>>11003457I'll try to explain it. but I am not an expert in addiction and I don't use tiktok so take this with a grain of salt.
I would guess that it is because of the following reasons.
firstly the short video times make it easy to consume a single one.
secondly the website never tells you to take a break so there are no good stopping off points. Most people have a need to feel resolution or feel as if they completed something before disengaging with it . so when a website has no stopping off points It will make you want to keep watching more and more videos.
1 & 2 have a synergistic effect where you can repeatedly tell yourself "just one more time" and then end up watching another few hours worth of videos. Since it is a mobile app and the videos are short so you have the ability to access it at any time so there are a lot of points where you can engage with the app. since you have it in your pocket you never need to get accustomed to not having it.
The musical nature of it leads to getting an easy dopamine hit every time you access the video and you can get it any time. Music generally gives people dopamine meaning that most of the videos are intrinsically rewarding.
I would guess that there is a video serving algorithm that makes it so you see videos that are likely to be interesting to you which means that the system is getting better and better at keeping you on for longer times. I believe that this is a reinforcing stimulus (although an odd one at that).
