How TikTok ate kids’ brains

Yet TikTok’s growing influence and importance among kids and teenagers has sparked alarm in some quarters.

Campaigners, academics and politicians are concerned about what the video app could be doing to young people, particularly given its vast scale makes it difficult to monitor what is being watched.

Some activists, schools and researchers believe TikTok and short-form video apps leave children vulnerable to “rabbit holes” that can drag them towards extreme, radicalising or depressing content.

More fundamentally, there are concerns about what consuming such large amounts of short-form content are doing to our brains.

Andy Burrows, of the online safety advocacy group the Molly Rose Foundation, says TikTok has “probably the most impressive algorithm [of] any of the tech platforms”, but with this “the risks are equally higher”.

TikTok, which is ultimately owned by Beijing-headquartered tech giant Bytedance, is under intense scrutiny as a result.

Last year, it was fined £12.7m for allegedly failing to stop 1.4 million children under the age of 13 accessing its app in Britain between 2018 to 2020.

TikTok has disputed the calculations and appealed the fine. It says it makes “extensive efforts” to remove the accounts of users under-13, blocking 6m underage accounts globally each month.

In the US, TikTok is facing bans in several states, which it has challenged. Government officials have been barred from using TikTok over security fears that data may be at risk from China, though TikTok has always denied any connection to the Chinese state.

A TikTok spokesman said: “Through TikTok people find entertainment, connect with friends, and independent research shows how TikTok is sparking a passion for reading amongst UK teens.

“More than 40,000 people work alongside technology to keep TikTok safe; we remove nine in ten videos that violate our policies proactively, and the majority do not have a single view.”

Media’s ‘junk food’

After just a few minutes, the pull of TikTok becomes evident. For those unfamiliar, the app’s main hub – the For You page – is an endless stream of videos algorithmically picked out just for you.

Open the app and you may be greeted with a video of a girl dancing in her room to music dubbed over the clip; flick up and there may be a chef showing off his recipes; flick again, a teen trying on clothes or putting together an outfit; flick again, a dog doing something funny; flick again – and on and on it goes.

TikTok relies heavily on its recommendation engine to surface videos, which are made by users and posted on the app. The app monitors which videos you linger on for the longest, serving you up more clips based on what you like. As a result, it has perfected the “endless scroll” that other apps have sought to mimic. 

Its short – originally 15-second – clips create a constant drive to keep scrolling. It now offers videos up to 10 minutes in length, as well as shopping and live content.

TikTok is aware of its pull. “Our algorithm and shorter video formats create continuous cycles of engagement,” a company marketing document states. The document adds its users engage with the app by clicking, swiping, liking or similar 10 times per minute – nearly double that of rival apps.

The company’s owner Bytedance originally launched “Douyin”, a precursor to TikTok, in China before expanding overseas. TikTok, which was launched in 2017, became its international brand and now operates independently. 

By 2021 it had one billion downloads, growing at a speed far outstripping that of older rivals Facebook or Instagram.

This success can be largely attributed to its unputdownable design. The app’s For You landing page immediately shows you a video it thinks you will like. There is little need for navigation and functions like messaging are secondary to its stream of videos.

“TikTok is ‘snack sized’,” says Amanda Lenhart, of technology-focused campaign group Common Sense Media. “It knows what you want.”

But just like unhealthy snacks, there is a fear that TikTok is the junk food of media. Some researchers have claimed excessive consumption of short-form videos leads to “addiction-like undesired behaviours”.