In this blog, I'll try to explain how Tiktok is different from all other social media apps. I'll discuss the AI component of the app and its effect on our decision making. I won't name any Tiktoker or Youtuber to remain as neutral as possible.
Time Length: I'll start out straight with numbers, an average Tiktok video is around 15 seconds as compared to 11.7 minutes on Youtube. This time difference in the average of both these apps is critical to understand the different aspects brought by both apps. Everyone knows that a 15 seconds video at its best can give some facts, nothing more than that. Learning is not at all possible with such small duration videos. It is crystal clear that learning anything meaningful takes years or months be it coding or playing guitar. Tiktok time lengths seriously limit the possibility of learning anything significant. Well, Tiktok was never designed to serve as a medium to provide meaningful content, all it was designed to give instant online recognition and fame. It's not like that youtube doesn't have shit content but it also hosts some pretty awesome content. Talks of great personalities, podcasts, documentaries, and other meaningful content are fairly common on Youtube. So, what does TikTok provide that Youtube can't? Both of them provide entertainment but one also provides you with the opportunity to learn something meaningful. The idea of instant fame seems fascinating to many, but in reality, it traps people and motivates them to not work hard. When the limelight is gone people are left with no real skill and an inability to work hard.
AI part: The way TikTok uses its AI is way different than its counterparts. The ability to chose is the only thing that separates us from animals. Animals don't choose anything, they work completely on their instincts. Tiktok doesn't provide you with choice, it provides you with an unending series of video that is chosen for you by an AI. And this is my biggest problem with Tiktok, to explain this further, let's take an example, say you watch some shitty content on Tiktok a few times, and next thing you know, all the videos selected for your feed by it's AI are shitty and worthless. On the other hand, you do the same thing on Youtube, your feed does get filled with shitty content but still there will be few meaningful videos that can again replenish your feed with meaningful content. This choice and ability to replenish your feed with good content is the primary difference between both. Worst case scenario, let's say by mistake you watched a few abusive videos and the next thing in your feed is a spree of disgusting and abusive videos. Also, the inability to search topic wise in Tiktok, limits your feed to get refilled with appropriate content. Another technical aspect of TikTok, by the time you figure out something inappropriate about the current video, you are already on another video thus failing to report inappropriate videos. If you've reported anything ever on youtube, you must aware be aware that people do carefully analyze before reporting anything. The short duration of Tiktok videos makes it far less prone to reporting. TikTok's Chinese origin is something that makes countries a bit suspicious about their operation as well. Tiktok has been charged with 5.7 million USD for illegally collecting data on minors.
Accessibility: This is the factor why Tiktok got famous in the first place. For most of the famous YouTubers out there few technical skills are required and that makes it a little hard for immature and talentless people to put their content out there. Things required for any decent Youtube videos are a good recording setup, knowledge of video editing, writing a script because of the long nature of Youtube video, a little bit of animation, logo design, and background scores. On the other hand, Tiktok requires only a mobile phone and this makes it super accessible. You may ask what is the problem with super accessibility? Making anything super accessible without letting people know the importance and its after-effects is a dangerous thing. That's why you find children of age 12-13 years posing in an intimate and obscene way. This seriously degrades and puts an enormous pressure on society to look at what our teens are doing. You'll hardly find any significant Youtuber promoting obscenity at Youtube whereas many of the famous Tiktokers can be seen doing the same. Understand, making a 15-second video with mindless content in it is not pretty hard, during our college time every other person was involved in some kind of shenanigans and Tiktok videos are just snippets of all those activities. Few may be good, but largely, content produced on Tiktok is just time pass or worthless, degrading, abusive, insulting, derogatory in nature. To make my point even more clear, I'll give you one more example, Dark web hosts some of the most disgusting activities of the human race, from beheadings to rape, murder to child pornography. Yes, it also helps journalists and whistleblowers to expose the governments but the good usage of Dark web is fairly low. The only thing that keeps the society from the disgust of dark web lies in the difficulty of accessing it. Tiktok is just like a mild version of the Dark web. Without regulations and monitoring, teens all around the globe will keep on posting disgusting things like boys dressing as a girl to get views or using babies as some kind of prop or children posing for intimate scenes. Some may argue, what problem do you have with men dressing as women? My problem is with the fact that it is being done not to understand some facet of life, it is only done to get those damn views and this behavior of doing anything just to get views forms the basis of all kinds of immoral activities.
Social and psychological impact: To make you understand the social and psychological effect of TikTok, let's take the example of Kim Kardashian. Here is the link to Joe Rogan's Podcast about Kim Kardashian ass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQglJqbvPtU. So, basically in this podcast Joe Rogan talks about how much plastic she has put on her butt and tits to make herself look more beautiful. The idea of plastic surgery in itself is not bad but when you put this in the world as the most important thing for someone to look beautiful, then it's dangerous. She managed to convince half of the American teen girls that you won't look beautiful without the extra monstrosity on your front and back. She single-handedly damaged the entire concept of natural beauty and transformation and thus made a whole lot of teen girls insecure about their bodies. This concept of doing all things to get more fame and views is extremely dangerous for people who start changing their entire lives to fit into the image of their idols. I'll mention the extreme case of this behavior where teens are going mad to fit a trend. I find it extremely tough to put it in words that's why here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWnVcWIiBLo. Tiktok is robbing people of free choice of the content they watch, inadvertently teens are getting immoral, less capable of focusing, and making them feel that they can get everything without much hard work. Youth is forgetting the greats like APJ Abdul Kalam and Vivekananda, with this trend growing you'll find more and more youth clueless about life and no tangible dreams.
Banning is not the solution but rigorous measures are needed to be taken to monitor and censor the content. Otherwise, it'll eat up a huge chunk of our youth.
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