Does anyone here actually use TikTok?

[manly]

I still find this stat incredibly dubious.

Even if that stat is accurate, Kaido is overblowing what it means. He's saying U.S. businesses suffer if TikTok is shut down. On the flip side, how much worker productivity is lost to social media apps? (Not to mention, something replaces TT if it ceases to exist and the leading candidates are owned by shitty oligarchs.) And if a social network is really just another Amazon merchant wrapped up in slick, addictive packaging, what am I really losing?

He said it's a monthly active user (MAU), which means you just need to use TT "actively" once a month? Even without knowing exactly what active means, monthly isn't saying a whole lot. Nobody doubts TikTok is very sticky for a large segment of the (younger) population, but daily or weekly active users would be much more meaningful.

Also, only TikTok knows the usage metrics with any accuracy, but a quick search has estimates of U.S. users much lower than 170M (i.e. Statista or ThinkImpact, no idea how reputable they are either).

One thing I certainly don't get is how TT's "algorithms" have become so famous. Is it really that different from the hours of time people spend on YT, IG or even doomscrolling FB or X? People were already addicted to social media long before TikTok's algorithms showed up.

 

[Chaotic42]

I still find this stat incredibly dubious.

This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Maybe for specific people with your brand of neurodivergence, but certainly not for the broader mass of kids.

Under Dunn

Hello, my name is Robert Dunn. Sometimes, I make things. Most of the time, I don't make them well.

www.youtube.com

You're like a Vogon, "I'm miserable so I don't see why anyone else should have a good time either".

Thanks! always looking for new stuff to check out. I just watched a man make potassium metal from bananas and then throw it into a pond. Some people are living the dream.

 

[nakedfrog]

Even if that stat is accurate, Kaido is overblowing what it means. He's saying U.S. businesses suffer if TikTok is shut down. On the flip side, how much worker productivity is lost to social media apps? (Not to mention, something replaces TT if it ceases to exist and the leading candidates are owned by shitty oligarchs.) And if a social network is really just another Amazon merchant wrapped up in slick, addictive packaging, what am I really losing?

He said it's a monthly active user (MAU), which means you just need to use TT "actively" once a month? Even without knowing exactly what active means, monthly isn't saying a whole lot. Nobody doubts TikTok is very sticky for a large segment of the (younger) population, but daily or weekly active users would be much more meaningful.

Also, only TikTok knows the usage metrics with any accuracy, but a quick search has estimates of U.S. users much lower than 170M (i.e. Statista or ThinkImpact, no idea how reputable they are either).

One thing I certainly don't get is how TT's "algorithms" have become so famous. Is it really that different from the hours of time people spend on YT, IG or even doomscrolling FB or X? People were already addicted to social media long before TikTok's algorithms showed up.

One weird thing I've seen is people having their queer awakenings because the TikTok algorithm started showing them queer content (and these are people who had previously only identified themselves as straight). I haven't really heard of this happening with other social media.

 

[nakedfrog]

Thanks! always looking for new stuff to check out. I just watched a man make potassium metal from bananas and then throw it into a pond. Some people are living the dream.

He's pretty entertaining, I mostly watch his Aging Wheels channel, but often that dips into woodworking and general fabrication.

 

[Kaido]

This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Maybe for specific people with your brand of neurodivergence, but certainly not for the broader mass of kids.

While I do have extremely bad Inattentive ADHD, I disagree on this one for two reasons:

1. The average high school GPA in America is around 3.00. On a 4.00 scale, that's 75%. We placed 16th out of 81 countries in science when testing was last administered in 2022. In 2022, there were over 2 million dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24. As the 9th richest country in the world, we are not doing as good as we could be.

2. I do a lot of teaching & training. The main issues are:

1) Attention span (people's focus drift)
2) Retention (people forget)
3) Usability (people learn stuff but don't use it later)

I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until my mid 20's. I spent a looooong time learning HOW to study:

https://www.reddit.com/r/kaidomac/comments/li4gi3/study_resources

The best implementation of studying I've ever seen is:

1. Small doses over time
2. Distilling that micro-information into good personal notes for future reference
3. Creating support systems to make that data usable

For most people, most information goes in one ear & out the other. People tend to get overwhelmed, zone out, and forget. I teach everything from IT training to cooking classes, in class sizes of 5 to 500. My approach has shifted into a micro-dose format that is focused on creating usable tools so that the information exists as more than just a passing "neat!". People tend to do REALLY well when:

1. They aren't overwhelmed with too much information at once
2. They get consistent, small-dose exposure over time, including reviewing previously-learned information, in an environment where they can be individually helped
2. They have an instant-access storage method & format for saving that new data

There are absolutely kids who excel at school, but based on the public data, that's not the norm. I don't believe that's primarily due to aptitude, but rather, the teaching methodology. Personally, I believe that most people can be taught most things & do REALLY well when properly instructed! There will always be capability limits, of course. For example, I have math dyslexia; I can't even calculate a tip in my head lol.

On a personal level, the "small bites daily" approach has been IMMENSELY successful for me! It lets me work out individual bits of information over time to really comprehend & retain information. The aggregate effect over time has been phenomenal!

 

[Kaido]

Even if that stat is accurate, Kaido is overblowing what it means. He's saying U.S. businesses suffer if TikTok is shut down. On the flip side, how much worker productivity is lost to social media apps? (Not to mention, something replaces TT if it ceases to exist and the leading candidates are owned by shitty oligarchs.) And if a social network is really just another Amazon merchant wrapped up in slick, addictive packaging, what am I really losing?

He said it's a monthly active user (MAU), which means you just need to use TT "actively" once a month? Even without knowing exactly what active means, monthly isn't saying a whole lot. Nobody doubts TikTok is very sticky for a large segment of the (younger) population, but daily or weekly active users would be much more meaningful.

Also, only TikTok knows the usage metrics with any accuracy, but a quick search has estimates of U.S. users much lower than 170M (i.e. Statista or ThinkImpact, no idea how reputable they are either).

There's not much public data on what "active users" actually means. This site has some data:

How many users on TikTok? Statistics & Facts (2025)

Here are the facts and statistics you need to know about TikTok (Updated January 2025).

seo.ai

* TikTok has 1 billion monthly active users globally, with 150 million monthly active users in the United States.
* The average daily time spent on TikTok in 2024 was 58 minutes, 24 seconds

Does that mean the average user spends an hour a day? Or kids spend 6 hours a day & the elderly spend 10 minutes & they average it out? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One thing I certainly don't get is how TT's "algorithms" have become so famous. Is it really that different from the hours of time people spend on YT, IG or even doomscrolling FB or X? People were already addicted to social media long before TikTok's algorithms showed up.

It's HUGELY different!

1. Tiktok makes easy content creation accessible to everyone
2. The majority of comments are 100x better than Instagram etc.
3. The algorithm is SCARY good at learning what you like!

It's like Twitter...I thought it was dumb when it launched, but it ended up being one of my favorite online platforms! I've found Tiktok to be extremely valuable. imo, I've learned more from Tiktok in the past few years than college. I hope they don't ruin it...

 

[Kaido]

Mr. Beast wants to by Tiktok. Supposedly he became a billionaire this month:

MrBeast is reportedly now among those trying to buy TikTok | TechCrunch

An unlikely group, including Mr Beast and Bench acquirer Employer.com, has submitted a bid to buy TikTok.

techcrunch.com

 

[sdifox]

So are Mr Beast videos going to be TikTok series?

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

The beast has a tik?

Isn't there a collar for that?

 

[nakedfrog]

While I do have extremely bad Inattentive ADHD, I disagree on this one for two reasons:

1. The average high school GPA in America is around 3.00. On a 4.00 scale, that's 75%. We placed 16th out of 81 countries in science when testing was last administered in 2022. In 2022, there were over 2 million dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24. As the 9th richest country in the world, we are not doing as good as we could be.

2. I do a lot of teaching & training. The main issues are:

1) Attention span (people's focus drift)
2) Retention (people forget)
3) Usability (people learn stuff but don't use it later)

I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until my mid 20's. I spent a looooong time learning HOW to study:

https://www.reddit.com/r/kaidomac/comments/li4gi3/study_resources

The best implementation of studying I've ever seen is:

1. Small doses over time
2. Distilling that micro-information into good personal notes for future reference
3. Creating support systems to make that data usable

For most people, most information goes in one ear & out the other. People tend to get overwhelmed, zone out, and forget. I teach everything from IT training to cooking classes, in class sizes of 5 to 500. My approach has shifted into a micro-dose format that is focused on creating usable tools so that the information exists as more than just a passing "neat!". People tend to do REALLY well when:

1. They aren't overwhelmed with too much information at once
2. They get consistent, small-dose exposure over time, including reviewing previously-learned information, in an environment where they can be individually helped
2. They have an instant-access storage method & format for saving that new data

There are absolutely kids who excel at school, but based on the public data, that's not the norm. I don't believe that's primarily due to aptitude, but rather, the teaching methodology. Personally, I believe that most people can be taught most things & do REALLY well when properly instructed! There will always be capability limits, of course. For example, I have math dyslexia; I can't even calculate a tip in my head lol.

On a personal level, the "small bites daily" approach has been IMMENSELY successful for me! It lets me work out individual bits of information over time to really comprehend & retain information. The aggregate effect over time has been phenomenal!

None of this says to me "We should teach all the kids with TikTok!"
I think by catering to this short-form video methodology of teaching you propose, you're potentially doing harm to kids who aren't already afflicted in such a way as you are. Again, I'll say this since I think you ignored it? Maybe it's a good option for some kids, but I think it would be a huge mistake to apply it to all kids.

TikTok Brain: Can We Save Children’s Attention Spans?

TikTok Brain: Can We Save Children’s Attention Spans? By Nathan Crispo The Facebook, now just Facebook, launched in February of 2004.[1] It took just one day for the site to get over one thousand …

jolt.richmond.edu

Many experts believe TikTok and social media platforms like it are killing children’s attention spans.[21] This decreased attention span has been (not so affectionately) referred to as “TikTok Brain.”[22] Emerging research suggests that watching short-form videos make it difficult for children to engage in activities that don’t offer instant—and constant—gratification.[23] The constant hits of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that gets released when the brain is expecting a reward, reinforces use of apps like TikTok.[24] Pediatricians have described TikTok as a “dopamine machine.”[25] One can only begin to imagine many harms that come with entire generations having greatly diminished attention spans. From trouble achieving long-term goals to being unable to focus in school, these problems can be widespread and far reaching.

https://www.kansan.com/opinion/yes-tiktok-and-your-phone-cause-your-short-attention-span/article_56bade6a-a5be-11ef-9ec5-03ee4d1854be.html

Research on Adolescents Regarding the Indirect Effect of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress between TikTok Use Disorder and Memory Loss - PMC

This research involved the participation of 3036 Chinese students in the first and second years of senior high school. The adolescents were active users of TikTok. The mediating effect of depression, anxiety, and stress between TikTok use disorder ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Kaido]

None of this says to me "We should teach all the kids with TikTok!"
I think by catering to this short-form video methodology of teaching you propose, you're potentially doing harm to kids who aren't already afflicted in such a way as you are. Again, I'll say this since I think you ignored it? Maybe it's a good option for some kids, but I think it would be a huge mistake to apply it to all kids.

To clarify, these are two separate discussions:

1. Teaching in short-form format
2. Doom-scrolling for hours on short-form format

My position is that most people don't do very well with a 45-minute block of non-stop classroom lecture time, with no discussion, no help to work through things, having to absorb a TON of information, and then going home to have to try to figure things out again on their own using not-great textbooks. We need time to gel & figure things out in smaller doses!!

The results of the current system speak for themselves: statistically, America has an average 75% GPA. I don't think this is because we are less smart than other counties; I think we just focus too much on a deluge of information & regurgitation instead of demonstratable, effective comprehension. I took an elective AutoCAD class back in college that changed my life. It was 90-minute class blocks, but the professor taught in a very specific way:

* He would teach us 3 commands or principles a day
* He would visit each student & make sure they got it
* We would do a review exercise the next class, then repeat!

This process took about 15 minutes, then we were free to go! I learned nearly 100 commands by heart as a result! The school got mad at him because every single student aced the final exam with no curve. I had NEVER seen anything like that before!! The homework each night was just using what we were taught to make sure we really owned that knowledge through repetitions & practice. It was not:

* Learning too much information all at once
* Letting students leave class without helping them make the concepts "click"
* Having weird homework that was often unrelated, rather than highly targeted training to reinforce what was learned that day

If I taught my business customers the way most schools teach today, I'd be fired lol. I teach hundreds of people a year solo & in groups. The purpose of education is to provide effective training for awareness & usability via comprehension, retention, and creating tools that can be used as a result. In public schools, most classes are focused on just getting kids through the system & meeting standardized testing criteria.

Academic & hands-on knowledge can be taught this way. Hard skills & soft skills can be taught this way. Tiktok is great for learning because you get highly-targeted training from a knowledgeable person who has a good explanation (at least, in the videos that get popular because they ARE good! as well as the often-useful comments) on a HUGE variety of topics.

I mean, you'll always need someone who has broad knowledge within the subject & a syllabus & whatnot, but I do REALLY love short-form training because it's so functional, whether I'm doing corporate training on next-generation firewalls or local hands-on classes teaching sourdough! Doom-scrolling on Tiktok is an entirely different activity:

* At best, you get niche-related information, but with no structure or foundation-building baked-in
* You're spending hours scrolling, which exposes you to waaaay too much information to really digest or do anything useful with
* It's also going to be a scrolling session on a variety of topics, so completely unfocused

From my reddit post:

In the past few weeks, it's literally been like taking a Master Class in digital art tools & techniques thanks to TikTok, where the principles are clearly & interestingly explained in short format that you can digest at your own speed & not just have go in one ear & out the other! So that's why I think school should be taught TikTok-style, in short, usable increments that your brain can chew on & digest over time, instead of trying to cram a billion things into an hour-long class.

I used to teach lecture-style in 30-minute to 4-hour blocks of time. Then I switched to Q&A format. Then I switched to micro-dosing the information with hands-on assistance, aiming for a 100& digestion rate among students, and provide all of the materials digitally (class lecture, tools, after-class targeted training, etc.). I mean, I can sit there for an 8-hour training session & beam information about all of the new Server 2025 features like native OpenSSH, DTrace, WinGet, etc. or AccelNet for clusters into student's brains, but then it's just people scrambling to write notes as quickly as possible instead of really learning stuff & being able to use stuff.

I have a tool I call the "learning accordion" that I use to adjust the data taught vs. the time available. More details here:

* Quanta Education System

No more eyes glazed over with this method, haha!

 

[nakedfrog]

My position is that most people don't do very well with a 45-minute block of non-stop classroom lecture time, with no discussion, no help to work through things, having to absorb a TON of information, and then going home to have to try to figure things out again on their own using not-great textbooks.

This was never my experience in school to start with?
But it sounds like what you're proposing and what you said aren't the same thing; your initial statement was we should teach kids in TikTok format. I think we need to focus on methods that will help improve/retain attention span since there's already so much fighting against it. There's far more going on with the education system than just the teaching methods, a lot of it is societal, and is likely one of the things that could be improved with UHC, UBI, and a 4 day work week.

 

[Chaotic42]

I'm not sure how I feel about the really quick lesson idea. It seems kind of like educational sugar - everyone likes it, and it feels good, but is it causing harm down the road? A lot of jobs require long stretches of concentration and paying attention to details. The modern way that information is presented has a ton of benefits, but we're getting too used to constantly shifting our attention. I can feel it in myself, and doing something for more than about an hour starts feeling very tedious, where it was just a normal thing when I was younger.

The problem with social sciences is that testing takes a long time and can do permanent damage to people and even society.

I'm in no way qualified to have anything beyond a shallow opinion of this, but I do worry about it.

 

[Kaido]

But it sounds like what you're proposing and what you said aren't the same thing; your initial statement was we should teach kids in TikTok format. I think we need to focus on methods that will help improve/retain attention span since there's already so much fighting against it. There's far more going on with the education system than just the teaching methods, a lot of it is societal, and is likely one of the things that could be improved with UHC, UBI, and a 4 day work week.

Yes:

* School should be taught TikTok-style

Tiktok-style being highly-focused, interesting, short lessons. Doom-scrolling is an Internet behavior separate from that. This part was also SUPER annoying to me growing up:

Applying that to my previous school days, I realized that when people are excited about things, and are naturally good at things, they tend to do something I call "data-streaming", which is where they lecture at you (ex. professors), rather than actually teaching you, which is essentially the same as just reading the textbook on your own & still not knowing what the heck is going on lol.

As far as information intake goes:

1. Just in my experience, in practice, most people don't have great attention spans in general. While I think modern social media & quick-cut movies aggravates it, the data itself that we have on it is pretty interesting:

Average Human Attention Span Statistics & Facts [2024] | Samba Recovery

Dive into surprising facts about the average human attention span, its influences, and impact on cognition.

www.sambarecovery.com

2. People also tend to have a hard time digesting a lot of information all at once, in terms of understanding all of it, then remembering it, then using it. It's easy to get introduced to a TON of information in one session, just to be aware of of it, which is valuable in & of itself, but usability tends to come at the price of reduced exposure so that people can really internalize & own the new information.

3. Plus, most people don't have a fantastic personal retention system (rewriting good reference notes, creating usable tools, etc.) & very few people have a photographic memory, so making that information both accessible & useful later requires some sort of good-quality external support system that is actually functional.

On a tangent, I also HIGHLY disagree with removing recess. Exercise has so many positive effects on the body & the brain; I think it should be required both mid-morning & mid-afternoon. I've seen stretching & yoga-style group exercises implemented in the workplace with VERY positive results.

I 100% support UBE, UBH, UBI, and the 4-hour workweek. Call me a socialist-capitalistic hybrid, but if you have a happy, healthy, low-stress, well-educated population, the overall net effect on your country's economics is only going to be more positive.

That experience in my AutoCAD class I mentioned earlier changed my entire life! A few years later, I read "The Talent Code", which further broke down how to learn, how to gain skills, and how to grow your talents. I applied this to literally everything in my life:

* Professional work & ongoing education (classes, degrees, certifications, etc.)
* Crafting (Cricut, CNC, laser, 3D printing, etc.)
* Art (airbrushing, drawing, Photoshop, Illustrator, AI, etc.)
* Food (cooking, grilling, smoking, BBQ'ing, sous-viding, pressure cooking, etc.)
* Personal (fitness, nutrition, personal productivity, technology, etc.)
* etc.

It took me 14 years to finish my 2-year degree; I just had a bear of a time with school. After learning HOW to learn & adopting that highly-targeted "baby steps every day" methodology, my entire life got better! I document some of the educational takeaways that I think are worth sharing in this thread:

* Useful links

Generally, in my experience teaching people, human beings seem to do best when:

1. We are taught in clear, interesting small doses
2. We get help for Q&A to make it really "click"
3. We take fantastic notes to refer to that "saved clarity" later, as needed
4. We make usable tools as a result of what we learned

This is how I teach everything from cooking classes to technology training courses. It's taken me literally decades to get to this point of simplicity & clarity, but it's been HIGHLY effective for me personally & my students!

 

[Kaido]

Amazon Said to Make a Bid to Buy TikTok in the U.S.

The e-commerce giant put in a last-minute offer for the popular video app, according to three people familiar with the talks. TikTok faces a Saturday deadline to change its ownership structure.

www.nytimes.com

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5230168-tiktok-deal-vance-trump/

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Generally, in my experience teaching people, human beings seem to do best when:

1. We are taught in clear, interesting small doses
2. We get help for Q&A to make it really "click"
3. We take fantastic notes to refer to that "saved clarity" later, as needed
4. We make usable tools as a result of what we learned

That has not been my experience. People intake and process information differently and at different rates and speeds. Some are better auditory learners, others visual. Attention spans are all over the place. And often dictated by various factors like amount of sleep, food intake, stress levels, etc.However, one thing they all share is that tactile/hands on is the best way to fully understand and retain the information. I.E. the doing of something.

A principle you wrote above, I have told students for years- You have to learn how to learn. It's a framework, a methodology in and of itself. Few derive/learn this skill from public school.

Small doses may work for some people in some subjects. It does not work for everyone in all subjects. Another principle I teach is - repetition reinforces retention. IME it doesn't matter if it's cooking or fighting or PC repair, that is the quickest and surest way to proficiency. Or as Sensei Fumio Demura exposed millions to in the Karate Kid - wax on, wax off, paint the fence, sand the floor. The 3 Rs and the doing of something covers all the bases of learning how to learn while gaining proficiency in something the student may not yet even realize it is applicable to.

Q&A: Not everyone wants or needs it. You leave some bored to tears, as they have already assimilated the information. Not all Qs are worth asking either. They say there are no dumb questions; the fuck there aren't. They serve only to waste everyone's time. Nor will the way you provide the answer click with everyone. Now we are off in the weeds trying to make one person understand something at the expense of the group.

Notes: I am not a good note taker. I am not alone in this. For me taking notes has the effect of lessening the experience. Much like people that constantly video or pic take instead of being in the moment, you lose something valuable you cannot get back. No matter how many times you look at the pic or watch the video.

Making usable tools from what is learned: Again, IME it is best to the develop and use the tools from the get go. Not as the last step in the process. Yes, they will probably make more mistakes/have more failures, but they learn from them/ there is value in them.

Obviously some of this is not applicable to the tik tok video format. And the hypothesis that it may be detrimental to attention spans needs further study.

 

[manly]

The saga continues.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/04/nx-s1-5347418/trump-tiktok-second-ban-delay

 

[nakedfrog]

The saga continues.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/04/nx-s1-5347418/trump-tiktok-second-ban-delay

LOL

Negotiators had been expecting to announce a deal on Friday morning on TikTok, but one factor that complicated the plans was Trump's firing of a National Security Council official who was helping to coordinate the TikTok deal, according to a source directly involved in the talks who was not authorized to speak on the record.

 

[mindless1]

I learn better in medium (large by today's standards) doses, to keep at it so the information ties together. Plus it takes forever to cover a topic in small doses. An exception might be memorizing raw data, but seldom in the computing era do I need to do that, because I take good notes. However I suppose in that, you could call it smaller doses because I don't take the notes in real-time except for raw data, more like a summary of things that I might forget, every so often.

 

[Kaido]

LOL

That reads like an Onion article lol

according to a source directly involved in the talks who was not authorized to speak on the record.

 

[Kaido]

That has not been my experience. People intake and process information differently and at different rates and speeds. Some are better auditory learners, others visual. Attention spans are all over the place. And often dictated by various factors like amount of sleep, food intake, stress levels, etc.However, one thing they all share is that tactile/hands on is the best way to fully understand and retain the information. I.E. the doing of something.

Not only that, but there are different ways of thinking, as well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/kaidomac/comments/qnox4v/different_ways_of_thinking

For example:

1. I have a blank mind's eye (Aphantasia)
2. I have no inner narrator (I think in emotions & flowcharts)
3. I have a small working memory (Inattentive ADHD flavor of Executive Dysfunction)
4. I can't imagine numbers (math dyslexia, aka dyscalculia)

My first exposure to the power of compounding interest regarding education came from the AutoCAD class I took many years ago, as mentioned earlier. I later found a structured approach in the book "The Talent Code", which cracked the code for how talent was effectively grown:

Amazon.com

This method relies on steady engagement over time, aka "grit":

The formula is FABULOUS!

Effort counts twice: Angela Duckworth’s ‘Grit’

first published on Changeboard.com 5 minute read If talent is overrated and we need grit to excel, how can we cultivate it for work and life?

claregt.wordpress.com

Essentially:

Building skill: Talent x Effort = Skill

Making skill productive: Skill x Effort = Achievement

The neat thing is, the whole "10,000 hours" thing is a bunch of baloney! You can learn anything in just 20 hours:

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

www.youtube.com

However, that's the just breadth; the real usability comes from the depth. This is where micro-dosing information over time comes into play, which has become my core educational approach:

1. Building up a personal knowledge database
2. Creating accessible resource pools of tools, data, checklists, etc.
3. Learning the history & current state of the art

All of that requires (for most people, anyway), what I call "gel time":

1. Too much information at once becomes too much to think about & remember
2. We need time to apply it & play with it in order to see how to use it, as well as take usable notes for future reference
3. We need time to think of ways to use it

I teach various topics locally to children & adults, including computers, 3D printing, and cooking. For example, the foundation of computers is simple. Everything needs:

1. Power
2. Communication

All computer platforms are built on the same 7 principles to achieve those two requirements:

1. Motherboard
2. CPU
3. RAM
4. Boot drive
5. Power supply
6. Video card
7. Protective enclosure

Operating systems work much the same way. So then you can combine them:

1. Gaming desktop with Windows 11
2. Laptop with MacOS
3. Apple Watch with WatchOS (aka fancy Darwin BSD)
4. Raspberry Pi with the Artist Formerly Known as Raspbian (Debian Linux flavor)

Power for an iWatch? Battery with inductive charging. CPU on a Mac? Custom ARM chip. Pi enclosure, if desired? 3D printed with GPIO inclusions. The breadth is pretty easy to master in short order, but the depth tales time & persistence to really learn, master, and make usable in order to make & create cool stuff!

Music is the same way...guitars are just 6 strings & 22 frets (and variations on that theme), but there are endless brands, accessories, genres, songs, techniques, and artists to dive into learning about! The power of compounding interest aka building "wealth" over time is where steady daily education comes into play. But for most of us:

1. We have work
2. We have school
3. We have people, plants, and animals to take care of
4. We have chores to do
5. We are often fighting fatigue & low energy levels

Finding the time & energy every day to carve out hours of uninterrupted time to focus is VERY difficult for most people I know! It's not that it's NOT doable, it's really more of a resource issue! The big secret I've found is placing heavy value on daily iterative progress. I break the approach into 4 parts:

1. OTAD
2. Study Stacking
3. Time block
4. Set Switches

OTAD stands for "One Thing A Day". I started this with Photoshop: if I learn just one new command a day, then that's 365 new commands a YEAR! Which has branched out to plugins, techniques, keyboard shortcuts, etc. over the years. My toolset grew to include a tablet, color-correction hardware, a vintage camera lens collection, Macro Express software, Tourbox Elite hardware, etc. as the decades passed. Eventually this turned into a side business for my wife & I and then a full-time business for her doing wedding & other photography for many years with all of the photo editing being done in-house.

Study Stacking is similar, but the base formula is 5 topics in 3-minute speed-run increments. For example, with guitar:

1. Learn history (build up education)
2. Learn the State of the Art including te news, brands, equipment, etc. (stay current)
3. Listen to a new song (daily exposure)
4. Practice a technique (focused exertion of deliberate practice)
5. Practice a song

That works out to over 90 hours a year of focused daily progress! After that is simply putting in the time: (Time Block method) using focused concentration to invest the hours required to grow at & refine the area of study. The last one is Set Switches, which is like flipping up a row of light switches by accomplishing a checklist of things to l learn or do every day.

Which is why I like Tiktok for education: short bursts of concentrated information! Sounds a bit silly on the surface, but like One Punch Man's workout, nobody actually does it!! lol

 

[DaaQ]

That has not been my experience. People intake and process information differently and at different rates and speeds. Some are better auditory learners, others visual. Attention spans are all over the place. And often dictated by various factors like amount of sleep, food intake, stress levels, etc.However, one thing they all share is that tactile/hands on is the best way to fully understand and retain the information. I.E. the doing of something.

A principle you wrote above, I have told students for years- You have to learn how to learn. It's a framework, a methodology in and of itself. Few derive/learn this skill from public school.

Small doses may work for some people in some subjects. It does not work for everyone in all subjects. Another principle I teach is - repetition reinforces retention. IME it doesn't matter if it's cooking or fighting or PC repair, that is the quickest and surest way to proficiency. Or as Sensei Fumio Demura exposed millions to in the Karate Kid - wax on, wax off, paint the fence, sand the floor. The 3 Rs and the doing of something covers all the bases of learning how to learn while gaining proficiency in something the student may not yet even realize it is applicable to.

Q&A: Not everyone wants or needs it. You leave some bored to tears, as they have already assimilated the information. Not all Qs are worth asking either. They say there are no dumb questions; the fuck there aren't. They serve only to waste everyone's time. Nor will the way you provide the answer click with everyone. Now we are off in the weeds trying to make one person understand something at the expense of the group.

Notes: I am not a good note taker. I am not alone in this. For me taking notes has the effect of lessening the experience. Much like people that constantly video or pic take instead of being in the moment, you lose something valuable you cannot get back. No matter how many times you look at the pic or watch the video.

Making usable tools from what is learned: Again, IME it is best to the develop and use the tools from the get go. Not as the last step in the process. Yes, they will probably make more mistakes/have more failures, but they learn from them/ there is value in them.

Obviously some of this is not applicable to the tik tok video format. And the hypothesis that it may be detrimental to attention spans needs further study.

Messed up the multi-quote, but this reply pretty much capture the discussion.

TLDR: @Kaido was supposed to be a multi quote so kinda seems rambling. But in agreement with people learn in different ways, which includes short info bursts and lecture/ reading information retention. They need start earlier teaching how to learn as well. IME like note taking, how to format and structure your learning outputs. ie test taking.

OT: my apologies for the spacing issue, sometimes it double spaces and I get tired of backing up to rectify it, keyboard maybe going bad, but it did start after a windows update h2/23 i think. But I want to get these thoughts out before I lose them or get pulled away so I am going to run with it. Sadly I did get pulled away to deal with some issues and think I lost and muddied my point.

I learn best by reading, very rarely but sometimes I need to use video. I really hurt myself during high school because disliked homework. Which had the effect of lowering my overall GPA due to homework being a part of the final grade. I would do the in class work, read the materials. I basically was a test taker. I would get above 80% on my tests but the weighting of the homework brought the average down so I struggled in that regard.

I am also a bad note taker I have learned recently with the classes I take for work. Online classes. I tied writing down what I thought was the relevant information for the final exam. Luckily it is open book testing, so having to go back and find the answers is how I retained more information. But the final exam is timed.

Anyway moving on, when my kids were in school, part was in Michigan rest was in Kentucky. My wife would help them with the English and writing stuff. I was the math and science stuff.
Well during this time period I think common core maybe was being introduced (I maybe mistaken when that was) but they would show me the math problems and I would start showing them how to solve them. I'm talking basic like multi/div/add/sub plus fractions and percent. They would look at me dumbfounded and say what are you doing? I would reply this is how you solve it? I said show me how they are teaching you to solve it. They would take one problem and start drawing lines ect. LATTICE was what it was called. It would take up practically the whole sheet of paper depending on the size of the numbers involved. It blew my mind. I am a minimalist and hated having to use multiple sheets of paper to put 30 math problems on, especially when the teacher required to "show your work" I loved the teachers that would allow scratch paper to be used and submitted.
I didn't know how to help them actually. Not using that method. I told them well there are multiple ways to solve problems, I would have to learn this way, or show you how I was taught and you would not have to draw up a grid every time. I remember I had to memorize 1-12 multiplication back in the day, so I had them also do that.

Anyway moving on again because this is getting long and turning to a wall, and I'm losing the point of the comment.

Onto my grand daughters school work. The oldest is 9 now and in 3rd grade. She, well I'm pretty sure all of the youngest children around here lost a year due to COVID, like our 9 yr old did kindergarten twice. her sister did preschool 3 times due to starting it early because of birthday and we had her repeat because COVID was in the middle. They do well on their MAPS (I think that's the term for it now) testing that they do twice a year, the 9 year old scored into the 4th grade level at the start of this year. her younger sister is ADHD so very short attention span bursts. But they changed the math again. I recall the 2nd grade teacher saying they moved away from common core quite awhile ago. Not sure what now is called.
So my 9yr old one, started showing me how they do math now, still doesn't seem easier than back in the day but nowhere near as bad a the Lattice. I teach her the way I was taught. During PT conferences I told them that I if helping them with their math, as long as the answer is right, don't knock them for solving it the old way, that I'd have them show their work how they solve it. I won't let them use the calculator on the phone, and thankfully they haven't thought of using "hey Google" for answers, although they do use it for things they are interested in. Like how many types of foxes are there?

I think they keep changing some of these teaching styles to keep textbook manufactures profits up. (my personal conspiracy theory)

My wife uses Tik-Toc (sp?) alot for dinner recipes, she started doing that after trying the dinner boxes phase. Home fresh ect. Would be affordable if it was just for us two, we did use it for a bit, but now household is 5 so no dinner boxes.

If you made it this far, I agree with multiple teaching styles being discussed above. Not everyone learns the same. I don't think I necessarily agree with Kaido's numbers of 75% GPA average, but I may be biased from coming from a city and moving into a rural town.

 

[Kaido]

I don't think I necessarily agree with Kaido's numbers of 75% GPA average, but I may be biased from coming from a city and moving into a rural town.

The 3.0 GPA number is based on nationwide statistical data:

https://fordhaminstitute.org/sites/default/files/20180919-grade-inflation-high-schools-2005-2016_0.pdf#page=17&zoom=90,-239,517

It's actually a bit worse than that as we dive into the socio-economic factors:

the median GPA in more affluent schools increasing by 0.27 points, from 2.73 in 2005 to 3.00 in 2016, and median GPA in less affluent schools increasing 0.17 points (from 2.42 to 2.59).

What's the Average High School GPA? · PrepScholar

What's the average high school GPA nationally? What's the average GPA at your school? Read our expert guide to learn where you rank compared to other high school students.

blog.prepscholar.com

As you can see, the national overall average GPA is 3.0. But this might be deceptive: the average GPA in core subject areas is actually a bit lower (2.79), meaning the overall average is only brought up to 3.0 by the higher grades students receive in courses that are not part of the core curriculum.

Math & science fare worse:

The core curriculum in the NCES data consists of math, science, English, and social studies courses. The average GPAs for these different types of courses were as follows:

Math: 2.65
Science: 2.70
English: 2.85
Social studies: 2.89

This data shows that students tend to have lower average GPAs in math and science courses compared with English and social studies courses.

The area you live in does tend to have a huge impact on education. I have friends teaching in inner-city classrooms who struggle with the very real issues of over-crowding, understaffing, and limited resources. We just graduated an illiterate honors student:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/us/connecticut-aleysha-ortiz-illiterate-lawsuit-cec/index.html

My core education approach starts with the full & total acceptance of personal responsibility:

1. No one is coming to rescue us
2. Therefore, we have to rescue ourselves (from a mediocre life!)
3. This is an opportunity to design, pursue, achieve, and maintain the best kind of life we're able to!

I worked in the career field for awhile. My career approach jumps off those concepts:

1. Are you willing to gain further education?
2. Are you willing to have a work ethic?
3. Are you willing to relocate?

I have some good resources that I've collected over the years here:

Studying tools

Career & life-planning tools

Ultimately, we're all released from the public education system at 18 years old & then have to navigate the real world & face a variety of constraints. Time & energy are two of the biggest constraints. Regarding education:

1. Do you really have the free time every single day to spend hours in ongoing personal & professional education of your own accord?

2. Do you really have the energy to maintain that effort investment over time?

It's not that everyone learns the same way or that people can't uphold hours of self-engagement; it's more of an issue of consistently-available personal resources (time, energy, etc.) long-term. In practice, I love the succinct way "Atomic Habits" author James Clear put it:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

There are many purposes of school, which include gaining a general educational foundation, becoming literate, developing more specialized skills for a future profession, learning how to work solo & in groups, etc. Long-term, gaining usable knowledge is (or at least, should be) a huge part of it: home economics & a resource pool of recipes, personal financial management & a support system design to stay out of debt, etc.

The method doesn't matter as much as creating an environment that fosters functional comprehension & usability. In my experience, I've had HIGH amounts of success converting to more interesting, short-form educational snippets over time, as once that 20-hour (ish) foundational system is built for a particular topic, the rest is mostly additive knowledge to grow out strength of knowledge within the system: cooking, languages, math, coding, etc.

For example, I teach a very basic cooking system. For those who want to bake, I have the Baking Engine, a continuous engagement system to bake as frequently as desired. For those want want integrated daily convenience, I use the No-Knead Bread system, which requires a mere 5 minutes a day of active, hands-on time. All 3 systems are VERY easy to learn. Mastery happens over time, with experience. "Wealth" comes as a result of regular engagement to try new tools, techniques, ingredients, and recipes.

Give how busy & tired many people are, a method to learn new things in a short, fun way (ex. Tiktok) is an invaluable tool to gain further education & improve our lives! I don't really know anyone who has hours & hours of free time available every day and sits there all by themselves with intense focus day after day after day, building their knowledge, taking notes, creating custom tools, and using that knowledge to add to the good in their lives. I'm sure people like that exist, but most of us need a different approach, haha!

 

[nakedfrog]

Essentially:

Building skill: Talent x Effort = Skill

Making skill productive: Skill x Effort = Achievement

The neat thing is, the whole "10,000 hours" thing is a bunch of baloney! You can learn anything in just 20 hours:

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

www.youtube.com

The "10,000 hours" isn't "to learn" a thing, it's to master a thing. I'm not saying it's correct either, but this sure seems like a misrepresentation of it. There's a vast gulf between learning a thing and mastering it.

OTAD stands for "One Thing A Day". I started this with Photoshop: if I learn just one new command a day, then that's 365 new commands a YEAR! Which has branched out to plugins, techniques, keyboard shortcuts, etc. over the years. My toolset grew to include a tablet, color-correction hardware, a vintage camera lens collection, Macro Express software, Tourbox Elite hardware, etc. as the decades passed. Eventually this turned into a side business for my wife & I and then a full-time business for her doing wedding & other photography for many years with all of the photo editing being done in-house.

Study Stacking is similar, but the base formula is 5 topics in 3-minute speed-run increments. For example, with guitar:

1. Learn history (build up education)
2. Learn the State of the Art including te news, brands, equipment, etc. (stay current)
3. Listen to a new song (daily exposure)
4. Practice a technique (focused exertion of deliberate practice)
5. Practice a song

That works out to over 90 hours a year of focused daily progress! After that is simply putting in the time: (Time Block method) using focused concentration to invest the hours required to grow at & refine the area of study. The last one is Set Switches, which is like flipping up a row of light switches by accomplishing a checklist of things to l learn or do every day.

Which is why I like Tiktok for education: short bursts of concentrated information! Sounds a bit silly on the surface, but like One Punch Man's workout, nobody actually does it!! lol

1, 2, and 3 won't help you improve at guitar 2 in particular is fine if that's a thing one wants to do, but has very little value overall.
Only practicing 6 minutes a day (3 on a technique and 3 on a song) isn't great, 15 minutes per day of actual practice on the instrument is far better, split between technique and song--although honestly, I recommend treating practice and playing for enjoyment as separate activities, and both are important for getting better. And you've left out time for tuning, which is essential

 

[Kaido]

The "10,000 hours" isn't "to learn" a thing, it's to master a thing. I'm not saying it's correct either, but this sure seems like a misrepresentation of it. There's a vast gulf between learning a thing and mastering it.

Right, that's the point:

1. Mastery requires time, effort, and aptitude
2. Which requires consistent effort over time to gain all of those knowledge & skills
3. Therefore: spend the 20 hours or so to establish a firm foundation & then build on that for as long as desired!

I teach sourdough locally (thanks COVID lockdown!!). The foundation takes like, an hour to teach. After that, it's all about iterative development over time:

1. New recipes & new techniques
2. Active sourdough maintenance (no-discard scrapings method) & discard usage
3. Ongoing investment system for ingredients, tools, cookbooks, classes, etc.

So then we can dive into stuff like Scoring & Coil folds and recipes Focaccia & Croissant loaf. Wanna learn math? Piano? Take flying lessons? A.I.? Football? The approach is similar across the board:

1. Build the basic foundation
2. Spend consistent effort over time to build knowledge, skills, and resources

Good article on the 10k hours concept:

The Great Practice Myth: Debunking the 10,000 Hour Rule

The 10,000 Hour Rule: It's a popular rule of thumb, but it isn't based on solid science. Here are practical, research-backed tips on practice.

www.6seconds.org

For me, at least:

1. Learning huge amounts of information in each session day after day renders the bulk of the new information unusable to me
2. I need that "gel time" to let it set...to rewrite my notes, create checklists & other tools, to fiddle with it, etc.
3. Tiktok-style education has proven ridiculously valuable to me: interesting, short, highly informative sessions, executed consistently, to grow knowledge over time, especially in endlessly busy days with low energy as working adults with numerous other responsibilities!