> There is no time to think about what you just saw because as soon as the clip ends, you’re on to the next one
Did the author of the article actually...use TikTok? That's not at all how the app works; it loops the videos by default and you have to manually scroll. Sure, you can just swipe as soon as it's over, but my impression is that this is explicitly _not_ the "happy path" for the user. My girlfriend enjoys TikTok a lot (and I often will watch with her using our TV app, which interestingly is a better experience in a few ways, like not showing any ads, although it is missing some functionality), and generally if we like a video we'll start talking a bit about it as it loops, and we only move on once we're ready. Skipping immediately after it's over (or even earlier, if it's not interesting) is more of a failure mode in my opinion (although it does vary a bit; I don't think looping on the longer form videos is as common, but I'd argue that engagement with the longer videos is if anything a counter argument to what the author is saying). If there's a social issue with the way TikTok works, I'm not convinced that it's due to the actual mechanics or network of the app. If anything, despite the fact that I don't use any of them myself, Facebook and Twitter seem like a strictly worse experience for the user. It seems much less about directly following a large number people and more about just generally watching what comes up, which means that while you have a unlimited amount of content to view for all practical purposes, there's no illusion of "missing out" by not watching absolutely everything on your feed. Because of the compositional features (reusing the same audio from other videos, "stitching" your video onto the end of another one, "dueting" yourself side by side with another video), a lot of times there isn't even really one specific video to watch for a given "thing"; anything that's sufficiently popular will be reused in enough other videos that you'll end up finding it one way or another.
Did the author of the article actually...use TikTok? That's not at all how the app works; it loops the videos by default and you have to manually scroll. Sure, you can just swipe as soon as it's over, but my impression is that this is explicitly _not_ the "happy path" for the user. My girlfriend enjoys TikTok a lot (and I often will watch with her using our TV app, which interestingly is a better experience in a few ways, like not showing any ads, although it is missing some functionality), and generally if we like a video we'll start talking a bit about it as it loops, and we only move on once we're ready. Skipping immediately after it's over (or even earlier, if it's not interesting) is more of a failure mode in my opinion (although it does vary a bit; I don't think looping on the longer form videos is as common, but I'd argue that engagement with the longer videos is if anything a counter argument to what the author is saying). If there's a social issue with the way TikTok works, I'm not convinced that it's due to the actual mechanics or network of the app. If anything, despite the fact that I don't use any of them myself, Facebook and Twitter seem like a strictly worse experience for the user. It seems much less about directly following a large number people and more about just generally watching what comes up, which means that while you have a unlimited amount of content to view for all practical purposes, there's no illusion of "missing out" by not watching absolutely everything on your feed. Because of the compositional features (reusing the same audio from other videos, "stitching" your video onto the end of another one, "dueting" yourself side by side with another video), a lot of times there isn't even really one specific video to watch for a given "thing"; anything that's sufficiently popular will be reused in enough other videos that you'll end up finding it one way or another.