Cute cat is sporting with its tail. Charming boys and girls are dancing in front of you. Hollywood stars inviting you to join in their campaigns in person. All of these can happen “For You” only in one minute. How? Use TikTok! TikTok is a video-sharing social networking app. On TikTok, you don’t need to follow anyone or build a connection with any other users. When you open the app, there’s already a section called “For You” automatically recommending fancy and appealing looping videos of 3-15s to you. If you are not interested in it, you can swap to the next video until you find the one you like. Then, TikTok will memorize your preference and later it will feed you similar content. But how can it do that?

 

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a China-based company that calls itself an artificial intelligence company. It adopts an algorithmic approach to send users what they prefer. On its website, the founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming expresses the goal of his company is to combine the power of AI with the growth of mobile internet to revolutionize the way people consume and receive information. In fact, ByteDance did achieve that. On TikTok, the way it’s set up through algorithm, it just keeps feeding you. TikTok has become one of the most popular apps in the world. In the past two years, it showed snowballing popularity: total TikTok downloads over 1.5 billion making it the seventh-most downloaded app of the 2010s, according to Business of Apps released in April 2020.

 

TikTok is appealing to youngsters. According to Global Web Index TikTok stats published in August 2019, outside of China, 43% of TikTok users are aged 16-24. 60% of US TikTok users are aged between 16-24, according to a November 2019 release from Reuters. In 2018, ByteDance reports in China about 56% of Douyin users are aged 18-30. As the Chief Business Commentator John Gapper in the Financial Times said: "Who could dislike a sweetly addictive mobile app filled with 15-second looping videos of teenagers lip-syncing and dancing?" So a question arises: why is TikTok so attractive to youngsters?

 

TikTok is powered by sophisticated AI technology which is a helpful tool to satisfy the audience’s needs, but the technology itself is not the only reason for the appeal of it among the young. Celebrities can also inspire their fans to support them and participate in internet campaigns on TikTok. In the past, many articles have emphasized these causes for the attraction of TikTok. Besides that, some conspiracy theorists think without the support of Chinese authorities, no Chinese company can obtain such an achievement and there could be some strategies hiding like cooperation with the government behind ByteDance. However, so far this assertion still lacks enough evidence. This article will provide readers with a unique view from the perspective of behavioural psychology to analyze the appeal of TikTok to young people. There are two psychological tactics TikTok is adopting which we rarely noticed before: users’ gratification from social media and shorter attention spans.

 

Perfect Illusion: Lost in TikTok World with Instant Gratifications

 

Strategic Triumph in the Youth Market

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First of all, before revealing the first tactic TikTok utilized, let’s take a quick look at how it can be so competitive in the West market. Today China has become the world’s biggest internet market with 830 million internet users according to the statistics from the Financial Times in 2019. The internet industry is booming. In recent years, Tecent, Baidu and Alibaba are representatives of successful technology innovators and internet giants, but outside of China, TikTok parent company ByteDance has obtained success exceeding other Chinese companies. Tecent’ s WeChat is more like the combination of Facebook and Whatsapp. Baidu’s achievements in China are largely based on Google’s leaving from China. The functions of products from these two companies are not special for foreign customers. Nevertheless, Alibaba is facing another problem with financial privacy. It is easy and convenient to use Alipay, a third-party mobile payment platform in China. But most western countries have a strict policy about the private information of bank accounts, Alipay could bring some privacy concerns. However, TikTok has achieved a strategic triumph globally. In 2018, TikTok was merged with Musical.ly which has already boasted a considerable American audience particularly in the American teenager market, according to Business of Apps released this year.

TikTok has been attempting to promote its brand in the young community.

 

Fancy & Appealing Looping Videos

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TikTok censored certain types of people such as ‘ugly, poor and disabled people’ out of the “For You” section to attract more users. Powered by algorithm, TikTok is capable of continuously feeding users short videos in line with their preferences. As the Intercept reports, the internal documents state that “the only focus of the video if the character’s appearance or the shooting environment is not good, the video will be much less attractive, not worthing to be recommended to new users.” TikTok was worried that less superficially attractive videos would scare away new users. A TikTok spokesperson told the Intercept those policies are old and no longer in use. Therefore, it proves that in the past for a long time, TikTok had utilized this strategy to attract new users and keep them active.

 

TikTok Use Gratification: Relief from Reality

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“Absolutely it is addictive to me, because TikTok can be used to distract myself from the daily routine,” said Claudio Di Marino, a law school student from Federico II University of Naples, who is a 2-year-old Italian TikTok user. He uses TikTok at least 2 or 3 hours a day. When the first time he used it, he was at the age of 23. Out of curiosity to see what Chinse app and Chinese culture are like, he downloaded that app. He found that this app easily caught his eyes. Claudio clearly knows that life on TikTok is not real. But he said, “Sometimes real life is made of pain, depression and suffering…. On TikTok, those bad things can go away from me. It can give me pleasant moments to feel delighted and carefree.”

 

At the other end of Eurasia, China, Siying Li, a sophomore student from Northeast Agricultural University shared a similar feeling. “Now sometimes I can use TikTok for a half-day,” said she. Siying is a vlogger on Douyin (TikTok in China) and also 2 years user. When she first used this app, she just wanted to share her daily life with classmates by recording vlogs and singing videos. “Gradually, I found I expect to get more likes and compliments from friends and classmates,” said Siying, “I also enjoy the moment shooting videos with my close friends together. It’s good. But I have to admit that it is addictive.” She mentioned when she hangs out with friends, she always wants to record some videos just for posting them later on TikTok.

 

Faced with TikTok use addiction phenomenon, experts have sent warning signals. Dr. Jayant Mahadevan, from India National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), told the LiveMint that there are established vulnerability patterns or risk factors by overusing social media. He said to LiveMint, “Deficit in social skills, difficulty in conversing and recognizing emotions, seeking instant gratification through social media. Individuals undergoing a difficult emotion of any kind are often seen spending more time on such apps.” Dr. Arun Kandasamy, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS also expressed concerns to LiveMint and stressed that the problem should be looked at in a scientific manner.

 

In September 2015, three general psychology researchers in Germany, Elisa Wegmann, Benjamin Stodt and Matthias Brand published an article “Addictive use of social networking sites can be explained by the interaction of Internet use expectancies, Internet literacy and psychopathological symptoms” on Journal of Behavioral Addictions. In their study, they found that Internet use expectancies seem to be crucial for specific Internet addiction to social networking sites. Social networking sites use may be reinforced by experienced gratification and relief from negative feelings. Meanwhile, they pointed out that individual competence in handling the Internet may be preventive for the development of specific Internet addiction to social networking sites.

 

In terms of youngsters’ self-regulation ability to use social media, Hanyun Huang, from the School of Journalism and Communication at Xiamen University in China, published the study regarding the connection between social media use, gratifications and addiction among adolescents on Social Media Generation in Urban China in 2014. Her study shows that gratifications from using social media may increase the possibilities of addiction. She also found in her study adolescents usually have a lower level of self-regulation. It means teen users may need guidance and help from parents and teachers to be capable of handling the Internet. In fact, in the digital era, both teens and young adults prone to lose control of using social media.

 

TikTok with attractive looping videos appears to be a quick fix to stress problems in our fast-paced modern society. Users can relief from negative feelings and experience pleasure by watching content in line with their tastes and preferences. In some degree, these videos satisfy audiences’ expectancies to an ideal lifestyle and temporarily forget anxieties in real life. Just like Elisa and two other co-workers’ findings, gratifications from the internet can be pivotal for explaining social media addiction. Here, pleasure obtained from TikTok can increase the possibilities of users’ addiction behaviours. In particular, considering the competence of adolescents’ and young adults’ in handling social media, it is easy for them to form an addictive mode of using TikTok.

 

Goldfish-like Attention Span: Always Swap to the Next One

 

Frankly, Shorter than a Goldfish

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In May 2015, Time released the result of a new study from Microsoft Corp., it shows that nowadays people have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. People now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, while the average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds. Researchers found that since the year 2000 when the mobile revolution began, the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds. They explained that this phenomenon is the effects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain.

 

The study also proved that there are generational differences in the use of mobile phones. Researchers in Canada surveyed 2,000 participants and studied the brain activity of 112 others using electroencephalograms (EEGs). Only 10% of respondents over the age of 65 responded “No” when asked, “When nothing is occupying my attention, the first thing I do is reach for my phone,” compared with 77% of people aged 18 to 24 answering “yes”. Today it is unimaginable for youngsters to live without mobile phones. The time length setting of TikTok videos exactly considers users’ attention spans.

 

Constant Freshness before Losing Interest

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“That’s the trick of TikTok. The duration of videos on TikTok is set up to between 3s to 15s. From the perspective of engineering psychology, it is just similar to the length of time that people can concentrate,” Dr. Jianbo Hu said to Zhejiang News. Dr. Jianbo is a Chinese registered psychotherapist and the Secretary of Mental Health Center of First Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang University. He explained that 15s is enough for the audience to create a virtual space in their brains. The video has ended before most users lose their interest and attention, and then they can just swap to the next one. Even if there is something less interesting in the middle, but there are other fancy videos on the way. Soon the bad feelings would be immediately offset, which strengthens the behaviour of continuing to swap. Hence, the next one is often new and different with freshness. Then brains get active again. Without notice, time is passing and the day is half-gone.

 

As Zhejiang News reports, Dr. Jianbo also suggests young people should participate in some activities with friends in real life or spend quality time with parents and families. Face to face communication and having a hobby is still crucial in life. “I think I’ m not addicted. I’m not using this app all the time,” said Charlotte Garnier, a college student from the University of Angers France, she has used TikTok for 5 months. She has a strict time management plan for mobile use. She prefers to do more exercises to kill time and release stress in a healthy way.

 

Indeed, TikTok this app itself is not the problem, and the problem is how we use that and what kind of lifestyle we want to choose. If we really met some problems in real life, please ask for professional help instead of escaping from reality to the internet world. It is never late to ask for help.

 

In summary, from the perspective of behavioural psychology, the design of TikTok takes nowadays people’s shorter attention spans and users’ enjoyable and fresh experiences into account. It is understandable that the success of a product should meet the consumers’ needs. These psychological tactics have successfully satisfied the users’ needs. However, the internet industry increases speedily and the competition is fierce. Just like ten years ago, Facebook was the legendary social media platform. How about TikTok? What will TikTok be like after ten years? Have they formed a sustainable plan? Those are new challenges. Now I feel grateful to readers for paying enough attention to reading this article. On the bright side, considering our brains are adapting to the digital era, maybe it is part of the evolution of human beings.