>I had to go to the theater to see movies, but that didn't make cliffhangers and sequels any less compelling.

The argument against tiktok (and smartphones in general) is not that experiences above a certain threshold of compellingness are bad for you: it is that filling your waking hours with compelling experiences is bad for you.

Back when he had to travel to a theatre to have them, a person was unable to have them every free minute of his day.