INTRODUCTION

TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps used by children today. Its format — the infinite scroll feed — is particularly good at capturing attention. Of the hundreds of children we meet every year, many spend hours a day on TikTok.

It's true that for most children, we see a lot less explicitly harmful content on feeds nowadays. Fewer self-harm scars, less violence, minimal explicit nudity.

But social connection? In this report, we show that on TikTok, children spend almost all of their time passively scrolling and consuming. It's rare for a post by a friend to pop up in the feed. Interaction with people they actually know makes up only a small proportion of time spent on the platform — and even then, it is often limited to lightweight exchanges, such as sending thumbs-up emojis to maintain 'streaks'.

Children are learning about the world on TikTok. This report shows what world they're seeing: feeds are made up of a targeted reflection of what commercial actors think will capture their attention. That includes posts about sports they're interested in or bands they like. It also includes gambling adverts, OnlyFans actors promoting their channels, beauty influencers selling makeup.

A bit of fun? For many children in this research it's hours a day, thousands of videos a week, during the school day and at 3am. Children say it's entertaining and good for filling time when they're bored. But they also say they feel tired, guilty or disappointed in themselves afterwards. Children use phrases like "doom scrolling" and "brain rot" to describe what it feels like. They regularly describe feeling out of control, spending longer than they meant to, or even describe themselves as "addicted".