TikTok Won. Now Everything Is 60 Seconds.
As of September 2025, approximately 170 million Americans spend, on average, one hour every day in an app that is designed to maximize psychological grip. While Congress fixates on TikTok’s data collection usages, what hasn’t received enough attention is how the platform has successfully industrialized human attention itself. Where earlier media relied on polished narratives (films with arcs, shows with seasons), TikTok turned culture into a never-ending feedback loop of impulse and machine lear
approximately 170 million Americans spend, on average, one hour every day in an app that is designed to maximize psychological grip
earlier media relied on polished narratives (films with arcs, shows with seasons), TikTok turned culture into a never-ending feedback loop of impulse and machine learning.
TikTok's algorithm learns instantly from micro-behaviors. You can nuke your feed in minutes just by deliberately watching only one type of video—say, pottery clips or capybara memes. That’s because the algorithm heavily weights engagement signs per video rather than long-term user profiles
before today, each medium we’ve invented reshaped how we think and consume information. The printing press trained readers in linear, sequential thought, encouraging sustained focus and complex argumentation. Television created visual storytelling and shared cultural moments, with families watching the same shows at the same time and building collective references. The internet introduced hyperlinked thinking, enabling rapid information switching, comparison of perspectives, and knowledge-building through exploration.
Now, the world is picking up on the TikTok model
movie trailers increasingly resemble TikTok compilations: rapid-fire montages of action sequences and emotional beats rather than traditional narrative setups
you're not consuming culture; you're teaching a machine how to feed you culture more efficiently
markets where dozens of apps competed brutally for user attention. Platforms that kept people engaged survived; the rest died. That evolutionary pressure produced increasingly sophisticated ways to capture attention
We gain instant access to exactly the content that triggers our reward systems, but we lose the ability to be bored, to sit with incomplete thoughts
We lose the serendipity of discovering things we didn't know we wanted
