Phones, TikTok, and you: a love triangle

For once, it’s not the algorithm. (Photo: Neue Zürcher Zeitung)

I was a social media manager at my last company and I wanted to avoid touching TikTok at all costs: partially out of preference, but mostly for cybersecurity reasons. A month after installing the app, I left my job—whether that was related or not, who's to say. But to this day, I still haven’t opened the app on my phone.

Some of my friends think I’m stubborn or naive for refusing to use the app. I’m not against dance challenges and 60-second recipes, but I’d just hate to jump down the TikTok rabbit hole—which I learned recently has more to it than meets the eye.

Riding the TikTok algorithm

People have a lot to say about the fickle TikTok algorithm, but the most common observation everyone has is that it is impressively (and at times unsettlingly) personalized. So not every user sees the same stuff on their timeline or their For Your Page (FYP). 

We don’t know the full extent of the TikTok algorithm's inner workings, but the company has disclosed certain elements that feed it: user interactions, video information, and account settings. Essentially, TikTok uses your most basic information and watching habits to dictate the kind of content you’re shown more often. Everything from the hashtags you’ve searched, videos you’ve re-watched, and even the type of device you use the app with.

The algorithm also adapts with your changing interests. TikTok picks up when you stop engaging with a creator you used to watch regularly, and will slowly stop showing you their content.

So when people are offered a slew of short videos tailor-fit to their interests, they’re going to keep scrolling and scrolling. It’s no surprise the app has over a billion monthly active users who average 95 minutes per day on the platform, nor that other apps like Instagram are quickly adapting their algorithms to follow these patterns.

But these are things that your average TikTok user already knows. Although the algorithm can seem a tinge invasive, it’s a worthwhile trade-off for fun 15 second videos in succession. What the average TikTok user may or may not know, though, is that the algorithm alone isn’t entirely to blame for users’ compulsive need to scroll endlessly on TikTok.

Locked screens

Our culprit is none other than the smartphone. After all, it’s not just the algorithm or the content at play, but rather the medium that dictates how information is disseminated. 

Think of it this way: Films were once mainstays at cinemas, until TVs and eventually streaming allowed content to live alongside us. People were able to watch series and movies from the comfort of their own homes. TVs became domestic devices which affected how people perceived media consumption—it became more casual and personal. Over time, viewers developed parasocial relationships with the people they watched on TV. Suddenly actors weren’t just playing on-screen characters, they were people’s best friends. 

In the same vein, our relationship with media is shifting as content finds a home in our smartphones. Our smartphones are everyday devices—you reach for it to check the time, to take quick notes, or to message a friend. Our smartphones have allowed apps like TikTok to, quite frankly, live in our minds rent-free and reveal our deepest desires and things we didn’t even know about ourselves. 

Our relationship with our smartphones ties into our need for instant gratification, and TikTok’s UI/UX panders to that need. Unlike YouTube, which can be enjoyed on a range of devices, TikTok just doesn’t work on any other device except the smartphone. The platform is designed to provide a never-ending montage of personalized content exclusively for the mobile format. In fact, that very mobile tech limits how people interact with content. TikTok users can only view one video at a time, and therefore has the user’s undivided attention, which can only be disrupted by swiping to the next video.

Not only does the mobile format block out other distractions, it also blocks out active viewership. The constant stream of short-form videos leave users mindlessly scrolling, without much time to fully process what they’ve just consumed. No time to think about those six career advice tips, because now you’re watching dogs dance to a Cha Cha Slide remix.

Hold the phone

Smartphones, a lot of the time, feel like our lifeline. There’s a reason why you get a mini heart attack when your phone’s not in your pocket or why you feel absolutely helpless when your phone runs out of battery. In addition to costing as much as furniture sets nowadays, they’re our key to staying relevant and connected. 

Our intimate relationships with our smartphones are the reason why people will scroll through TikTok endlessly. If the smartphone acts as our digital extension, then apps like TikTok are simply manifestations of who we are as a person. And acknowledging that very fact scares a lot of people and has pushed certain people to their limits. Too many people have tried to sell their kidneys to afford the latest iPhone, and a teen literally fell to her death a few days ago trying to save her smartphone. 

I have this growing suspicion that more than the desire to connect with others, smartphones and curated algorithms reveal this desire to truly know oneself. Deep, I know.

Findings from a recent study on TikTok users revealed that some people tried to create a version of themselves on the platform, the same way people on Instagram or Twitter curate how they want to be perceived online. But on TikTok, it seems more of a self-affirmation than outward presenting.

“They had these interesting theories about how they thought the algorithm worked and how they could influence it, there’s this feeling that it’s like you’re interacting with yourself,” said Aparajita Bhandari, the study’s co-author.

Unlike most social media platforms, TikTok has become a platform for  self-representation and identity creation for the endless scroller, rather than the outward-facing identity management and content curation we’re so used to on other platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Some people even opt to privatize their TikTok accounts, not post videos, and even hide their likes—a space that is truly theirs, and theirs alone. And the phone as the medium makes that idea immediately and incessantly accessible to us.

We began using phones to feel less lonely in the world and feel more connected, now it seems we’ve shifted into this thinking that we must discover and validate ourselves before deeming ourselves worthy of online attention.