By Shira Levy
Boston University News Service
President Donald Trump’s recent legislative action regarding TikTok confirms its place in the United States. But, it also shifts attention back to a critical issue: the platform’s addictive design.
The For You Page algorithm that keeps users scrolling is at the center of TikTok’s extraordinary cultural and psychological influence. TikTok’s appeal is not accidental: it is engineered.
The Brown Undergraduate Journal of Public Health reported that users spend an average of 46 minutes per day on the app and open it eight times daily. They also reported that users average 180 videos watched per day.
Dr. Ari Trachtenberg, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University, offered an explanation to why this data might reveal numbers so high.
“TikTok appeals to a younger demographic, which, by design, is often more susceptible to manipulation,” Trachtenberg said. “The only data we know about it are from observational studies and leaked internal documents. It appears to be a closely held secret.”
The addictive pull is not just metaphorical. It is measurable in the brain.
An fMRI study found that when users watch personalized TikTok videos, the brain regions associated with reward and self focus are more strongly activated than when watching random videos.
However, this fact can be true of many apps that affect reward and self focus. What is it about TikTok that reels in an audience that seems to be more effective than other applications?
Trachtenberg believes there’s not just one “TikTok trick” that makes the platform uniquely dangerous.
“From the limited data [known], I don’t see any obvious differences with the design elements of any other social-media site,” Trachtenberg said. “[Many apps] appear to make use of well-understood techniques from neuroscience research to keep users engaged as long as possible.”
Even though we don’t have the key to the secret formula behind TikTok, there are some great tactics to catch attention that are somewhat unique to TikTok.
Semiotics scholar Andrei Cusnir found that approximately 92.5 percent of the homepage is devoted to the video playing, prioritizing content over interface elements. This design immerses the users in what Cusnir calls an “endless movie.”
TikTok’s tactics are good for a marketing strategy, but the effects on the American youth are concerning.
A Cornell cognitive experiment found that after exposure to “TikTok-style” rapid video feeds, a user’s performance level was “significantly degraded” while working on tasks that required remembering future intentions. The National Library of Medicine reported that frequent use of the app is linked to increased symptoms of anxiety and depression in users under 24 years of age.
“Social media poses a threat similar to television of years past,” Trachtenberg said. “They are addictive and anti-social.”
TikTok has introduced features that claim to protect teens. In May 2023, TikTok automatically set a 60-minute daily screen limit for users below age 18.
But critics, like Trachtenberg, argue these prompts normalize overuse rather than curb it.
“I would be surprised if these features significantly affect addictive behavior,” Trachtenberg said.
Referencing a more than two-year long investigation that led to state officials suing TikTok, Trachtenberg said that even TikTok doesn’t think the features do enough.
Through the investigation, internal documents show that TikTok calculated the number of videos a user could scroll through before they are likely to become addicted to the platform. It uses this information to signal a system that enables the habit of scrolling rather than to help disengage.
Trachtenberg’s conclusion was that based on the article, TikTok appears to view the time limits as a public relations strategy.
The U.S. may have succeeded in restructuring TikTok’s ownership, and Trump may have declared it finally safe for America, but many still argue that the real problem is the app itself.
“One of the best solutions to TikTok, as with all other socials in the past, is good parenting,” Trachtenberg said.
