TikTok Addiction

Last month, a bipartisan group of attorney generals from the District of Columbia and thirteen states came together to file lawsuits against TikTok, a social media platform popular among kids which they say was designed to be addictive to young users, and which harms the mental health of the developing young people who use it. At issue is the algorithm TikTok uses to customize which video content is sent to a user’s feed, all based on the user’s past preferences. This not only takes kids down into seemingly endless rabbitholes where they watch and watch and watch, but the suit alleges this leads to addiction. California attorney general Rob Banta says, “TikTok cultivates social media addiction to boost corporate profits. TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content.” Parents- do you know who can and should create healthy boundaries? It’s you!