Why is TikTok so addictive?
The psychological impact of the 15 second bursts of entertainment.
With over 600 million active users a month, the app gets an average user to stay on for about 52 minutes per day. The algorithm shows users content based on what they watch or engage with, as well as content that others who watch the same videos watch as well. It takes all of the choice out of the equation and tries to predict your preferences. This actually makes it less effortful and passive, which many people prefer for “relaxation” or entertainment.
But am I addicted?
If you are having trouble stopping, feeling like it’s negatively impacting you, obsessing over it, or using it to cope with outside problems… then you may want to keep reading.
Learning or taking in new information releases dopamine in the brain OR in anticipation of a “reward.” Obviously in your feed, not every video is your cup of tea or entertaining, but every so often you get an entertaining one. This is actually more likely to cause an addiction because it is an intermittent schedule of reinforcement (no quiz on that term later, don’t worry). In other words, we don’t expect every video to be a winner just like people who gamble, they don’t expect every hand to win. Instead, you expect some duds and think the next good one is just around the corner. However, it’s very likely that more hands or videos are duds than we want to admit and we end up spending 40 minutes on TikTok in the “blink of an eye.” We keep waiting for the next video to be funny or to keep us in the know of new trends.
Why does the 15 second bursts of entertainment matter? Well, it’s been shown that videos that are simple, unexpected, relevant, emotional (e.g., validating, funny, music), and portray a story, are most likely to get people to continue watching.
Also, there is no sense of completion, there is no end, there is no stop point. How do we actually get ourselves to stop? Usually the time spent on it passes the point of mild entertainment and browsing for a few minutes. It also allows us to escape our loneliness, our sadness, our boredom; it allows us to be in another world. TikTok world, coming to a Universal Studios near you (but not really).
If you’ve read this far and you are starting to feel like TikTok (or any social media for that matter) has a grasp over your attention and is taking too much time away from your life. Make a change… put time limits for yourself on the app. Only use it when you’re done with work/ homework/ responsibilities for the day. When you need to be productive, try to keep your phone farther than an arms length away. The first step to change is to actually acknowledge that somethings gotta change.
Doc Hotz