TikTok is the fast food of entertainment

We all know fast food is bad for us. We know that companies like McDonald’s try and make the tastiest burgers they can. And we know that to achieve this they have to sacrifice your health, they have to fill them with the most rewarding (high sugar, high fat) ingredients they can, and to make this experience even more rewarding for you, they prioritise speed and eliminate wait times. Almost everyone is in agreement that fast foods are bad for you. It’s not that we don’t enjoy the taste, but fundamentally they have a negative impact on our health.

Tiktok is largely the same, the content you consume is designed to be the most rewarding it can be. An algorithm monitors your ‘watch time’ on each tiktok you see and uses that data to recommend you content that other users who has similar watch times to you enjoy. For example, say you watch a full minute of a video of two people having a fight on a bus. The tiktok algorithm will show you other videos that people who also watched the one minute bus fight video watched for long periods of time. It learns what’s rewarding to you by comparing your watch times to people with similar interests. If you quickly scroll past a makeup tutorial, it’ll begin to learn that that style of content isn’t rewarding to you and you’ll begin to see less and less of the content that people who watch make-up tutorials see. What you’re left with is a ‘For you page’ that is tailored to be as engaging and rewarding as the algorithm deems possible.

What’s the harm in having an endless stream of the most rewarding content? The short answer is: You get used to it. Your brain adapts to receiving reward and engagement every 30 or so seconds. It gets so used to this constant stream of reward that it begins to expect it. Why is expecting to be rewarded every 30 seconds harmful? Because it decreases the appeal of longevity and discipline. Your brain will begin to struggle concentrating on tasks that require patience and commitment and instead crave short term dopamine spikes. Sitting down to read a book for 20 minutes will begin to seem like a challenge as your brain is not used to delayed gratification.

Imagine you go to turn a tap on, and instead of the water coming out instantly, nothing happens for 10 seconds. 10 seconds isn’t a lot of time, but because your brain is so used to the water flowing as soon as you turn the tap, 10 seconds will feel like a lifetime. Chances are, you’ll begin to get annoyed with any tap that takes 10 seconds. Now imagine the same principle applied to feeling good. Your brain becomes so adapted to getting rewarded multiple times a minute, that everything else seems boring and time consuming.

To a more extreme example it’s a similar psychological framework of drug addiction

The brain receives intense dopamine spikes from the drugs that afterwards, the user begins to crave, unable to find similar dopamine spikes in daily life, the user returns to using the substance. (It’s important to note that addiction is more complicated than just this, there are environmental factors and of course most drugs are also chemically addictive rather than solely psychological).

So Is TikTok harmful? No, just like a large big Mac meal isn’t harmful. The harm comes if you over consume. Your brain will begin to expect these rewards if it receives them frequently and in large quantities. Before I quit social media, my attention span and commitment to goals was rubbish. I developed new hobbies and passions every couple of weeks, I could never workout (even if I set myself low goals like 7 minutes a day), I would lose interest in books after the first couple of pages and I was on the path to becoming someone I didn’t want to be. Quitting social media had a galvanizing effect on me, it helped me find focus and more importantly it helped me find my centre. A centre that I could operate in and develop. I’ve never really looked back.

If you are like I used to be and you quit things when they get hard, or maybe you struggle to read or workout for short periods of time, then maybe you should reconsider your social media input. If on the other hand you are a deeply focused person who struggles to let things go and sees tasks out to the bitter end, then maybe TikTok might do you some good.