TikTok Brain: Can We Save Children’s Attention Spans?
By Nathan Crispo
The Facebook, now just Facebook, launched in February of 2004.[1] It took just one day for the site to get over one thousand users.[2] As of 2024, Facebook has more than three billion monthly users and over two billion daily users.[3] While Facebook is one of the earliest social media platforms that is still widely used today,[4] it is far from alone in having billions of users. As of January 2024, at least six different social media platforms have more than one billion users.[5] Social media has become ubiquitous; more than five billion people worldwide are social media users.[6] Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has issued a warning that social media use is a main contributor to depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues in teenagers.[7] This warning comes amid surging rates of teenagers, especially girls, experiencing sadness and hopelessness.[8] Dr. Victor Fornari, the vice chair of child and adolescent psychiatry for Northwell Health, says there is “no question” of an association between the use of social media and the dramatic increase in suicidal behavior and depressive mood.[9]
A new form of social media, short-form videos, has gained immense popularity. TikTok is a social media platform characterized by short-form videos[10] and has more than one-and-a-half billion users.[11] Despite having slightly more than half of the users Facebook does,[12] TikTok manages to get more attention from its mobile users than any other social media platform[13] with its users logging an average of 95 minutes per day on the app.[14]
How does TikTok get this level of engagement from its users? According to USC professor Dr. Julie Albright, it could be addiction.[15] The rapid scrolling of videos shares the same fundamental principles that make gambling on slot machines addictive, which is referred to as “random reinforcement.”[16] Brain scans of Chinese college students using a TikTok equivalent showed that areas of the brain involved in addiction were highly activated in those who watched personalized videos, and some people had trouble even controlling when to stop watching.[17]
In 2022, the optimal length of TikTok videos to maximize user engagement was between 21 and 34 seconds.[18] If we take the 95 minutes of screen time per day and divide it by the optimal length, the average TikTok user could be consuming between 167 to 271 videos per day, if not more. Other social media platforms have sought to imitate TikTok’s short-form videos, with Instagram releasing “Reels”[19] and YouTube releasing “Shorts.”[20]
Many experts believe TikTok and social media platforms like it are killing children’s attention spans.[21] This decreased attention span has been (not so affectionately) referred to as “TikTok Brain.”[22] Emerging research suggests that watching short-form videos make it difficult for children to engage in activities that don’t offer instant—and constant—gratification.[23] The constant hits of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that gets released when the brain is expecting a reward, reinforces use of apps like TikTok.[24] Pediatricians have described TikTok as a “dopamine machine.”[25] One can only begin to imagine many harms that come with entire generations having greatly diminished attention spans. From trouble achieving long-term goals to being unable to focus in school, these problems can be widespread and far reaching.
Social media platforms like TikTok are far from the only things that can negatively alter children’s brains. This begs the question; can the law do anything about it? Laws protecting children from substances like alcohol[26] and tobacco[27] as well as activities like gambling[28] have been enacted in some form in all fifty states. Can legislators tackle social media? The answer might be no. On February 12, 2024, a federal district court in Ohio blocked an Ohio law requiring social media companies obtain parental consent for users under 16.[29] In his opinion, Chief Judge Marbley held that the Ohio law targeting websites that “target children” or are “reasonably anticipated to be accessed by children”[30] was content-based and therefore subject to strict scrutiny under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.[31] The court also noted that protecting children from the harms of harmful content may be a “compelling interest,” but held that the Ohio law was not narrowly tailored to that end.[32]
It should come as no surprise that regulating children’s access to social media butts up against the First Amendment. Teenagers are increasingly getting their news from social media,[33] and protection of the press is explicitly protected by the First Amendment.[34] Despite existing laws for protecting children’s brains from things which harm their development, NetChoice, LLC v. Yost highlights the difficulty legislatures face when they seek to protect children from the harms of social media. Narrowly tailoring a law that will be subject to strict scrutiny is no small task, particularly in the ever-changing digital landscape. Nevertheless, it is a task that is worth taking.
Image Source: https://images.pexels.com/photos/3184435/pexels-photo-3184435.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&w=1260&h=750&dpr=1
[1] Facebook Launches, History: This Day in History, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/facebook-launches-mark-zuckerberg (last accessed Feb. 23, 2024).
[2] Id.
[3] Rohit Shewale, Facebook Statistics & Trends to Know in 2024, Demand Sage (Jan. 12, 2024), https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/.
[4] Lyndon Seitz, History of Social Media (It’s Younger Than You Think), Broadband Search (May 10, 2023), https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/complete-history-social-media.
[5] Global Social Media Statistics, Data Reportal, https://datareportal.com/social-media-users (last accessed Jan. 23, 2024).
[6] Number of Internet and Social Media Users Worldwide as of January 2024, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ (last accessed Feb. 23, 2024).
[7] Erika Edwards and Hallie Jackson, Social Media Is Driving Teen Mental Health Crisis, Surgeon General Warns, NBC News (May 23, 2023, 5:00 AM EDT), https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/social-media-mental-health-anxiety-depression-teens-surgeon-general-rcna85575.
[8] Id.
[9] Azeen Ghorayshi and Roni Caryn Rabin, Teen Girls Report Record Levels of Sadness, C.D.C. Finds, New York Times (last updated May 10, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/health/teen-girls-sadness-suicide-violence.html.
[10] Deborah D’Souza, TikTok: What it is, How it Works, and Why It’s Popular, Investopedia (last updated Feb. 15, 2014), https://www.investopedia.com/what-is-tiktok-4588933.
[11] Global Social Media Statistics, Data Reportal, https://datareportal.com/social-media-users (last accessed Jan. 23, 2024).
[12] Global Social Media Statistics, Data Reportal, https://datareportal.com/social-media-users (last accessed Jan. 23, 2024).
[13] Stephanie Chan, Nearly One-Third of TikTok’s Installed Base Uses the App Every Day, Sensor Tower (July 2022), https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-power-user-curve; Arooj Ahmed, Data Reveals TikTok Dominates Facebook in Screen Time, Digital Information World (Apr. 27, 2022), https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2022/04/data-reveals-tiktok-dominates-facebook.html.
[14] Arooj Ahmed, Data Reveals TikTok Dominates Facebook in Screen Time, Digital Information World (Apr. 27, 2022), https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2022/04/data-reveals-tiktok-dominates-facebook.html.
[15] John Koetsier, Digital Crack Cocaine: The Science Behind TikTok’s Success (Jan. 18, 2020), https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/01/18/digital-crack-cocaine-the-science-behind-tiktoks-success/?sh=26c4916678be.
[16] John Koetsier, Digital Crack Cocaine: The Science Behind TikTok’s Success (Jan. 18, 2020), https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/01/18/digital-crack-cocaine-the-science-behind-tiktoks-success/?sh=26c4916678be.
[17] Julie Jargon, TikTok Brain Explained: Why Some Kids Seem Hooked on Social Video Feeds, Wall Street Journal (Apr. 2, 2022), https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-brain-explained-why-some-kids-seem-hooked-on-social-video-feeds-11648866192.
[18] Aleksandra, TikTok is Killing Your Brain, One Short-Form Video at a Time.
[19] Sarah Perez, Instagram Expands Its TikTok Clone ‘Reels’ to New Markets, Tech Crunch (June 24, 2020), https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/24/instagram-expands-its-tiktok-clone-reels-to-new-markets/.
[20] Sarah Perez, YouTube’s Latest Experiment is a TikTok Rival Focused on 15-Second Videos, Tech Crunch (June 25, 2020), https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/25/youtubes-latest-experiment-is-a-tiktok-rival-focused-on-15-second-videos/?guccounter=1.
[21] Julie Jargon, TikTok Brain Explained: Why Some Kids Seem Hooked on Social Video Feeds, Wall Street Journal (Apr. 2, 2022), https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-brain-explained-why-some-kids-seem-hooked-on-social-video-feeds-11648866192.
[22] Id.
[23] Julie Jargon, TikTok Brain Explained: Why Some Kids Seem Hooked on Social Video Feeds, Wall Street Journal (Apr. 2, 2022), https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-brain-explained-why-some-kids-seem-hooked-on-social-video-feeds-11648866192.
[24] Julie Jargon, TikTok Brain Explained: Why Some Kids Seem Hooked on Social Video Feeds, Wall Street Journal (Apr. 2, 2022), https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-brain-explained-why-some-kids-seem-hooked-on-social-video-feeds-11648866192.
[25] Julie Jargon, TikTok Brain Explained: Why Some Kids Seem Hooked on Social Video Feeds, Wall Street Journal (Apr. 2, 2022), https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-brain-explained-why-some-kids-seem-hooked-on-social-video-feeds-11648866192.
[26] Alcohol Laws by State, Federal Trade Commission, https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0388-alcohol-laws-state (last accessed Feb. 23, 2024).
[27] Help the FDA Prevent the Sale of Tobacco Products to Young People, Food and Drug Administration, https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/help-fda-prevent-sale-tobacco-products-young-people (last accessed Feb. 23, 2024).
[28] FTC Warns Consumers About Online Gambling and Children, Federal Trade Commission, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2002/06/ftc-warns-consumers-about-online-gambling-children (last accessed Feb. 23, 2024).
[29] NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 2:24-cv-00047, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24129 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 12, 2024).
[30] NetChoice, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24129 at *24–25.
[31] NetChoice, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24129 at *32.
[32] NetChoice, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24129 at *35.
[33] Deloitte, Digital, Social Media Power Gen Z Teens’ News Consumption, Wall Street Journal, https://deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/digital-social-media-power-gen-z-teens-news-consumption-01655136478 (last accessed Feb. 23, 2024).
[34] U.S. Const. amend. I.