Tok the Tik

Dear Reader,

In China, the app TikTok (owned by Chinese company ByteDance) goes by the name Douyin. Douyin has 670 million daily active users, compared to 1 billion monthly active users in the US. An interesting fact about Douyin is that the CCP does not allow minors to remain on the app for more than 40 minutes per day. This regulation is an effort to curb addiction to the app and allow time for school-related work.

Setting aside the critical conversation regarding government control of consumer products, it is insightful that the Chinese Government will not allow minors to remain active on a Chinese company platform. However, in the United States — you or your child has the liberty to swipe through an endless stream of content.

Now I cut to a friend raising a 14-year-old daughter. The daughter is a student in the LA United School District — and somewhere in the middle of taking school on zoom from her bedroom and occasionally going into the classroom.

Our friend shared that her daughter has grown complacent about all activity, instead staying in her darkened room with the phone glow inches from her face. The daughter’s app of choice, TikTok. The daughter’s bedroom fills with the sound of (telephone audio quality) sound clips that constantly changes as the daughter swipes through TikTokcontent. Our friend struggles to find balance with getting her daughter actively outside her bedroom and away from the phone. In addition, the daughter’s grades barely hover to remain passing.

I, too, have indulged in the ‘Tok. During my recent swipe through ‘Tok content, the algorithm served me up video clips with the same audio, but each video with different content creators. 
 
Swipe — Same audio, hosted by a different creator… A few more swipes, and then we have the same audio and hosted a different creator…. A few more swipes, and then we have the same audio repeats but hosted by a different content creator. 

…. And so on.

Fortunately, I cannot go more than a few minutes before I pressure myself to move on to other, hopefully, more productive activities. However, I grow increasingly concerned about this repetitive dopamine hit and what it is doing to our culture and youth? I grow increasingly concerned as we find other social apps adopting this product onto their platforms. The struggle for eyeballs and related revenue is real, but can it be sustained as a generation of disconnected and poorly educated viewers won’t leave their darkened rooms?

Thanks for reading,
Christian