The ‘TikTok Comments’ Twitter page was created back in June 2020. In the nearly three years since its inception, the account has grown to 195k followers. Clearly, people love seeing just how weird and ridiculous TikTok can really get!

The founder of the account values community engagement quite a bit. They urge their followers to not be shy and send them a message with their own submissions. The best ones can actually get featured on the page, for everyone to gawk at.

TikTok is absolutely massive right now. According to ‘Demand Sage,’ the app has over 1.53 billion users worldwide (that’s nearly a third of all internet users on Planet Earth). 1 billion of those are monthly active users (aka one-fifth of all global internet users).

Meanwhile, more than 1 billion videos are watched every single day on the platform. The numbers are mind-bogglingly impressive. However, huge numbers alone don’t make something positive. Some thinkers have begun calling TikTok a ‘weapon of mass distraction.’

Don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of awesome content creators on TikTok—and how you entertain and educate your audience is completely up to you as a video maker. However, it would be naive to think that all the videos that you see on your feed are quality.

Like any other video or social media platform, TikTok has its fair share of mind-numbing posts that gobble up your time, strain your eyes, and further reduce your already limited attention span. Sure, you’re entertained… for like a few seconds. But can you genuinely remember what video you watched before the current one? Or the one before that?

Your average TikTok user spends around 1.5 hours on the platform every single day. Back in 2019, this used to be around 14.6 minutes.

More and more people are getting used to incredibly short-form content because their attention spans have become abysmal.

For example, Dr. Gloria Mark, from the University of California in Irvine, told CNN that researchers have tracked the decline in people’s ability to focus for decades.

“In 2004, we measured the average attention on a screen to be 2½ minutes. Some years later, we found attention spans to be about 75 seconds. Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds,” the expert noted.

It’s difficult to get to grips with the exact amount of time the average person spends in front of a screen every single day. For instance, ‘Exploding Topics’ notes that, on average, people around the world spend nearly 7 hours in front of screens per day (6 hours and 58 minutes to be exact). In the US, the average is slightly larger, standing at 7 hours and 4 minutes. South Africans, on the other hand, spend 10 hours and 46 minutes.

Meanwhile, CNN, citing a Nielsen Company audience report, states that your average American spends roughly 10 hours and 39 minutes each day consuming media. That includes using computers, smartphones, tablets, and TVs; however, radios are also included.

“The overall results don’t surprise me. The number of devices we have proliferate the overall time spent with screens, and the number of devices is increasing. A lot of people have been thinking about how or whether this time spent is a good use of their time, which becomes a deep issue,” Steve Gortmaker, a professor of health sociology at Harvard University, told CNN.

In short, we could all do with longer breaks from screens and tech. No matter how entertaining TikTok videos and comments might be, your physical and mental health is far more important. It’s fine to indulge just a bit. But try to catch yourself if you’ve started mindlessly scrolling.

What are your thoughts on TikTok and the platform's culture, Pandas? Are you big fans or do you prefer to find your entertainment on other apps and sites? How much time do you spend looking at screens all day after school or work? Share your thoughts in the comments.