Apps for Age Groups?


As someone who can appreciate good photography and art, I love Instagram (Yes, there’s a lot more to it than just pics of whatever people are eating). Every now and then, I’d show some really nice pics on the app to my 8 yo daughter. And since there is literally an endless stream of pics the app shows you, she’d then immerse herself of what is called “infinite scroll”, scrolling without end.

Then one day, when I showed her yet another pic on the app, here is the conversation we had:
She: “Isn’t this app for young people?”
Me (wondering how she even knows such things): “Yes, what’s your point?”
She: “Aren’t you too old for it then?”, adding pointedly, “Just as you say I’m too young for some things?”
Me: “No, I’m not too old for it.”
She: “Really? Aren’t you forty-whatever?”
Forty-whatever? This from the same kid who gets mad when I can’t remember how old she is…

FYI, kiddo, I don’t even remotely subscribe to the view expressed in this rant by an “adult”, Nicholas Carr, on the video sharing app equivalent, TikTok:
“TikTok shows us what a world without shame looks like. The old virtues of restraint — prudence, discretion, tact — are gone. There is only one virtue: to be seen. In TikTok’s world, which more and more is our world, shamelessness has lost its negative connotations and become an asset. You may not get fifteen minutes of fame, but you will get fifteen seconds.”
Further, he continues:
“(This is facilitated by) a culture that encourages and celebrates self-exposure and self-promotion. Vanity must go unchecked by modesty. The showoff, once a risible figure, must become an aspirational one.”
And it is endless, aka “infinite scroll”:
“It is endless horizontally, each video an infinitely looping GIF, and it is endless vertically, the videos stacked up in an infinite scroll. There is no exit from TikTok’s cinema.”

Maybe, one day, she’ll appreciate that her old man is open to the in-thing. Or maybe she’ll snigger at it as a desperate attempt to be cool. No prizes for guessing which is the more likely outcome…

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