How does Tik Tok make you addicted?

The world of short videos has never been peaceful, but no one expected that the popular dance led by big brother Kuaishou last year would become the seaweed dance of Douyin after the Spring Festival. The speed of change is simply astonishing!

As a rising star, one cannot help but marvel at the charm of Tik Tok. Many people are addicted to it and some serious enthusiasts even enjoy watching it all night long and still feel unsatisfied.

In order to resist the temptation of Douyin, some people directly delete Douyin immediately, thus leaving the group of Douyin users and returning to their true selves.

The abnormal behaviors of the above users make people wonder, how did this short video achieve this level?

After thinking about it, I found that in addition to Tik Tok, other game products that people often use, such as Moments , Weibo, Zhihu, and Honor of Kings , all have the same characteristics, that is, they have addictive mechanisms, and the routines hidden in them are the same, all of which use people's likes and dislikes to achieve the purpose of manipulation.

In today's article, I will take you through how TikTok seduces you step by step, making you unable to extricate yourself, and how you lose control.

How did you get addicted?

In fact, any addictive product only needs to have three points to make people addicted. So, what are those three points?

1. Action

What triggers people to take action is usually dominated by the need for positive experience. For example, some people may be attracted by Douyin when they see commercials shot by their favorite idol stars while walking on the street, or they may see cool Douyin videos on WeChat Moments, Weibo and other places, or they may be strongly recommended by their friends. The motivations behind the behaviors all come from the inner pursuit of happiness and the inspiration caused by group identity.

2. Variable rewards

When you download Tik Tok with anticipation, you will directly land on the recommended video page after opening it. These popular videos that have been screened are fun, dazzling, and cool, which will immediately catch your attention and satisfy your expectations. OK, now you’re halfway to success. After you get your first reward, hey, it feels really good, just keep going.

Pay attention, pay attention to the blackboard here, highlight the key points! The rewards at this time are variable and unpredictable. You don’t know if the next video will be more interesting, which keeps you looking forward to it. This will attract you to discover more interesting, beautiful and cool videos like chasing prey, making you unable to stop at all.

If the reward is predictable, the enthusiasm will not last. It's like you know what the magic trick will do every time, but it will become boring after watching it a few times, right?

Probabilistic rewards are like treasures, attracting you to keep digging. You don’t know whether there are good things inside unless you open it. Sometimes it will be a good thing, sometimes it will be a bad thing. When you find out it is a bad thing, you will expect the next treasure to be a good thing, and when you find out it is a good thing, you will expect the next one to be a good thing again. This way you will continue to act more frequently, and eventually become addicted to it.

3. Investment

Actions and rewards are not enough to make you addicted. The last step is crucial. Some people collapse before they reach this step. Users who have completed this step are usually difficult to lose, so this step is investment.

After you enjoy the rewards, the platform will lure you to invest something, which may be forwarding videos, commenting, or shooting videos, entering friend relationships, filling in identity information, etc. In order to prevent your actions from being hindered, these label buttons and action processes are designed to be extremely simple and obvious, thereby improving the efficiency of action.

The reciprocity principle kicks in at this time. As a survival skill formed since human evolution, you will be very happy to invest something in return for the platform. The deeper reason is that you want to imitate the behavior of others in order to obtain social rewards (likes, comments, attention).

And when you slowly get involved in it, you will change your attitude. You have invested so much time and energy in it that you can no longer think that this platform is low and boring. Otherwise, it will conflict with your own actions. In order to avoid cognitive dissonance, you will continue to maintain the same behavioral attitude as in the past.

After completing the whole routine, the changing rewards will continue to pull you back, and you expect someone to like, comment, or follow you (social rewards) . You can't help but open it to take a look, and if you find that many people like, comment on, and follow you, you will have a sense of accomplishment (self- reward) . At this point, the achievements you have made on the platform give you more reasons to stay.

And if there are no waves for the time being, you will stay in the recommended videos on the homepage looking for prey rewards and keep swiping. In order to better bring you back, the platform has a trick up its sleeve at the beginning, which is to allow you to send notifications. Then notifications about who has posted a video keep ringing on your phone’s notification bar, and to satisfy your curiosity, you continue to open the app, and then you keep refreshing it.

After repeating this many times, it is no longer your positive psychology that triggers your action, but your negative emotions. When you feel bored and annoyed, in order to escape the negative experience, you will unconsciously open TikTok again to look for rewards. These negative emotions are simply everywhere. At this time, congratulations, you have successfully become addicted.

Why can't you control yourself?

I believe that many people, after becoming addicted to certain products, have gone through countless inner struggles, saying that they will not play anymore, but in the end they still can't help but play. Why can’t I control it? What exactly controls the brain's willpower that causes such contradictory behaviors and attitudes, and ultimately makes one feel extremely anxious.

In fact, the brain is controlled by two systems, namely System 1 planners and System 2 doers.

System 1: Planner, forward-looking, mainly concerned with the future and has good plans, a rational brain. For example, you decide to get up early tomorrow, read a book a month, achieve your weight loss plan this year, and work hard to get into a good university. These are all planned by System 1 in the long term.

System 2: The doer, is a reckless guy who lives in the present and controls our desires, emotions, etc. For example, I didn’t want to get up early as planned because I missed the warmth of the bed. Reading a book in a month is so tiring, it’s easier to watch popular TV series and Tik Tok. This year’s weight loss plan has long been melted by the delicious food on my tongue. What a good university? Does not exist.

This is like the relationship between bosses and employees in some companies. The bosses talk about goals and plans every day, while the employees just hope not to have to work overtime tonight and can get a salary increase this month. This leads to eternal conflict between some bosses and employees.

Addictive products manipulate System 2 actors. When emptiness, boredom, and annoyance come, the actors will do everything they can to eliminate negative experiences and achieve inner pleasure. This is like why you always want to smoke a cigarette when you are bored, and always want to take out your phone to check your Moments, TikTok, Zhihu, etc., and these behaviors often happen unconsciously, and when you come to your senses, you realize that you are playing again.

How to resolve?

The biggest obstacle to forming new habits is old habits. Old habits always hold you back and make your plans fail. When the actor can no longer resist satisfying his desires, the result is endless guilt.

Then, using the following three methods will effectively eliminate the addiction.

1. Limit your choices

The reason why you cannot resist temptation is that the temptation is within your reach. At this time, the cost of resisting will increase several times. For example, you say you don’t want to smoke or play Tik Tok anymore. However, when you are upset and someone hands you a cigarette, or when you are bored and pick up your phone and see the TikTok icon, you will think of the interesting videos in it, and finally you can't help but take action.

Only by restricting the choices of the actors can they be calmed down. For example, drug addicts are sent to prison, or some Douyin users simply delete the Douyin video so that they can out of sight and out of mind.

However, restricting choices also has certain limitations. For example, some drug addicts are likely to relapse if they return to their old environment, or they cannot help but download Tik Tok again, and only a small number of them persevere in the end.

So, if this method is not enough to effectively control the brain's actors, the following two methods may be better options.

2. Create short-term benefits

The doer is impulsive, short-sighted, and only seeks to satisfy immediate desires. Just like the rewards that addictive products provide, you can also use rewards to form new habits.

For example, in order to relieve their smoking addiction, some people eat sugar to relieve anxiety when they have a craving. Or like some people who have failed to implement their weight loss plan for several months, but as long as they are told that there are handsome men and beautiful women to practice with them today, they will immediately put on their equipment and set off.

Short-term benefits will allow the brain actor to enjoy the pleasure brought by the moment to offset the temptation, because it is impossible for a person to have two emotions at the same time, just like you cannot be angry and happy at the same time. The negative emotions stimulated by addiction will be offset by the pleasure brought by short-term benefits.

By creating short-term reward incentives, it will be like the investment in a product addiction. The silent cost will drive you to persist. The longer you persist, the less likely you will give up. It's like queuing up for a meal. The longer you wait in line, the longer you will wait.

3. Create punishment

The punishment mechanism is a game-playing method that creates huge costs for succumbing to temptation, so people tend to be averse to losses and dare not take action.

For example, for someone who plans to exercise for one hour every day, the choice of whether to exercise is still in their own hands. However, if you create a key yourself and give it to someone else, asking them to supervise you, and if they find that you do not exercise according to the requirements, they will get 5,000 yuan, the final outcome will be different. You will be afraid of violating the agreement and suffering losses, and finally abide by the agreement between both parties.

In fact, for the above three, the most commonly used one is probably creating punishment. Whether it is various punishment mechanisms designed by companies to regulate employee behavior, or agreement-based self-game, they are often seen in life.

Summarize

For people, addictive products are not all bad things; it all depends on how they are used. Just like computers are used by some people to watch popular TV series and play games. But, for some people, it might be the guy who eats.

Of course, if you feel that this is just another addictive product that wastes your time, then you can use the methods in this article to crack it.

The author of this article @付永承 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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