Hello Everyone! In this video, I will talk about TikTok’s selection of content and its role in the insurgence of addiction.
For the definition of “addiction” in this context and an overview of previous research made about TikTok:
Qin, Yao, Bahiyah Omar, and Alessandro Musetti. ‘The Addiction Behavior of Short-Form Video App TikTok: The Information Quality and System Quality Perspective’. Frontiers in Psychology 13 (6 September 2022): 932805. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.932805.
Great video! I find the topic super interesting. When you mentioned that you got recommended bad and occassionally good tiktoks at one point, it reminded me of the concept of random intermittant reward, so you when only get “rewarded” once in every while. It makes whatever you’re doing, like gambling, super addictive! I wonder if that contributes to the addictiveness of tiktok, like it makes you want to keep scrolling
Exactly! I wasn’t familiar with the term but that sounds exactly like what I felt was happening on the app. I think it does contribute to its addictiveness because it makes you aware of the possibility that there is a reward relatively near to you and all you have to do to reach it is watch a few other videos, which is a very similar dynamic to gambling! thanks for your comment 🙂
Good video! I have never used tiktok myself so I don’t have any experience with the algorithm, but I wonder how dangerous it would be if this algorithm would be influencable. You mentioned a lot of the addicting power comes from the fact that the algorithm is so precise in your tastes, but this algorithm is still not something out of the hands of people who can influence for their own use.
Hi, loved the video and the topic. 🙂
You talk about the algorithm which after a while gets to know you basically, but therefore can also get pretty “wicked“ with all of this useful info it collected.
I relate to what you discussed a lot, along with many others I believe, so I wanted to share how I tried to “finesse“ it. In short, I pretty got much off social media as a whole for a while. I know it sounds as a stretch, but I was genuinely interested if I could do it. Short answer, yes, it worked. I could. I was detached from the endless scrolling for a while and waiting for that good content that will make me think, laugh or get inspired,… Of course I had other sources for that and it was not as hard as one might think. And, actually I got all of those popular and trending videos sent to me from my friends (to whom, I proudly announced I am off social media, hehe). So, some of the“worth it“ content still reached me. However, naturally, there was still this feeling of FOMO which you mention. But, I managed to get past it by realizing that the more content you scroll through and see, the more FOMO you get and become aware of. That is something I learned.
Thanks again for filming and sharing your experience!