This boring looking research paper explains why TikTok is so addicting and sucks up so much of your time. So it talks about this concept called plastic time, which is the unanticipated gaps between your schedule. It makes the arguments that sustained moments of free time are decreasingly likely in modern life. As we’re multitasking more than ever before, switching tasks frequently, etc. Technology is now being adapted to fit those unexpectedly long gaps of free time. In modern life, we can rewind the TV, we can skip and watch instead of a program taking a defined amount of time, but we can make it take however long we want it to take. And here’s why TikTok is so addicting. They argue that internet use is a perfect filler for plastic time. Say you’re standing in a long line. Because the individual bits of information are so small on Reddit and TikTok and Twitter, as you’re scrolling, you could stop your scrolling at any time and not feel like you’re being interrupted in the middle of something as if you would if you were watching a TV show or listening to a podcast.