more and expand this into a conversation.

[jowsie]

This is completely ignoring the most common reason for not having children that I've heard amongst friends and family: "I can't afford a house, I'll never be able to afford kids."

[echelon]

I really don't buy that argument at all.

My parents lived in apartments.

Parents for all of human civilization and history have lived in worse.

The fastest growing populations have less money and safety nets than middle class folks.

It's the dopamine and time suck.

Men and women aren't bored and looking to fill the void and boredom with children. (Kids also can't work as free labor on the farm anymore, either, but that just adds to this argument.)

Kids keep you from nights out with the friends, dating, concerts, fortnite, girl gossip, phone time, etc.

People are choosing "I don't have time for kids (now)" and continuing with their dopamine filled lives. House purchase planning is orthogonal.

[deaux]

> My parents lived in apartments.

In much of the world, the most expensive real estate is apartments.

[wiseowise]

So you think trudging through life with kids is somehow more virtuous than trying to enjoy limited time you have?

[account42]

Actually poor people don't seem to have that problem.