TikTok addiction: It takes all of 35 minutes [Video]

Fourteen U.S. states recently filed a lawsuit against TikTok and parent company ByteDance, claiming the video streaming platform has negative effects on children’s mental health and that TikTok created an “intentionally addictive app”.

Ignoring for a moment that social media apps are, by definition, addictive by design, it’s worth pointing out that politics plays a considerable role in the lawsuits, with conservative American politicians scrambling to prove they care about their nation’s youth while not actively fighting gun control measures.

But that doesn’t make the leaked documents any less interesting. With the cases still in court, many confidential documents have been redacted. However, a slip-up in Kentucky revealed a trove of TikTok internal memos.

According to an article published by American public broadcasting organisation NPR, it only takes around 35 minutes to become “addicted” to TikTok — an analysis of data revealed an “addiction number” of 260: in that it takes an average user 260 videos …