TFD8: Is TikTok digital crack cocaine? Speaking with Dr. Julie Albright, author of Left To Their Own Devices

Let’s start with TikTok. It gained over 500 million new users just last year. Why is it growing so quickly? When you’re on TikTok -- and other, similar social platforms -- there’s an almost compulsive view and flick, view and flick as you scroll through bits of content. What’s happening in the brain while this is going on? And … what does this do to people? Does it kill their attention span? Does it ruin them for anything requiring deep focus? As a culture, we have a long history of crying wolf at the next new media platform, claiming it will ruin kids, ruin society, destroy education, kill the future workforce. Contextualize TikTok and other similar platforms for us within this history. But are digital platforms fundamentally different than previous shifts? How do you see people changing as we grow up with technology and media like this? What are the good things that come out of this?