[warner25]

I have a single anecdote, not much insight, but I'm interested in advancing discussion around your question.

My wife, in her mid-30s, has friends who will share or send her links to TikTok videos. She says that she can't view them because she doesn't have an account, but she doesn't want to create an account because she "knows she has an addictive personality" [1] and has read about the power of TikTok. Anyway, I imagine that this is how it starts for a lot of people: not wanting to miss out on stuff sent by a friend, creating an account to check it out, and then rapidly getting sucked into the addictive user experience. And it keeps spreading the same way from there.

[1] She does, and I'm thankful that she recognizes this. She's already a heavy consumer of Facebook Reels, by the way.

[spacechild1]

The only friend on mine who actively uses TikTok (as far as I'm aware) has ADHD...