The Psychology of the TikTok Scroller

Written By: Nagham Ashraf and Omnia Rabea

Photo Credited To Pexels

In the magical world of TikTok, where flashes of short video clips constantly dance across screens, a silent epidemic is unfolding — one that steals minds, captures attention, and reshapes behavior. While the world grapples with the addictive appeal of this short-video Chinese social media app, TikTok is becoming a force that shapes the fabric of our daily lives.  

According to Business of Apps, TikTok saw a significant increase in downloads from 693 million in 2019 to 850 million in 2020. It constantly ranks among the top five applications in terms of downloads.

According to Buffer, the average TikTok user will spend 1.5 hours per day on the platform due to features like infinite scrolling, full-screen interface, For You page, 2x speed, and short films.

 As users continue to dive into its engaging videos, concerns have grown as to how it affects mental well-being.

“It is very important to highlight that every time we instantly switch between content in our feeds, the brain receives a hit of dopamine, producing a kind of neurological high, which can definitely become addictive to many people, affecting mostly teenagers,” said Yousra Salah, psychologist and a member of the Egyptian Association for Group Therapy. 

Salah further explained how teens and adults psychologically react differently to scrolling on TikTok. 

Fatma Wahba, a professor of social psychological studies at Ain Shams University and an educational psychological consultant specializing in  childhood and adolescence, explained that the person begins to enjoy scrolling through different video clips, and this enjoyment turns into an obsession with the application. The obsession reaches a stage where you constantly want to watch videos, to the point of neglecting your job, studies, and social life; and this is how TikTok addiction begins.

“In contrast to processing emotions, rational thought does not fully mature until mid-twenties. Teens are therefore more prone than adults to act impulsively and have intense emotional reactions to external stimuli,” explained Salah.

In a [year-long] study published by Amnesty International, participants were asked which social media app was the most difficult to stop using, and almost unanimously, participants answered TikTok. 

“In the beginning, I didn’t use the TikTok app as much as I used other platforms but over time the TikTok application became my most used application compared to the others.  I cannot skip a day without scrolling through videos on TikTok.  I spend more than four hours or five hours a day so it’s abnormal,” said Soad Ghoniem, a junior majoring in Arabic Studies. 

Ghoneim is not alone. Farida Marghani, a 16-year-old, said she could sit for hours scrolling through TikTok without realizing it. 

“When I decide that I want to close the app to study, I find myself wanting to open it again and scroll through the videos,” said Marghani.

Salah also highlighted the diversity of TikTok’s algorithm, with the content shown ranging from comedic skits to educational content and more. 

Wahba adds that the application’s algorithm also adds to the obsession youth has with it. TikTok constantly provides content that is based on the likes and dislikes of the users, making sure that the content shown is always relevant to their preferences. 

“This makes users remain interested in this unpredictability because they never know what to expect next and this is comparable to the idea of a variable reward system in psychology,” said Salah.

Salah added that fear of missing out (FOMO) is one of the main principles behind the addiction to TikTok scrolling.

“This fear of missing out drives users to keep scrolling to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and videos,” said Salah.

Nadine Shaarawy, a 14-year-old, also mentioned that she always wants to see the latest updates and news of her friends and celebrities. 

“Whenever I refresh my ‘For you’ page, I find something new and interesting, which is why my screen time is high,” said Shaarawy.

The TikTok brain

The need for more bite-sized pleasures, rather than longer-gorm information, has been growing, and researchers have dubbed the phenomenon the TikTok brain. The TikTok brain is a phenomenon where users display particular thought patterns and behaviors as a result of the platform’s algorithmically selected feed and short-form movies. This can lead to short attention spans, instant gratification, and a preference for viral trends. 

This phenomenon raises concerns about the impact of excessive social media use on mental health and cognitive function, especially among children and teenagers.

“The TikTok brain has an impact on mental health for those who often develop an extremely short attention span, and also an over-activation of the brain reward system, which is the system of the brain associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine also known as the feel-good neurotransmitter or hormone, which is associated with the experience of pleasure, gratification,” explained Gabriele Cosentino, assistant professor in the Journalism and Mass Communication department. 

Cosentino added that the difficulty in concentrating on lengthier bits of content is frequently one of the behavioral and psychological impacts of excessive TikTok use. There are reports of heavy TikTok users who cannot even watch a movie in its entirety because they find it boring or too long.

“I’ve had students telling me that sometimes they play videos at high speed, or they will be on TikTok while they’re watching television, simply because the TikTok brain has lost the ability to focus for a long time to give sustained attention to a piece of content for a long period and this is the result of a sort of training,” said Cosentino.

Excessively use of TikTok may lead people to negative effects, including isolation and a decreased face-to-face interactions or socialization with others, which then affects their mental health 

“I think because of my excessive usage of Tiktok, I’ve become a more introverted person, I like staying at home in my room alone watching Tiktok videos, avoiding any human interaction as much as I can and when I do interact with anybody in a certain situation I feel that I lost my basic communication skills which are dangerous in my opinion,” said Haydee Ismail, an IMC alumna. 

According to Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, data from the World Health Organization shows that during 2021, one in seven adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 may experience mental health challenges.  Isolation from excessive media use, or bigger problems due to social media consumption, would aggravate these existing issues. 
“TikTok did not affect me in a good way because I just put all the important things and all my life beside me and just watched videos; it is not good. I spent more than five hours on TikTok just watching, scrolling and there were days that I made videos and posted them so it took a lot of time from my life, my family, my friends, my studying, and everything,” said Yazeed Ezzeldin, a senior majoring in Construction Engineering.