What do our future engineers, doctors, teachers, filmmakers, critics, and journalists have in common? They’re on TikTok. Today’s college students spent their middle school and high school years exposed to short-form content on TikTok or similar apps.
This March, the Richmond Journal of Law and Technology published an article titled “TikTok Brain: Can We Save Children’s Attention Spans?” According to the article, “many experts believe TikTok and social media platforms like it are killing children’s attention spans…From trouble achieving long-term goals to being unable to focus in school, these problems can be widespread and far-reaching.”
But what about college students? Is the damage already done? Are their attention spans too far gone to save?
TikTok and the College Student’s Attention Span
A 2021 study conducted by student Audrey Mekler in the Bridgewater State University Undergraduate Review revealed that “college students in emerging adulthood are more likely to lose track of time on TikTok the more they use the app throughout the day. This then could negatively impact how these college students are able to pay attention in class and complete their schoolwork.”
Now, college students across the country are approaching midterm season. In Boston alone, the country’s college capital, thousands of students are about halfway through the 2024 fall semester. What is their relationship to TikTok? Here’s what some Boston University students have to say.
TikTok and the Fear of Missing Out
Parth Kheni, a student at BU’s College of Engineering, caved and downloaded TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first time he used the app, it sucked him in for a couple of hours. These days, he tries to be more careful, spending about one hour a day on the app when he’s on a break or before going to bed. Still, he admitted, “Those breaks happen more often than not.”
Nate Kattady, a Medical Sciences student, joined TikTok in 11th grade about five years ago.
“I always knew about TikTok when I was in early high school, but I was one of the people that was like, ‘I’m never gonna download TikTok,’” he said. “But after a while, everyone was on TikTok, and people would post videos, and I wanted to see them.”
Like Kheni, he, too, caved and downloaded the app. Kattady said his TikTok usage has steadily decreased throughout college. How? He’s made a conscious effort by setting screen time limits. Still, he admits his attention span is pretty bad. As someone who watches even TikTok videos at double speed, he said lectures can be difficult.
“I find it so hard to pay attention. I try to do other stuff so I’m not bored,” he said.
But Kattady doesn’t necessarily think this is related to his current TikTok habits – his attention span has always been bad, he said.
“Okay” Attention Spans and Fried Brain Receptors
Anisha Gandhi, an education major, joined TikTok about six years ago before it rebranded from Musical.ly. Gandhi uses TikTok for roughly 30 minutes a day and thinks her attention span is “okay.”
“I can definitely sit and pay attention to something if it’s interesting. But I prefer things to move faster. So if it’s not interesting, then I’m less likely to pay attention,” she said. “But I don’t think that TikTok has overall reduced my attention span.”
Juliana Meyer has also been on TikTok since the very beginning. She had Musical.ly in 6th grade and still has TikTok now, seven years later, as a sophomore in Film and TV studies. Originally drawn to the app because of its editing features, Meyer stopped using it for a period of time because she figured it wasn’t good for her. But now that she has more free time, the app has found its way back onto her phone.
“My dopamine receptors – I know they’re fried every time I go on TikTok,” she said. “I have to think about it every time I open the app. I have to think, ‘Okay. You only get a few minutes on this thing. You’ve got to take time for yourself, think about it, and don’t just consume, consume, consume. I feel like that’s not the greatest thing for your attention span, your mental health.”
Mindfulness Techniques and Tailored Feeds
Meyer has implemented intentional techniques meant to help her use the app mindfully. She tries to engage with longform media, including movies and YouTube videos, stopping when she catches herself playing them at double speed. And while social and financial pressures compel her to pay attention during lectures, she acknowledges the way TikTok has affected the way she experiences them.
“I think that forms of media like TikTok have definitely affected me in ways that I very much retain better when it has pictures or videos in the lecture instead of just straight talking.”
Meyer also keeps the app off her homescreen so that she’s forced to search for it when she feels the urge to use it. She keeps her screen time enabled, too, to help keep track of her app usage.
“There’s a lot of harm that comes from fast-consuming media like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and things like that, but it’s not all bad,” she said. “You can tailor your feed to be how you want it to look. So maybe not everyone’s feed is just people dancing and doing nothing. Maybe your feed has educational things or things that make you happy or things related to your interests.”
The Downsides of TikTok
Deanna Petropoulos, another Film and TV student, has been on TikTok/Musical.ly for eight years. But she doesn’t use it anymore – not during the semester.
“I think it’s better because I’m not on my phone a lot, doing other stuff and putting myself out there more instead of keeping my face in my phone all the time.”
Haiyi Bi, a journalism student, doesn’t consider herself “a TikTok person.” She watches YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. But she doesn’t have the TikTok app.
“It’s too time-consuming for me to have the app and look at it every day,” she said. “I don’t want to be addicted.”
Bi said many of her friends use TikTok a lot. And though she believes using TikTok can affect one’s attention span, she also sees a positive side: “A way of social network,” she said. “[My friends] like to talk to other people about what’s trending on social media.”
Wanheng Jiang, another journalism student, thinks TikTok is too distracting and can cause anxiety. It affects his ability to focus and complete his assignments well. But it can be hard to avoid TikTok when all his friends use it and share videos with him. To use the app in a healthy way, he said, one has to be critical about the content they encounter.