Keywords: TikTok, Reels, Optimization, Addictive designs
In recent years TikTok has continued to set foot on the human’s increasing need for stimulation. With addictive designs optimized by engineers, the use of TikTok and similar apps is shifting from being a conscious choice into a psychological pattern that quietly takes control of our attention. There is an increasing literature (see also research in the EU) regarding the potential harmful consequences of TikTok that are yet to be studied in the long run. Research has shown that TikTok, compared to similar platforms such as Twitter (now X) and YouTube, is linked to poorer performance in prospective memory tasks. This raises an urgent question for society: not only how addictive design is reshaping human behavior, but also what must be done to prevent technology from exploiting our attention unchecked.
Designed to Keep Us Watching
Since TikTok launched in 2017 by ByteDance, it is now one of the largest players globally with nearly 1.9 to 1.99 billion monthly active users with more than 200 million across Europe. The app is very social. There are a lot of ways to interact with each other by sharing clips, making videos and giving likes. The question is, is this what most people do on the app? Probably not. Most people use it alone, in need of stimulation. There’s no denying that stimulation is important for us. We need stimulation to stay curious, engaged and up to date in today’s complex world. There are a lot of ways to be stimulated, but stimulation has not always been the same. One could rank different stimulations, like reading a book (which was once considered harmful by some), against watching TikTok. Both reading a book and watching TikTok are choices, but one is drifting away from being a fully conscious decision.
TikTok is designed with mechanisms that activate the brain’s reward system, encouraging users to remain engaged for extended periods of time. This does not only include TikTok. Most social media apps have ways to keep you on their app, which is simply their business model. Do they succeed? With nearly 2 billion monthly active users just on TikTok, they definitely do so. The conversation about whether the fast-phase scrolling and constant information given to us is harmful has been going on for long. One could argue that TikTok and other apps with infinite-scroll make emotional processing and self-reflection more difficult, because your brain never gets to rest. In a study from 2023 individuals were engaging with TikTok, Twitter (now X) and YouTube tasked to execute a previously planned action. The TikTok condition significantly degraded the individual’s performance compared to YouTube and Twitter. The study suggests that the combination of short videos and rapid context switching is what impairs intention recall and execution. TikTok, in particular, provides a more intense form of stimulation.
TikTok and similar apps are taking advantage of the human brain’s natural tendencies to crave stimulation by encouraging users to remain in a reward-seeking loop. From this perspective, would the ideal solution be to remove TikTok entirely? An interesting observation is that in China, where ByteDance originates, TikTok is only an export product. That is, TikTok is banned in China. Preliminary findings by the European Commission under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which is an act enacted to ensure the safety of citizens in the EU, concluded that TikTok was found in the breach of its obligations to mitigate the risks of addictive designs. This could result in fines or other enforcement measures. The Commission considers that the app needs to change its basic design of its service, but no final rulings have been made. The European Union is very aware of the harmful consequences that infinite-scrolling functions offer. TikTok is clearly not the optimal dopamine deficiency “gap” to fill and especially not in a world that increasingly demands complex problem-solving. With the rise of AI and climate change, our attention should not be exploited.
Potential Solutions
With the usage of TikTok at an all-time high, it is now clear that there needs to be something that can replace addictive designs. What a change needs to ensure is that social media companies can exist on the market and maintain revenue structures while simultaneously guaranteeing that our attention is not exploited. There are a number of solutions on the table, and the European Parliament has recently raised support for bans of infinite scroll, autoplay, pull-to-refresh and reward loops. This would mean introducing something called “finite scroll” or “End-of-Feed-Design”. This would work in principle but a problem arises when a line needs to be drawn on what is continuous feed or not. In France, an experiment was conducted, where two fake accounts (two girls and one boy at 13 years of age) were created. The experiment showed that in less than an hour, the teenagers were introduced to depressive content and within three to four hours, they were shown videos romanticising suicide. A “finite scroll” after 1-hour could therefore prevent the worst of the worst.
Another idea is to introduce a chronological feed by default. That is, it does not base the short-clips you see on profiling. There is already a law (Article 38) by the Digital Services Act (DSA) that says that large search engines shall provide at least one option that is not based on recommender systems. Expanding this idea to all social media platforms would be a way to get rid of seeing content that is meant to force you in an endless reward-seeking loop. This would mean that you would only see content from the people you follow and non-algorithmic feed in chronological order. However, there is a problem. Instagram and YouTube differ from TikTok in how they structure and deliver content. While all three platforms use personalized feeds designed to maximize user attention, TikTok relies on its algorithmically curated “For You” page as the core user experience. In contrast, Instagram and YouTube place greater emphasis on content from subscribed or followed accounts alongside algorithmic recommendations. Research suggests that the way Instagram keeps your attention is activating your reward system through variability and unpredictability. So then, implementing something that removes personalized feeds will affect social media companies unequally, depending on how reliant they are on algorithm-driven engagement for revenue.
The best solution would be to find a mechanism that applies to all infinite-scrolling apps without fundamentally altering existing incentives or revenue structures. As the harmful effects of addictive design become harder to ignore, regulators must implement carefully considered measures that do not simply create new gaps for companies to exploit with equally harmful alternatives. The issue cannot be solved by targeting app designers alone; it requires collaboration between social media companies, regulators, executives, and other responsible actors. The need to address addictive design is becoming increasingly urgent, yet meaningful intervention is still possible. Platforms such as TikTok exploit the human desire for stimulation through algorithmically engineered designs, making screen use increasingly deviating from being a choice of your own. Cognitive control is at stake.