In my phone, I have never had the TikTok app, and I rarely use such apps that provide instant feedback. I only used it frequently when I was in high school in 2018. Today, I suddenly had the idea of what TikTok looks like now after 5 years of iteration.
So I eagerly downloaded TikTok and after half an hour of scrolling, I concluded that there is a pattern: almost every 3 videos of other categories, there will be one video of an advertisement. These other categories could be pets, beautiful women, movies, love, campus, comedy, etc. But eventually, an advertisement video will appear. So my brain came up with a competition - guess if the next video is an advertisement.
So my hand started practicing the upward swipe. People often say that practicing a skill requires sufficient proficiency, like a blacksmith focusing on polishing the iron in his hand. So the upward swipe seems to be a similar behavior. When people use content applications in the past decade, it seems that they have already gone through the practice of upward swiping, and it has become an automatic action that our hands are accustomed to without deliberate training from our brains. When there's nothing to do, just swipe up, reach into your pocket to touch your phone, and there it is, ready to be used. Let's start scrolling!
It is unclear when people started unconsciously associating the upward swipe action. In ancient times without the internet, information seemed to be transmitted through word of mouth, letters, and books. When consciousness ended on one page, it naturally jumped to another. It seems that with the advent of the Web era, online forums began to rise, and that's when the downward swipe action began. Since the era of mobile internet arrived, we no longer need a mouse to scroll down, just our hands, right?
Following this trend, when smart glasses are invented, we won't need our hands to scroll anymore. Just a blink of an eye will do the scrolling.
Of course, currently, the upward swipe is still dominated by finger swiping. But after saying so much, what impact will repeating this simple upward swipe action have? The answer to this question is simple - repeating the upward swipe action allows us to obtain information, even if it is information that we don't really need.
In my high school biology textbook, there is a famous experiment by Pavlov with dogs. It involved opening a red light and ringing a bell before giving the dog food. So what happened? After a period of time, whenever the bell rang or the red light turned on, the dog started salivating. This famous experiment even opened up a path to cognitive behaviorism.
Why am I talking about this example? There are many similarities between repeatedly practicing the upward swipe action to obtain information and Pavlov's dog experiment. When we get used to the upward swipe action, our brains start to believe that by continuously swiping up, we can obtain information and feed our brains. Yes, our brains can also get hungry. Try putting down your phone during free time and just engage in free thinking. Your brain will get hungry because it can't access information, so it will constantly try to seek information, thus reinforcing the upward swipe action.
Information has never expanded as rapidly as in the past decade, and there is a trend. With the advent of the AI era, this trend will only accelerate. The future's ability to learn and think critically will be more important than ever before. However, because of the arrival of the AI era, most people are already "swiping up" and do not possess the ability to think critically. So what happens when faced with a decision? Since there has been no training in critical thinking, we can only rely on AI. We provide AI with the background of the problem, and AI's decision becomes our decision. AI's thinking becomes our thinking, and AI's answer becomes our answer...
What's even scarier is that all of this seems unsolvable. Since everyone's initial judgment and decision-making abilities require personal accumulation, trial and error, self-reflection, and self-improvement, if someone's initial judgment is made with the help of AI, then subsequent judgments and decisions can only be sought from AI. From AI assistance to AI taking over our destiny - after all, choices determine our fate.
Furthermore, if AI is also integrated with an advertising system... I'll leave this as a placeholder, maybe I'll fill it in later.
This kind of thinking seems pessimistic, but the trend has already emerged. Since the rise of AI earlier this year, everyone has shown great interest in AI. But when it finally becomes possible to use AI (which is really difficult), the only questions we can ask are: predict the future of US-China relations? What do you think of Jay Chou's songs?
From asking these kinds of questions, it can be seen that most people no longer possess the ability to make judgments. Because the questions asked are not what AI is good at. AI is good at logical questions. For example, if you ask it to solve a calculus problem, it can easily do it. But if you ask it whether you should break up with your boyfriend... I'm sorry, AI is really helpless.
Subjective questions like the US-China relations or how someone's song is, AI is really not good at them... On the other hand, when each person encounters choices and decisions, it is where their values come into play. In fact, there is no right or wrong between these choices, it's just a matter of judging which choice is better and more in line with one's own values.
If we ask AI such questions, it will probably be like asking about Trump's preferences. Everyone has their own opinions, and everyone's opinions are different. AI can only give a vague answer, so we can only make vague choices, and our destiny is determined by these choices.
So what should we do?
I have been thinking about how to deal with such a world, and I have summarized a few points that need to be done:
- Cultivate mindfulness
Speaking of cultivating mindfulness, it can be simplified as giving oneself positive psychological suggestions. Giving oneself positive psychological suggestions can really influence a person's behavior, allowing oneself to be in a positive state. When a person is in a positive state, the efficiency and quality of their actions and thoughts will improve.
- Exercise
I will talk about the importance of exercising later because the state of a person's body can affect their mental state. This principle cannot be explained in a few words, so I'll leave it as a placeholder...
- Find a career that fills you with passion as soon as possible
Actually, there's one point I didn't mention when discussing the upward swipe behavior. It's that when people start engaging in upward swipe behavior, it means that they don't have anything important to do. If a person has something important to do, they won't keep mindlessly swiping up. However, it seems difficult to implement this suggestion. On the one hand, engaging in upward swipe behavior is a result of not having a fulfilling career. On the other hand, even if we find something that might be a fulfilling career, it may just be a career that gives us a temporary boost, not something we truly love from the bottom of our hearts. I'll leave this as a placeholder... I might write another article later explaining in detail how to find a career that fills you with passion.
Upcoming articles:
- The importance of exercising
- How to find a career that fills you with passion
- AI advertising
- The endgame of self-media - selling products, advertising