And TikTok. It really depends what Tok you end up on, but there's plenty of corners of TikTok that are exactly the same mechanics as Twitter: quick bursts of infuriation that activate you and leave you wanting more. I think it's easier for a video-based content network like this (these are not social networks) to have content where you turn off your brain, like TV, than it would be with text. But they both can and are incentivized to do the same thing: titillate.

I'd argue that text has an advantage over video: speed of skipping past content you don't want. People don't talk anywhere near as fast as they skim headlines

You're right about turning off your brain. But not everyone wants that thing turned off

I'm not sure that's accurate. I used to be a huge advocate of text, but don't forget the whole "a picture is worth a thousand words" thing.

If I see a random blog with text, I have no idea of anything regarding it without first reading (or skimming) it. But within one second of watching a YouTube video, for example, I can know a lot about the video - how professional it is, the "genre" it's in (e.g. BookTube vs Fitness), etc.

Plus, jumping around a video of an explanation on how to do something with the computer is actually fairly easy. It's easy to jump past the "here's how to install the app" part and straight to the "here's someone with a code editor open editing the thing I care about".

> there's plenty of corners of TikTok that are exactly the same mechanics as Twitter: quick bursts of infuriation that activate you and leave you wanting more

If you start following tags or certain people you'll visit the dusty corners, but the FYP is remarkably good at filtering out incendiary stuff, at least in my experience. I get basically all good vibes, nothing like Twitter/Reddit, and I'm never angry or high strung after watching TikTok.

To add:

> The app opens to a feed of popular articles chosen from a curated list of publishers ranging from leading news organizations like The New York Times to small-scale blogs about niche topics.

Not Twitter but many of these articles already have headlines catered to a certain method of consumption (aggregation done by Reddit, HN, etc.). I didn't need to read this article to know that Instagram's co-founders are making TikTok for text!

Twitter only works because of the character limit. And even then the “for you” page is pretty bad and widely disliked, at least as a stated preference.

This, if I understand correctly, is for articles.

That's the idea, of course. But the definition of 'article' is pretty vague, which opens the door for all kinds of garbage content. If you shut your brain off and just let the algorithm feed you, you're going to end up swimming in mindless drivel. Maybe this will be better, but I think of lot of people are just going to find themselves in propaganda echo chambers.

Twitter is pure hell and most people only use it because they’re addicted to being online.

It would be better were that true. But sadly, there's are hair-think veins of incredibly useful discussion happening there as well. I have tried in the past to construct in Twitter a timeline that showed me just the very informative or thoughtful comments but it always ends the same way - my worst interests gratified, my better ones unsated.

i think you're just describing addiction. there's always some elusive "value" that you're chasing.

i don't know about twitter, i've never used it, but i find it hard to believe there's anything "incredibly useful" on there. interesting, i could see, but useful?

Exactly. There is way too much “interesting” stuff to consume for a time we have to consume it. This really interesting stuff will get to you no matter what, especially if you follow sites like this.

I was in the same situation. Came off Twitter few weeks ago, after Elon Musk saga settled and right now I can’t read those interesting tweets anymore - it just became much less interesting.

I've had pretty good success with Twitter. I am careful to limit my followers to avoid cluttering up my feed with stuff I don't want to see.

I mostly follow the math teacher/early education crowd and regularly get inspired with fun math games and other activities to do with my kids. Plus I've gotten a lot of neat books from the library after seeing someone mention them on Twitter.

So for me it's been a good signal-to-noise ratio, unlike e.g. Reddit where I can definitely relate to that elusive value-chasing you describe. Even on HN, the amount of relevant stuff I learn is low compared to the sheer amount of time I've spent here over the years.

I love Twitter. But I immediately thought of Twitter as a counterexample when I read vagabund's claim.

Is hell if you do not know how to use it, same applies to other social media as Reddit.