TikTok's algorithm is significantly better and therefore more addictive. I'm speaking from personal experience, having spent about 12-14 hours a day on TikTok for probably 360 days during 2024. Getting banned from it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Too bad it only happened in Jan 2025. Will never get that year back, or the mental health I lost from it. (I'm not going to sue, though I could definitely win such a suit.)

Because TikTok basically popularitised short form content, which is considered a more addictive form that what instagram and youtube does outside of their reels and shorts.

(in addition to other replies) I believe there was a study on brainrot where, acrosss a few different platforms, TikTok was significantly worse than e.g. Youtube. (sry, on mobile or I'd ref. hopefully later...)

They are also defendants in the same lawsuit, but they have not settled.

Oh, they’re coming for IG, too:

“IG is a drug”: Internal messages may doom Meta at social media addiction trial

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/tiktok-settles-h...

(regardless of the fact Google is included in the suit;) Youtube is a different model I think. Yes you can burn time with it forever if you are bored, but it's not the relentless dopamine machine gun that IG and Tiktok deliver. (which is why YT tried to get in on that with shorts, but failed).

Tiktok, Instagram and I think X are all getting sued at the same time.

"The defendants now include Meta - which owns Instagram and Facebook and YouTube parent Google. Snapchat settled with the plaintiff last week."

TikTok is not being singled out in this trial; the plaintiff is suing all the Socials; TikTok is merely the one to have settled most recently:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/01/tiktok-settles-h...

Did you read the article? Snapchat, Meta and Google are also defendants. Snapchat and now Tiktok have settled.