What does TikTok Brain mean and is it real? Reason behind netizens being hooked to social videos explored 

Scientists have coined a new term, 'TikTok Brain,' to explain the phenomenon of ever-decreasing attention spans among today's children, courtesy of TikTok's 15-second videos.

TikTok is perhaps the most popular social media platform currently, and users have found themselves deep down the rabbit hole of mindless scrolling for hours on end a little too often.

While this behavior has been brushed off nonchalantly so far, the discovery of TikTok Brain might just change that.

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What do scientists mean by TikTok Brain?

Forbes labeled TikTok as "digital crack cocaine for your brain" in 2020, and it could not be truer today.

The platform is known for catering millions of 15-second clips to its users in a concerningly short amount of time. It is one of the biggest culprits responsible for children's fleeting attention spans, hence prompting the term TikTok Brain.

Carl Marci, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told the Wall Street Journal:

“It is hard to look at increasing trends in media consumption of all types, media multitasking and rates of ADHD in young people and not conclude that there is a decrease in their attention span."

A Chinese study conducted specifically on the effects of TikTok's personalized algorithm targeting found that these personalized videos activated the reward centers of the brain, consequently feeding an addiction to the app. This also affects how easily people can control when to click off the app.

The research conductors at China’s Zhejiang University wrote:

"We speculate that individuals with lower self-control ability have more difficulty shifting attention away from their favorite video stimulation."

TikTok Brain also directly affects kids' directed attention, an ability that allows the brain to "inhibit distractions and sustain attention."

Dr. Michael Manos, a pediatric psychologist, said that TikTok's ever-changing environment does not require sustained attention from its users at all. He explained:

“If kids’ brains become accustomed to constant changes, the brain finds it difficult to adapt to a nondigital activity where things don’t move quite as fast."

James Williams, a tech ethicist, likens the short-form snackable world of TikTok to a "candy store." He pointed out that today's world is one of "immediate pleasures" and is unprecedented in human history.

Quick hit after quick hit (of short videos) enables a constant dopamine rush in the brain, thus triggering the TikTok Brain, where the body is always craving more of the feel-good hormone.

Bonnie Nagel, one of the researchers working on a study investigating the impact of specific apps on children’s brain development, predicted the finding to be:

"When brains repeatedly process rapid, rewarding content, their ability to process less-rapid, less-rewarding things may change or be harmed."

TikTok's harmful effects are not a common revelation for many, but some are definitely making the leap towards recognizing the detrimental effects of the short-video platform.

Popular influencer Emma Chamberlain herself recognized the gravity of the situation only after cutting TikTok off, saying:

"It seemed like TikTok kept me entertained in the bed to the point where I would stay in bed so much longer. Within the first few days of deleting TikTok, I stopped laying in bed so much because I would get so bored."

While teenagers and young adults may make the decision to cut down their TikTok consumption themselves, convincing children to do so is a whole other ball game.

Author Johann Hari acknowledged that depriving kids of tech does not work. However, increasing the time kids play outside or do other things apart from scrolling on TikTok is certainly a step towards avoiding the phenomenon of TikTok Brain.