imagine being THIS attached to brain rot apps
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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That’s what happens when you have some of the best user experience people and engineers in the world specifically designing for addiction. Facebook is no different, but their most successful demographic is. My grandma is hopelessly addicted to scrolling FB reels and my fiancé is hopelessly addicted to scrolling IG stories. Different target demographic, same goals
A point for irony, NGL. ⬆️
Digital nomads gone wrong
Soon Duolingo will be teaching you phrases like "Down with the imperialist scum!"
If you want to learn a language, Duolingo is pretty much the worst way to do so. Seek out community-created resources for your target language.
I did both the Spanish and French trees completely, I do think I learned some things along the way, and some of it stuck. Every language learning method is not perfect, you need to immerse with multiple things. I was living in country, doing duolingo, listening to pimsleur, listening to radio in language, going to classes and hanging out with native speakers, and my fluency still is not great. It takes years of being a child before you get anywhere and no system is going to solve it alone
Ew but then I have to talk to actual people
/s
Thats /s feels unnecessary honestly. Introversion is on the rise globally.
That's fair. Though I do think there's some irony in wanting to learn a new language only to avoid communicating with people who use it (though I do also understand the utility of knowing a language isn't exclusive to talking directly to people).
People are fucking stupid. I don't think there's any point in banning TikTok but they're not wrong when they say it pushes Chinese propaganda and they're probably not wrong when they say that they're using it to spy on people.
So angry TikTok users want to make that worse for themselves out of spite?
Idiots.
For most people, the personal consequences of China being able to spy on them are nonexistent. The government that can actually abuse such power against them, e.g. prosecute them for out of state abortions, is the US.
So protesting the US banning an app and trying to force people to use their own spyware social media makes some level of sense.
It's still obviously better to use privacy preserving and/or federated services, but that's not something most people know about or understand.
Yes, and they also don't care if they're spoon-fed propaganda by their own choice. Because they're idiots.
As if the other socials did not feed you propaganda.
"They do it too" does not make it okay.
I am not saying it is ok. I am saying it is not a factor when choosing between Chinese and US based social media.
Ah yes, the U.S. and China, the only two countries in the world, or at least the only two with social media platforms.
(Please don't pay attention to the fact that you're using a website for social interactions with a server in the Netherlands or this would be an issue for you.)
What are you even talking about?
You:
I am saying it is not a factor when choosing between Chinese and US based social media.
Me:
You don't have to choose either. You are choosing neither right now by being on Lemmy.
It's still obviously better to use privacy preserving and/or federated services, but that's not something most people know about or understand.
It is perfectly reasonable for people to not know about niche options and understand complex technologies like federated networks. Different people have different interests. I am sure the two of us are making decisions that seem stupid to other people daily, whether choosing bad toothpaste, unrepaiarable washing machines, agreeing to predatory TOS or whatever else. Everyone can't be expert on everything.
So the choice most people see is use another Chinese app or use the other large social media, which are basically all US based. And between those two options, the Chinese apps are not that unreasonable.
Or maybe both are unreasonable and neither should be tolerated and maybe rather than defend people making either choice, you should be working (like I do all the time) to get them over to the Fediverse.
Because, again, they do not have to choose either and you are excusing them being idiots.
Or maybe both are unreasonable and neither should be tolerated
Yeah, I am not going to go dictate what other peoples entertainment choices are tolerated. Excuse me from that.
you should be working (like I do all the time) to get them over to the Fediverse.
Putting aside your incorrect assumption I don't bring people I know over when it is appropriate. Why exactly should I do that? Are you under the impression there isn't any propaganda on Lemmy and the wider feddiverse?
My time would be better spent getting people educated on how to think critically and find information properly.
You cannot find information properly on those websites, American or Chinese, and if you were a critical thinker, you wouldn't use them.
Also, if someone says "racism should not be tolerated," do you tell them that you're not going to dictate what other people's beliefs are too? Because "should not be tolerated" generally means "everyone needs to wake the fuck up and realize what's going on" and not "people should be forced to do something."
I'm not sure why you don't realize that.
Again making weird assumptions.
You cannot find information properly on those websites, American or Chinese, and if you were a critical thinker, you wouldn't use them.
I don't use any social media besides Lemmy when I get bored. Getting important information from any social media including fediverse is dumb, that is why I call it entertainment.
Also, if someone says "racism should not be tolerated," do you tell them that you're not going to dictate what other people's beliefs are too?
And here goes the patented, "you disagree with me so you must be racist" argument.
Talk about assumptions. It was a general you, not you in specific, and I didn't call you (in specific) racist, I was making a comparison with something I thought you would probably agree with to show why that phrase has nothing to do with dictating beliefs. I literally only said that because I was assuming, I admit it, that you are not a racist. Since you do not care for people assuming things about you, I apologize for assuming you were not a racist.
First of all, I made that comment because I find it distasteful and minimizing towards racism to suggest that I should react the same way or with same intensity to racism and someone using Facebook. My apologies if that is not what you meant, but it is what it sounds like to me.
Second of all, what is the value proposition here? I spend the time and effort, teach them how federation works, how to use it so that at best their propaganda can be more varied?
Gifting a subscription to Groud news or some such would be fraction of the effort with better effect.
People don't get their social media fix from Ground News. They do get it from going to platforms which governments use to push agendas without any pushing back from the people at the top. And it has been shown over and over again that people do not give a shit if an article is fact checked and shown to be false if it conforms to the ideology they're being spoon-fed on those platforms by those governments.
By suggesting there's no value in trying to get people off of platforms pushing government propaganda, you're essentially saying that there's no point convincing people not to voluntarily be lied to. I vehemently disagree.
By suggesting there's no value in trying to get people off of platforms pushing government propaganda, you're essentially saying that there's no point convincing people not to voluntarily be lied to.
You are right that there is value to get people off of social media completely. But I am not convincing enough to make people do that.
As for Lemmy, while it is perhaps better, it is still full of misinformation and propaganda. I guess at least it is not just Government approved propaganda. I just don't feel motivated to try and help for that level of difference. I have little experience with other fediverse platforms.
I prefer to spend my energy on making people care about their privacy and pushing people to Signal, etc.
I literally had a friend breaking down over it and I suggested Fediverse alternatives and they looked at me like I had sprouted an extra head.
I even explained that US companies aren't doing anything materially different than Tiktok (propaganda and spying on people), and they're all bad. Still looking at me like I'm some kind of maniac.
Everyone bitches about corporations but so few want to actually stop sucking on their fucking teat.
People hate thinking. It blows my mind, but it's the only thing I know for sure.
Half the population thought the US government was trying to kill them with a vaccine and a face mask while they coughed themselves to death.
You're absolutely right, people are fucking stupid.
The us population voted the Cheeto in a second time, kinda says it all really.
Maybe they were only in it for the propaganda?
I do love that some of the "refugees" (lol) are just moving to an even more Chinese app though. I don’t think it’s all that many but the propaganda pointing toward propaganda is hilarious.
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Honestlyyyyy and yet when I speak about actually ethical alternatives, ppl then be like nah cba, too difficult, too much effort or too complicated when it only takes five mins or less to make an account and yet these same god damn ppl expect you to always listen to them.
We honestly truly live in a society.
People only want to make a difference if it only gives them good social points, not actual change or things that enable for them to actually think critically and change their viewpoints.
Feels pretty hopeless tbh esp as this is only the beginning of 2025 as well but hey at least there’s some logical people on here (though you do get the occasional dumbass on lemmy/mbin)
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This news is brought to you by the company of China 🇨🇳
All the women in my office said everyone is moving to Lemonade. They said, “why would we move to another Chinese app? That’s dumb.”
No idea who owns Lemonade but it was interesting to me that they were not interested at all in Rednote.
Lemon8 is owned by the same company as TikTok, they're literally trading one Chinese app for another anyways.
If you want to drop that bombshell at the office LMAO
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Duolingo:
A 216% increase sounds impressive, but probably isn't because the starting number is very small.
Except Duolingo regularly releases these numbers. In July 2024 it was reported to be slightly above 9m monthly chinese learners..
So quite significant rise.
9m monthly Chinese learners in the USA? That's pretty crazy.
No that's global.
That makes more sense. I'd be interested to know the absolute increase in the number of learners in the USA but I guess the point remains that the ban caused some kind of uptick. As someone who's been learning Mandarin off and on for many years I can only say good luck to them.
i knew that damn owl was going to get involved in corporate lobbying at some point
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