Will the ‘addictive’ app TikTok disappear?

Tram Ho

Over the past half-decade, TikTok has exploded into becoming a pop-culture phenomenon as well as a political hotspot. The reason for this huge growth is attributed to the addictive short video format and the power of algorithms developed by the company ByteDance.

Ứng dụng 'gây nghiện' TikTok sẽ biến mất? - Ảnh 1.

TikTok app on phone. (Photo: Tech in Asia)

Recently, TikTok is rated as the most popular social networking application in the world. According to Statista statistics, as of January 2022, more than 55% of Americans have ever been exposed to TikTok. The app also brought many people to fame after a short time.

However, the future of the application is still a big question mark when US officials consider the application a flaw in national security, accompanied by concerns about the bad effects of the application on people. with young people.

Pregnancy process

Byte Dance first launched Douyin – the domestic version of TikTok – in the Chinese market in September 2016. In November 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly – an application that allows users to post videos. Short lip sync on available music.

Musical.ly was once considered to have the same prospects as other social networking giants, with the number of users reaching millions of people.

A few months before acquiring Musical.ly, ByteDance launched TikTok as an international version of Douyin. In 2018, ByteDance combined TikTok with Musical.ly and relaunched the international market under the name TikTok. This merger has brought the company billions of dollars in investment capital and support from the engineering team in China.

In a short time, the application attracted a large number of users. It only took 6 months for Tiktok to achieve what Musical.ly needed 5 years.

The way TikTok works is essentially quite different from other social networks. Instead of showing posts from a user’s friends and people they choose to follow, TikTok lets them watch videos based on suggestions of content they might like. The algorithm captures what users want to see based on their watch time history. The more time a user spends on the app, the more accurate TikTok’s algorithm becomes.

Users feel that TikTok is very quick to understand and grasp their preferences. One opinion is that the application was born at the right time when young people prioritize accessing network content through short videos. A TikTok employee commented that, unlike Instagram, TikTok promotes creative content and entertainment rather than popularity.

Tremendous growth

Videos that show special talent or have funny or quirky content go viral at breakneck speed and become famous overnight. This rarely happens on other social networking platforms. Brands quickly seize the opportunity to cooperate in promoting the brand. Content creators have a variety of sources of income such as advertising, viewer donations, and sales.

Becoming famous quickly thanks to Tik Tok has changed many people’s lives. There are people who have even escaped homelessness by soliciting donations from TikTok users.

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Types of brand advertising on TikTok. (Photo: TikTok)

Some are beginning to question the downsides of TikTok’s viewership power. Algorithms keep users on the app for hours on end, but can also spread malicious content. In 2021, TikTok was accused of spreading videos that encouraged young people to lose weight negatively and eat unscientifically. After that, TikTok quickly adjusted its algorithm.

Basically, TikTok is designed to be “addictive.” There are some concerns that the algorithm will negatively affect the immature brains of underage users. know they strive to develop their apps in consultation with experts, researchers and content creators.

TikTok really grew the fastest when the COVID-19 pandemic began to force people to socialize and spend more time on their phones. This is when people of all ages started using TikTok, taking it beyond a teen app and paring with other popular social networks. According to Sensor Tower, as of the middle of the pandemic, TikTok has been downloaded more than 200 million times in the US.

Uncertain future

As TikTok becomes more popular, there are concerns that the Chinese government could access the data of TikTok users. The US military and some political campaigns ban employees from downloading the TikTok app, citing national security risks.

Former President Trump threatened to shut down TikTok in the US and ordered ByteDance to sell the app to a domestic company. TikTok has since pledged not to share user data with the Chinese government, even upon request. Oracle Corporation has become a partner of ByteDance in the US, but the agreement between the two parties is still being reviewed by the US government. There are reports that employees in China can still access US user data. This raises many concerns about information security.

Currently, TikTok still owns the most time spent on all social networks. But the app still faces growing competition from Instagram and YouTube, both of which have launched their own short video formats. On average, an American adult spends 49 minutes a day on TikTok and 30 minutes on Instagram.

There is still a lot of controversy surrounding the future of this application. In the next 5 years, TikTok will probably continue to storm the world, may also disappear in the international market.

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Source : Genk