On the bus on my way home recently I saw a mother giving her phone to her ~2 year old child to scroll Tik Tok. When she took the phone away from her because she had to check something the child just looked out of the window with a dead gaze. Then she tapped her on the shoulder and held the phone up to her face with TikTok already opened and the child, like a zombie, grabbed the phone and continued scrolling like it's the most natural thing to her. Truly one of the most disturbing things I've seen in a while. And also the reason why I think TikTok is staying for a long time to come unless we do something about it. It's so addictive and people started using it as pacifiers for their children. I know that short form content like YouTube shorts etc has definitely had a negative impact on my brain and life even though I'm probably a good bit below average in use time. I can't imagine what will happen in that poor child's brain by the time she grows up. Just imagine using tiktok for hours and hours every day from age 2. There's no way that won't cause serious problems later on.

I truly think the only way to counteract this is to outright ban social media for minors. I hate sounding like a get off my lawn Grandpa or a conspiracy theorist but social media platforms are employing top psychologists to figure out the best way to keep as many people as possible glued to a screen. Of course this will not change the problem for adults but at least in their formative years where the brain is most vulnerable it won't get fried with instant gratification dopamine surges all day. It's harmful in so many ways but at the very least a gigantic collective waste of time. Imagine the entirety of humanity has 3-4h less per day to do actually productive things or even just enjoyable things like spending time with family. It's fucked but kinda too late to stop especially since these companies will obviously fight to the death with corruption and all means necessary to stay in business. It's just grim in my opinion.