Comment on YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels are making you dumber, according to science

echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• victorz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Yeah I can’t imagine it making me dumber. Most of my shorts are interesting scientific facts/discoveries. Or CSS tips and tricks.

  Attention span I can definitely believe.

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  • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This may shock you, but most people watch really dumb fucking shit instead of scientific facts.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Then they were already dumb.

      Short attention span correlates with low intelligence but short attention span doesn’t cause low intelligence.

      I can’t remember the whole thing but there is a sort of pseudo research paper that got published exactly to demonstrate the difference between correlation and causation. In the paper they “found” that yellow teeth cause cancer.

      Of course smoking causes yellow teeth, and cancer. The yellow teeth are correlated, but do not cause.

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      • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        You could do this with anything. Most cancer patients spend a lot of time indoors (hospitals) => being indoors now leading cause for cancer!

        Statistical correlation is very useful if used correctly — to lead you where to do proper technical research and not quantitative research. 👍

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    • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They would do so with short and long content either way.

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    • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Not shocking at all. I was only speaking for myself.

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• JustinTheGM@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Wouldn’t the knock-on effects of a reduced attention span pretty much look like ‘dumber’?

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Intelligence is intelligence you can’t reduce it by watching cat videos

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    • JustinTheGM@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Sure, but “being dumb” isn’t an exclusive club for people with low intelligence. There plenty of very smart people that are also dumb. Hell, most AIs could be classified as smart but dumb.

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