The Psychology of TikTok
TikTok is an extremely popular social media application with about 800 million monthly users world-wide. This makes TikTok the 7th most used social platform in the world, falling just behind Instagram’s one billion monthly users. TikTok’s main feature, the “For You” page, is the home page and the first thing you see when you open TikTok. The page consists of brief videos (also called TikToks) that are one minute or less, that you can scroll through, and that have been recommended to you through an algorithm. How does TikTok maintain such a high number of users? What makes scrolling through the “For You” page so fun and almost addicting? An entire field related to psychology called behavior analysis can answer these questions by describing how we learn from our consequences and the properties that make a consequence more reinforcing.
How We Learn from Our Consequences
According to the law of effect, behavior is either strengthened (likely to occur more frequently) or weakened (likely to occur less frequently) depending on its consequences. The term consequence, as used in this article, does not necessarily refer to punishing someone or giving a consequence for bad behavior. A consequence is a stimulus that follows behavior. A stimulus is anything in the environment that you perceive with your five senses. For example, videos are visual stimuli and songs are auditory stimuli or consequences that follow the behavior of scrolling through TikTok. The concept of reinforcement can explain one way we learn from our consequences.
Reinforcement
Reinforcement is defined by a stimulus change or consequence (hearing a good song) that follows a behavior (scrolling through the “For You” page) and increases the future frequency of that behavior (scrolling through the “For You” page more). Thus, a reinforcer is a consequence that increases a given behavior. There are two kinds of reinforcement: negative and positive. Both of which provide explanations as to how we learn from our consequences and how TikTok can be so reinforcing.
1. Positive reinforcement is the addition of a desired consequence after the behavior of interest occurs. For example, ordering chocolate cake at a restaurant (the behavior) increases in future frequency (reinforcement) because last time you ate a chocolate cake it was delicious (the added desired consequence/reinforcer).
In the case of TikTok, you are likely to continue using the app if doing so results desired laughs or positive feelings. We want to do more of the things that make us feel good!
2. Negative reinforcement is the removal or reduction of an undesired consequence after the behavior of interest occurs. Note that, “negative” in this context does not imply a negative outcome or punishment. Here is an example of negative reinforcement: You are in a bad mood, so you try a range of behaviors to make yourself feel better such as socializing, watching TV, drinking a glass of wine, and exercising. If you find that exercising (the behavior) helps you eliminate, reduce, or escape from your bad mood (the consequence), then you are likely to exercise more frequently in the future when you are in a bad mood (reinforcement).
Scientists have referred to this phenomenon as “self-medication” in some contexts. Negative reinforcement, or the escape of negative emotional states, has been implicated as part of the process of developing pathological addictive behaviors such as gambling and substance use. There may be a similar and less harmful process at play with TikTok.
Scrolling through TikTok could serve as a form of “self-medication” by providing momentary relief from negative emotions, life problems, or awkward social situations. For example, if you are feeling sad and then get on TikTok, your sadness may be eliminated or reduced. Or, if you are studying or working on a paper, TikTok can provide you with some temporary relief from the stress of your work. We want to keep doing the things that give us relief!
Indeed, positive and negative reinforcement are at play when understanding why people continue to use TikTok. What makes TikTok especially addictive are the properties that make consequences more reinforcing.
The Properties that Make a Consequence More Reinforcing
There are four properties of the consequences of using TikTok that can make us feel addicted to TikTok.
1. Immediacy of Reinforcers
People usually develop habits based on short-term consequences more so than long-term consequences. That is why getting into a habit of eating delicious junk food is easier than getting in the habit of going to the gym. The consequence of looking fit and attractive is significantly delayed when the consequence of the taste of yummy junk food is almost immediate. With TikTok, you are going receive a desired consequence relatively quickly while scrolling through the “For You” page. The immediacy of reinforcers is going to turn TikTok use into a habit quickly.
2. Unpredictability of Reinforcers
Some have suggested that, when new videos are uploaded, the creators of TikTok show that video to a small number of TikTok users in between popular videos. In other words, it is relatively unpredictable whether or not the next video you see will be reinforcing. You may even find it to be unpredictable whether or not you will see a reinforcing video every time you open the app. Such a strategy is wise in order to prevent extinction from occurring. Extinction is defined a decrease in behavior due to reinforcers no longer being delivered. We are more likely to stop doing something in the future if the reinforcers completely stop. If reinforcers are unpredictable and occasional, behavior tends to persist.
Imagine this example:
You and your friend both purchased laptops together for school. For months, the laptop is working perfectly. Every time the “p” key is pressed (i.e., behavior), you see the “p” on the page (i.e., reinforcer/desired consequence). However, months later you and your friend realize that the letter “p” does not seem to be working quite right anymore. For your friend, no matter how many times she presses “p” on her keyboard, no “p” is typed onto the page. She may press the “p” key 10 or 50 times, but quickly gives up (i.e., extinction) and takes her laptop into the store to be fixed. Your situation is a bit different. The “p” key is unpredictable. If you press the key an average of 6 times or so, eventually the key will work. You decide to wait until the “p” stops working completely to take your laptop in to be fixed. You continue to use your keyboard 1000 more times until taking it in to get fixed because the desired consequence happens occasionally.
TikTok has many entertaining videos, but not every single video you watch is entertaining to you. You may scroll through 5, 10, or 20 TikToks until you get to one you thoroughly enjoy. The thing is, your interest in sustained enough to keep scrolling because you are anticipating that you will eventually get to a TikTok you truly enjoy. This is similar to the “p” key example. TikTok is like the “p” that is unpredictable and works occasionally, making it more likely that we are going to continue to use TikTok, even if TikTok has not been as fun as it was in the past. The unpredictability of reinforcers when using TikTok also keeps you scrolling through the “For You” page longer than you would otherwise.
3. Variety and Novelty of Reinforcers
Even though reinforcers are good things, we can satiate on them. Satiation reduces the effectiveness of a reinforcer. For example, if you were at a wedding that served chocolate cake as a dessert, you would probably finish the piece of cake and feel satisfied or satiated. However, if you were at a wedding with a plethora of tiny desserts you would probably eat more dessert than you would have otherwise. We tend to continue doing something when the reinforcers are novel and of variety.
TikTok does an excellent job providing novelty and variety. On the “For You” page, you scroll through many TikToks with different content and different trends. Sure, sometimes you may encounter many TikToks with a similar trend, but trends are always changing on TikTok too! Because the videos on TikTok are short and have a variety of content, this reduces the likelihood of satiation.
4. Response Effort and Magnitude of Reinforcers
We are more likely to do things that do not take much effort and that result in a high level of reinforcement. For example, would you rather mow your grandmother’s 5-acre lawn for $20 dollars or your neighbor’s 2 acre lawn for $100? You would probably prefer to do a less amount of work for more money and mow your neighbor’s yard.
TikTok is so reinforcing because it is easy to use. All you need to do is open the app and you are watching a TikTok that is likely curated to your preferences. With TikTok, you get a relatively high amount of reinforcement for a low amount of effort.
Conclusion
TikTok is a popular application with 800 million users. Behavior analysis, a field related to psychology, can provide some insight as to why TikTok maintains such a high user base. Put simply, we learn from our consequences. We want to do things that make us feel food and do things that get rid of negative feelings. There are four attributes of TikTok that make it especially addictive: (1) immediacy of reinforcement, (2) unpredictability of reinforcers, (3) variety and novelty of reinforcers, and (4) response effort and magnitude of reinforcers. All of these attributes of the reinforcers related to TikTok work together in favor of TikTok as opposed to doing something else like reading a book. Behavior goes where reinforcement flows!
