"learned helplessness" & the tech literacy crisis | Internet Analysis
- Hello, my dudes. We may be facing an epidemic of something online. I don't even know what to call it, but you know it when you see it. - One thing I've learned since being on social media that scares me is just how unresourceful people can be. Hey guys, I love this amazing lip gloss I got from Fenty Beauty in the shade Hot Chocolate at Sephora for $21. What shade is that in? What brand is that? - The answers will be right in the post in the caption and you will still have people asking you, what is this thing you're talking about? - Wait, what are you talking about in this video? Like you didn't say what you were talking about.
- It takes them more time to write the comment than it would have taken them to just read the caption. - It's in the video, it's in the caption. Oh, I didn't see it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not that you didn't see it. It's that you didn't look for it.
- Why are you guys not reading things before you ask questions? And if you want to know the answers to basic things, why can't you Google it? - And yes, this problem has always existed online. People not reading posts or asking repetitive questions, but it feels like it's getting worse. I'm blown away by just how many misunderstandings I witness or just people entirely missing the point, seemingly not reading, listening, or paying attention at all. What's going on? Is this phenomenon some kind of learned helplessness? Is it laziness or short attention spans? I think this is a fascinating issue with dozens of possible contributing factors, education, attention spans, comprehension skills, tech and media literacy. When I first stumbled upon this topic, some people refer to this as learned helplessness, which is why I probably put it in the title. People also wonder whether this is some kind of weaponized incompetence. Learned helplessness tends to result from stress or trauma. Over time,
one may believe they have no control over their life. So even when they could potentially make changes, they don't try because they perceive themselves to be in a powerless state. And right off the bat, I wanna make a distinction between that psychological term and the way that it's being used in the mainstream. As often happens with language and especially with the internet,
terms start to get used in different contexts and sometimes the meaning can evolve. I think this is how it's being used colloquially. Let's say a kid learns if they ask for help, someone will just do the thing for them. So they realize I don't even have to try,
I can just give up right away. They develop this habit or this feeling of helplessness, even when it comes to relatively simple tasks. And the habit gets reinforced over and over, which worsens the helplessness vicious cycle. A lot of people have been complaining about learned helplessness on TikTok in the comment sections and even in education. A lot of teachers have been complaining that they're experiencing this with their students. They say they assign a simple task or assignment and the students give up completely without even trying. But when it
comes to this internet context, like in comment sections, I don't think most people are truly helpless nor are they trying to be malicious in asking questions. Please explain, what is this? Maybe once in a while there are people who genuinely do feel entitled to whatever information they're asking for or demanding, but I don't think that alone explains this cultural trend overall. But before we continue, this portion of today's video is sponsored by ThredUP. We're back with
friend of the channel ThredUP, the world's largest online thrift and consignment store. As you know, I love shopping secondhand. There's nothing better than finding unique pieces at great prices and cutting down on waste compared to new. It is super easy for me to find exactly what I'm looking for on ThredUP, whether I'm on the site or on the app. I can search for the exact brands, colors, styles that I want in my sizes. And every time I look through ThredUP, I favorite
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love this length. I love the pattern. It's like, is it a little business? Is it cas? And again, it's the color scheme I wanted. And next up, we've got a little cutie blue outfit. I love this like powdery blue sweater. It almost looks like a little purpley. The sweater is from Babaton, Aritzia. And these jeans are American Eagle. They're a little boot cut. I love a boot cut. Not wearing boots with them though. Breaking the rules. Breaking the law. For the jeans, the estimated retail is $60. I got them for 29.99. If there's one thing about me, I'm going to be cozy
and I'm going to be casual. So next time you have some shopping to do, shop secondhand first and check out ThredUp. You can shop my favorites with my link below and use code Tiffany to get an extra 35% off your first order. Attention, baby. Let's start with TikTok, of course. It does seem like many users are barely paying attention as they scroll. They'll watch something for five seconds
before commenting. Get to the point. Even at two times speed, getting through a one minute video is a drag. It doesn't matter what a creator says if viewers are only willing to watch 10 seconds of it. And even then they could be watching but not absorbing any of that information. Especially if they're seeing up to a hundred videos an hour. I know it is classic fear mongering to be like,
TikTok is killing our attention spans, but it's probably true. I can attest to that. Honestly, what else could explain when a clip of a TV show is posted and the name is in the caption and yet all the comments are like, what show is this? And I've seen many people get frustrated by this and they say things like, can't you read? Use your brain. But attention is a skill, a tool, a muscle because of short form content like TikTok and the general fast paced nature of the internet. Most of
us don't really work our attention muscles as much as we should. And it is so easy not to. Algorithms like the For You page are literally designed to keep us locked into the app and serve us an endless supply of things we might like. And if you don't like something, you can just scroll and see something else. But anyway, some people think that not paying attention is a matter of laziness. It's about effort and discipline. Though, as you all know, I don't really believe in laziness. There can be these kinds of habitual learned behaviors that do affect the way we give our attention and for how long. And when it comes to tech with super smooth user experience, we expect things to be quick and easy. We want instantaneous results. Though what I find fascinating is despite
all of this tech around us, we may be entering a period of tech and media illiteracy. And while I was writing this with Sheriden, she put it in a kind of nature versus nurture framing. And I think that's really helpful. I thought about it in terms of, are we really tech natives? Is it innate within us naturally to know how to use and understand these tools? Or are these skills that we have to learn, practice and nurture? Gen Z and Gen Alpha have been referred to as digital natives. Again, meaning that they've grown up with technology through their entire lives. So it must just be within them now. As opposed to most millennials who more so experienced an increasing amount of technology that evolved as they aged. Dial up internet,
flip phones, iPods and beyond. And I think one big problem with this is that we like adults, we've wrongfully assumed that tech literacy is just innate in young people. And it is not. "I wanna preface this by saying that this is not a diss against you; I'm 24, I'm not trying to be like "agh kids these days!" I get it. The system has severely failed you. I'm 100% in a very similar boat. I empathize with y'all, okay? I was reading this post about a teacher who does a lot of online tutoring for kids in middle school, high school, whatever, right? And she was saying that absolutely all of them are completely computer illiterate. They only understand how things work through apps!"
- Yes, I wanted to mention this, and I think it's a bigger problem the younger you are. It makes sense that kids who are raised on touch screens and super user-friendly things like iphones, tablets... they learn how to use apps, but they don't know how to use a PC or a desktop. A lot of kids have never used a physical mouse before. They're only familiar with touch pads.
So they can do most of the things they need to, on their phone or on an ipad. But if they had to do something that requires an actual computer, they're going to struggle with that. "and a bunch of teachers were sounding off, saying that yeah, a lot of kids don't even know how to type properly. A lot of them don't know how to search or use search engines. They don't know how to use the internet.
They only know how to use apps! Which makes so much f*cking sense... but it is also so god damn depressing." In my experience as a young millennial, I remember actively learning and practicing new technologies. We took typing tests in the library. We had like computer classes to teach us basic skills like Microsoft Word and Excel. Anyway, most of us ended up being labeled as good with tech because we just spent a lot of time figuring it out. Anyway, elder Gen Z can probably relate because we're pretty
much the same age group. And I'm sure again, as every time that I talk about generational things, a lot of people might be able to relate. It's not clear cut across generational lines, but generally these things tend to be true. Also, when we're talking about this issue of like attention spans and focus, you have to acknowledge that growing up with so much tech and being given it, offered it at all times, we've had constant stimulation, which we've grown accustomed to.
And speaking of the king of constant stimulation, back to TikTok. I think TikTok is having a little bit of an identity crisis at the moment. The app was originally Musical.ly, like this little dancing app, mostly for children. There are obviously still plenty of kids on TikTok, but now there are users of all ages. And recently TikTok has been encouraging longer form content. So a lot of creators are making it to keep up with the algorithms wishes, but it's tough because the overall audience and especially younger audiences have been conditioned to crave short form. Even though I personally prefer long form content. Hello,
welcome to the commentary video essay sphere. I prefer longer TikToks, but I still watch every video at two times speed. I do think I focus and I comprehend most of what I watch, but I definitely don't retain all of it because of sheer information overload. The amount of stuff I'm consuming, things battling for my attention. And I think about this and I'm like,
I'm 28. I have a fully developed brain probably. If this is so addictive and hard for me to manage, yeah, of course, how is that gonna affect someone much younger who is still developing? As I've seen in comment sections, a lot of TikTok viewers do not like longer content and they get frustrated when creators kind of bury the lead and save their best points to the end. They'd rather hear the main point right away. We have been conditioning people to expect answers immediately. So it's not surprising to see comments like, just explain, tell me. - Like how crazy is it? We are in an information surplus. We all have computers, encyclopedias and search functions at the tip of our fingers, but y'all refuse to do it. Everybody to do the things
for you when you can just use your resources. And my thing is, even if somebody doesn't put it in the video I will literally look up Fenty Beauty lip gloss brown and I'm gonna find it on my own. 'Cause one thing about me, if I want an answer, I'm going to find it, but y'all don't have that. - Now this is really interesting because some people find just Google it to be condescending and I'm sure it can be depending on the context, but I wanna make an important distinction. There's a difference between telling someone just Google it, it'll take you two seconds to figure it out and people who actually do like to gatekeep information. Like think about someone in an industry and they literally wanna gatekeep
that. They don't want other people to know you have to work hard, make the same mistakes I did, experience these hardships in order to earn this knowledge. And that's annoying to me. There is no virtue in struggle. Like let's not make things harder for future generations just because it
may have been harder for us. But anyway, there's a lot of discourse around this Google is free idea. And of course it is great to share information when we can, when we have the time or energy. - I'm not sure when it became perceived as condescending or rude to ask someone to Google something because in my opinion, it's not wrong to ask someone to do their own research. Having the option to ask people questions online is a luxury, not a right. Use TikTok as a jumping off point for your own research. Use the
gift that is the internet. It's amazing. And please respect people's boundaries. - But I think there is a limit to how much information you can share and in what ways. You can make a post, including all of the relevant information. You highlight some of it in the caption and then you still get some questions. So you make a little pinned comment,
link in bio, you reply to some of the comments, that should help. No, you still get hundreds of other people asking that same question. I've seen a lot of creators be like, you know what? I'm done saying everything. I'm just gonna leave stuff out 'cause you're not gonna hear it anyway. - All the time when I'm making a video in my head, I'm like, oh, gotta make sure I clarify this or this or that or that. And you're right. People will just ask anyways,
even if I clarified it. So I've started doing this thing where I tell myself, it'll be good for engagement. People purposefully omit shit all the time to get an engagement. And if I accidentally omit something, it'll be good for engagement and I'll let it go. And that is the only way I've been able to have peace when I'm making a video. - At a point, it's like, yeah, I can't help you. If I am spoon feeding you the information and you
won't take it, what more do you want? This makes me wonder, have we lost the ability to Google? There is absolutely something to be said about being resourceful. Is your instinct to try to figure things out and then maybe ask for help if you really need it or to just immediately give up if it seems like it's gonna be hard, especially with something as low stakes as, what is that lip gloss? Where can I watch this movie? I'm not trying to stoke any intergenerational warfare. I'm tired of it. People of all ages can and can't Google. Okay, we've seen it. I personally just really like Google. I'm constantly Googling things. Any question or idea that pops in my head, I'm looking it up. I wanna see what's there. And for me, I see Google as the easy solution. It is instant gratification. What was that movie with that actor? Boom, found it. Everything is at the
tip of our fingers. It should undoubtedly be easier to search for things, but it does take a little time and effort to do it, especially if you're not well-versed in searching. The bottom line is tech literacy is a skill. We have to learn how to use all of these tools and practice and troubleshoot when we can't figure something out. Though I will say, side note, that search engines
controlling what we see and predicting what we want is problematic. Search results now can be a little too catered to us, and that can impact the integrity of the results. But that's another topic for another video, I digress. Also, tech literacy is now inseparable from reading, research, comprehension, critical thinking, problem-solving. They're all intertwined. Ironically, as the internet offers endless information and resources, many of us find ourselves less knowledgeable and more confused than ever. I found this article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr. It's from 2008. Very relevant, and I love that he uses the term the net. Quote, "And what the net
seems to be doing "is chipping away my capacity "for concentration and contemplation. "My mind now expects to take in information "the way the net distributes it, "in a swiftly moving stream of particles. "Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. "Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski." I love that, and I can relate. Like sometimes having Google, having access to all of this information is intimidating, and it can actually make it harder for us to get into some real deep information versus just that surface level, like headline reading, basically. Nicholas Carr wrote, quoting Marianne Wolfe, "We are not only what we read, we are how we read. "Our ability to interpret text, "to make the rich mental connections "that form when we read deeply and without distraction "remains largely disengaged. "Deep reading is indistinguishable
from deep thinking." Next, I wanna touch on some factors that I haven't addressed yet when it comes to this issue of what's going on with people's comprehension or reading skills. First of all, here in the US, we are in an education and literacy crisis. It is not an individual problem,
it is systemic. You've probably heard the discussions on TikTok about kids not being able to read. Khadijah made a fantastic video about that recently. Other factors, learning disabilities, auditory processing disorders, brain fog. There are so many conditions that can make reading or listening comprehension more difficult, and I'm certain these account for some of the questions or maybe misunderstandings that we see online. And while communication and comprehension skills
are crucial for everyone, we do not all process or absorb information in the same ways. That is why support and accessibility tools are so necessary. These factors like neurodivergency or learning issues often go overlooked, especially online, especially when disabilities are invisible. If you're just an anonymous person in a comment section, people don't have that context of literally like your brain is processing this information differently. And lastly, of course, when we're wondering like why are people acting up so much these days, we're living in an extremely stressful world, which is traumatic; COVID, wars, genocide, economic issues, all sorts of suffering. Perhaps all of these stressors affect our brains, our processing power, and our attention. Continuing on, you've gotta be resourceful, be a critical thinker. It is
so crucial not to just listen and instantly believe whatever you hear or see. I think like that ability or the urge to Google or otherwise fact check yourself or other information that you pass by is really important. And that's one part of being a more critical thinker. And again, this is not a question of like your intelligence, I think it's more a matter of your judgment. Can you look at a scenario with critical thinking? Can you use your attention to figure out if this is a trustworthy source? Is this true? Is this fake? And you know what that is? It's media literacy, baby. I have this saga that I think is a kind of interesting example of practicing media literacy.
- I've decided we're not gonna do every single wedding tradition at my wedding. Women are not property anymore, which is why I decided I will be walking myself down the aisle. Apparently, a first dance with my father isn't enough. My dad just decided he's not gonna pay for my wedding anymore. - And all the comments were like, "Team dad, this is so heartless "that you'd cut off your parents in this way." And the caption of that first post said, "This is a Reddit story." And I was like, nobody in the comments is getting that. All right, I go to her profile and I'm like, "What is the deal with this? "What's going on?" She had posted a couple follow-ups and she continued like the story, the saga.
- My dad backed out of paying for my wedding. You probably saw his viral video or maybe you saw my viral video where I said I was gonna walk myself down the aisle. And yeah, I've just been getting quite a bit of hate. So I just wanna say thank you to those of you who have reached out. - But she still had in the caption, "This is a Reddit story. "This is a reenactment." Now,
first of all, obviously, she's kind of trolling a little bit. You know, she's enjoying the engagement boost of getting all these comments. And it ended up kind of being an interesting experiment into whether or not people read captions. And in her experience, apparently they don't, not at all. You guys did not react very well to that video. I'm getting hate comments, hate DMs, hate emails. I'm having big creators stitch the videos and make fun of me.
But guys, I hate to burst the bubble. That was a Reddit story. I'm not mad at anyone, but this is definitely a lesson learned that if you put something in the caption, just know people aren't gonna read it. Also, I made another Reddit story video where I actually put in the top right corner that it was a Reddit story and I put it in the caption and people still didn't read that. Granted, this got me a lot more views, but the whole image thing is getting out of control. So I'm just gonna start saying it in the videos again. But this sort of scenario happens
all the time where you watch something and you should get little alarm bells that go, this seems off. Is this real? Is it fake? Is this person trolling? This is a confusing saga, but it's not impossible to figure out. It literally only takes a few seconds to read the captions, check out the profile. But most of those commenters had a quick knee-jerk reaction, didn't do those things,
but they were willing to go find her on other platforms to leave more hate comments. - People are going on my Instagram and finding a photo of my husband, child and I and commenting on it, things like run from her, like this poor man. And I'm like, guys, that was a Reddit story. Come on now. - First of all, sending hate comments is usually not productive. But if you are
gonna put yourself out there like that, at least make sure you're right. Now you just look gullible. Now going into media literacy more broadly, I got my BA degree in media studies. So I do love talking about media literacy. And I found it really interesting, like the conversations that people have online, especially on TikTok about media literacy. Lately, a lot of people have been basically saying like, if you have the wrong take about a movie or something, you're media illiterate. And they use that as an insult.
- The biggest way I see the term media literacy being misused is people interpreting it as a matter of subjective taste. It's not. Media literacy is also not when a person has a subjective interpretation of a piece of media that you happen to disagree with or dislike. You can certainly argue with them in regards to it, but that does not mean they have an innately poor understanding of the media than you do. - Now, media criticism is definitely a part of this. Media analysis, but those are nuanced. They're not black and white. There is no one correct interpretation. - Because media literacy is partially a matter of being able to analyze different forms of media through different lenses and different angles, none of which are objectively more correct than the other.
- And also media literacy is so much more broad than most people think. Our ability to analyze a piece of media, which could be anything, social media, photos, videos, movies, music, advertisements. This can involve, again, analysis, looking at different components. Who made it? What was the context it was made in? What is this media trying to say? Criticizing the media, looking at it from different lenses. It's so fun. There's too much to say, actually, especially because tech is advancing so fast. Like, all of these components are very crucial to us having a healthy amount of skepticism as we're consuming information. You should always watch with a critical eye. And these
days it's like looking at something and being like, is this real or is this AI generated? Like, that's an important skill. It's only going to get more difficult to recognize 'cause like right now it's clunky and it's weird. It's uncanny valley. But as it gets more advanced, it's gonna be smooth and pretty much undetectable probably in the near future. And that's a little scary. But anyway, obviously as a media studies nerd, I strongly believe that media literacy should be taught in all schools at all levels. It's just such a necessary skillset. And it does tie into so
many other parts of our education and our human experience. Okay, so final thoughts. I hope you enjoyed this video because again, I didn't know how to brand it, what to title it, but I just wanted to talk about this as I've noticed these misunderstandings so often. And I'm like, there's a disconnect here. We are all interpreting and processing this information differently. I wanna know more about it. What's going on? And I can't wait to read the comments here because I'm
sure many of you will share your experiences and how you go about navigating the internet, the World Wide Web, the net. And again, I think it's so important to just be aware that there have been these huge changes in how we process information because of technology. A lot of people are currently kind of forgetting how to handwrite, how to spell, because we don't often practice these skills. We're typing, we have autocorrect. It's so easy to get used to that
technology, so much so that we forget how to do the actual skill ourselves. How we connect with technology does change how we think, and that's not necessarily a bad thing all the time. I'm not trying to be a tech doomer. Tech is indeed a tool, but if it is diminishing our other skills, like wearing down our attention, we should be aware of that. I have one last quote from Nicholas Carr. "In the world of '2001, A Space Odyssey,' "people have become so machine-like "that the most human character turns out to be a machine. "That's the essence of Kubrick's dark prophecy. "As we come to
rely on computers "to mediate our understanding of the world, "it is our own intelligence "that flattens into artificial intelligence." And I just thought that was a banger. I was like, wow, do I actually know anything? Or am I, I just Google things and it goes in one ear and out the other. I need to start exercising my brain. I gotta do more puzzles and read books. I've been listening to more audio books recently. That's fun. Anyway, again, I hope you enjoyed this one and thanks again to ThredUP. Make sure you check out my favorites, go to my link, use code
TIFFANY to get an extra 35% off your first ThredUP order. All right, that is all. Okay, thanks, bye.
2024-02-18 11:45
