The TikTok Trap: How Social Media Turns Our Attention into Profit

Why do you open TikTok for just five minutes, and suddenly realise half an hour has passed? It’s not just bad time management; it’s part of the business model used by social media platforms known as the attention economy. This term refers to how platforms are made addictive in order to profit off the user’s attention by selling it to advertisers. In this system, your time is the product, and platforms are designed to take as much of it.

The Dopamine Trap

TikTok’s addictive design isn’t a coincidence; it’s rooted in neuroscience. Dopamine, the main chemical responsible for feelings of pleasure and motivation, is secreted from certain nerve tracts in the brain when we engage in rewarding experiences. This is exploited by TikTok and other social media platforms by the “infinite scroll”, a feature that ensures there’s a never-ending queue of short, algorithmically-optimised videos that continuously make your brain seek another reward.

However, this has consequences. Despite the hits of dopamine, data reveals that people are globally less and less happy. The World Health Organization has reported a 25% increase in global depression and anxiety rates since 2020, coinciding with the pandemic, a time when screen time increased significantly. This demonstrates that social media platforms like TikTok aren’t enough to achieve genuine human happiness. Social media offers short-term gratification, but it can also reduce attention spans, increase social comparison and weaken real-life relationships, which are fundamental to human purpose. This results in a growing sense of disconnection and division, ironically in a world that has never been more “connected”.

Monetising our attention

As mentioned before, TikTok doesn’t sell products, it sells you. More precisely, it sells your attention to advertisers. This is done through the “For You Page”, that feeds you a mix of content and advertisement selected by an algorithm based on your personal interests and viewing history. Statista predicts that TikTok will generate over $30 billion in ad revenue this year (2025).

This raises ethical concerns as users might be manipulated by these processes rather than making a rational choice when purchasing some of the advertised products. The combination of such personalised content and its persuasive design can “brainwash” consumers into specific habits, political views or cultural trends. In the future, this might lead to generations becoming fully controlled by the media, with their perceptions and behaviours being shaped by these forces.

From an economic perspective, this represents a shift from traditional markets for goods and services to a market for attention, where advertisers pay platforms to capture consumer focus, transforming time and engagement into a tradable asset. Users will often remain unaware of how their data is being monetised or how algorithms manipulate their choices, while companies hold detailed knowledge about users’ behaviour, giving them significant market power. This is what economists refer to as information asymmetry.

Opportunity cost for students

Us students, who are at an age when focus and memory are still developing, are the most vulnerable to these social media apps. Studies by the University of California show that it takes an average of 23 minutes to refocus after a single digital interruption. If you multiply this by the number of times you’re distracted by your phone during study time, you will release hours of productivity are lost to unrewarding media consumption.

In Spain and the UK alike, mental health services have reported spikes in youth anxiety, ADHD diagnoses and depressive symptoms — all aligned to digital overstimulation. It is clear that this is creating a great opportunity cost for our generation, as every hour spent on our phones is an hour not spent learning, creating or socialising. While technological innovation is undeniably essential in modern life, excessive dependence on it risks the diminishing of our ability to concentrate and make rational decisions. Why do you open TikTok for just five minutes, and suddenly realise half an hour has passed? It’s not just bad time management; it’s part of the business model used by social media platforms known as the attention economy. This term refers to how platforms are made addictive in order to profit off the user’s attention by selling it to advertisers. In this system, your time is the product, and platforms are designed to take as much of it.

Olivia M (Year 13)