I find a lot of these articles that compare worries about social media to worries about TV, or worries about comic books, or in this case worried about trashy novels on mass market paperbacks incredibly frustrating.

They miss the fundamental issue with social media that was never true before.

The answer is data. No other media before ever had so much information about every individual that consumed it. No media before could tailor their content at an individual level. About the most you could tailor your content to was a zip code.

This is the problem with TikTok. It’s not that the quality of content is low. It’s that TikTok knows exactly what you like and when you like it, and can give you the exact content to scratch that itch at the time.

There are several problems with this.

- It sucks up all your time. - You’re never uncomfortable and/or consuming content that isn’t what you already want at the time. That means you are rarely exposed to anything that isn’t releasing dopamine all the time and it means you’re rarely challenged.