In many ways, I think TikTok is pretty good. It’s learnt my tastes, knows my preferences and how to curate for my tastes. Whenever I have an idle moment, I can open the app and immediately be presented with some video that I’d find interesting or entertaining. If at a given moment I’m not in the mood for a specific kind of content, I can just dismiss the video and I will be presented with something else, with the platform somewhat refraining from showing me that specific kind of content for a while.
And what I’ve described is precisely the problem with it. At any idle moment, I can open the app to pass a single moment and end up being sucked into it for tens of minutes or even hours. It’s very hard to just use it for five to ten minutes a day. It’s designed to be addictive and is addictive.
The only solution for me is to simply not have TikTok installed on my phone. Like many addictive things in life, the solution is zero consumption, because consuming a small amount is much harder than abstaining completely.
Public perception around the addictiveness of TikTok is mixed. Some say it’s no addictive at all, while others claim that it’s the best thing in the world and they can quit whenever they what — they just don’t feel like quitting.