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Comment by ackbar03 | Hacker News Reader

What gave you that feeling exactly do you think?

Not OP, but had the same experience

For me I think it's two factors:

1) Quick out if you don't like it. Load the next thing is really quick and easy to do. Just flick up and boom it's the next thing. Right now there are no ads or interruptions. It's really easy to move on from something you don't like.

2) The algorithm is really good. I don't know enough about it, but it consistently shows me stuff I want to see. I can't explain it more than that.

I also don't feel like it boxes me in the same way Youtube does. Youtube shows me nearly the same thing I have already seen and liked. Tiktok pulls up a good variety (sometimes from creators with single digit followers) that I am interested in.

Even though I use it sometimes, I'm not a fan of social media in general, but I would describe TikTok as the crack cocaine of social media platforms. Once I started seeing those short videos half an hour would go by in an instant. I don't know how they made the video selection algorithm so good, but after a while of using it, it mostly shows videos where it can be almost certain you will watch at least part of it.

I don't know if the algorithm is so good or if it's because the app actively engages your brain without you realizing it. You're constantly thinking about whether you like the current video or not that you don't see the time go. If instead you were forced to make a conscious decision of what to watch before watching the video, it would be much easier to stop watching by just consciously making a decision to not watch the next thing.

I think TikTok’s videos are just long enough to provide a quick dopamine hit over and over again, but too short to deliver any real substance.

You become like the lab rat hitting the lever over and over again to get a pleasure spike from the electrode wired to its brain.

I’ve found that my attention span and willpower have been decimated in the last few years. I can barely make it through a few pages of a book without reaching for my phone. I’m not sure if the (over)stimulation caused by apps like TikTok are the cause, but it seems plausible.

> You become like the lab rat hitting the lever over and over again to get a pleasure spike from the electrode wired to its brain.

Incidentally, this is what HN upvotes on my comments are for me. I tried to abandon the use of smartphones entirely, but HN is the one addiction that I can't seem to kick. Even YouTube was easier to kick, and that one wasted a lot more of my time.

Upvoted. Enjoy.

I just reinstalled it today. This is one of the few social media apps where I have to snap myself out of it to realize that I've spent too much time on it. I don't know if it's the vertical auto-scroll of content but stuff like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram give you some positive space between elements to give you some kind of pause to realize, "oh I've been scrolling endlessly, time to quit". Like others have mentioned, their algorithms are really good.

TikTok is to YouTube what Twitter is to blog posts.

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