TikTok Tricks
“Should I clean my room first or work on my homework?”
“Which shirt looks better with these pants?”
“Should I buy a gym membership?”
“What time should I work out?”
“Do you think I should give up on this book or keep reading?”
“What should I eat for lunch?”
My, you are an inquisitive crew! You’re often irritated at my answer, “You decide.”
I have two excuses for not being your source of all mundane wisdom.
First is decision fatigue. I already make a million decisions in my everyday life. Some of those decisions are the same as you--what to wear, what to eat, how to spend my time; but I also have more perplexing questions with more serious consequences--should I make that big purchase, how should I bring up a difficult conversation with one of you, is it time for me to pursue graduate education or keep “being curious” without a degree? The thousands of daily decisions, no matter the significance, require brain power. The Cleveland Clinic’s website discusses the causes and consequences of decision fatigue: “The more decisions a person makes over the course of a day, the more physically, mentally, and emotionally depleted they become. A person experiencing decision fatigue struggles with executive functioning. This can have a wide range of consequences, including impaired judgment” (May 31, 2023, 8 Signs of Decision Fatigue and How to Cope, https://health.clevelandclinic.org/decision-fatigue).
My first excuse can seem self-focused, but a person has only so much energy, right? What if you ask me so many questions that I forget to put cheese in your quesadillas or go to church in slippers? (Both of which have happened, so they’re legitimate fears).
My second excuse for not making all of your decisions is more about protecting your growth than my sanity. I want you to experience the power of choice. If you make the decision, you own the consequences. If things don’t go well, you own the consequences. If things do go well, you own the consequences. You cannot blame me if you miss the ending of a great book or get laughed at for wearing a losing team jersey. On the other hand, you get to experience all the benefits of managing your money well or choosing to be a peacemaker when it is easier to lash out.
“You decide.”
Does that phrase irritate rather than empower? Sometimes, we want to be told what to do, even when we resist outside control. We want to know the right answer. We want to do the right thing in the right way. But choosing the right by default isn’t truly choosing, is it?
In a recent podcast, Hank Smith said, “The Lord never asks us to do anything that's really addictive. I've never been addicted to fasting or paying my tithing. Because the Lord says, ‘Yeah, you're going to choose this.’ But almost everything the adversary wants me to do is addictive because one day I'm going to figure it out and by then I'm wrapped up. My agency is almost taken away completely. The Lord works by agency, where the adversary works by addiction” (Bytheway, J. and Smith, H., January 24, 2024, 1 Nephi 16-22 Part 2, Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast, David Perry, https://followhim.co/book-of-mormon-episodes-1-13/).
Speaking of the relationship between agency and addiction, I have an embarrassing story to tell you.
TikTok and I aren’t great friends. Our relationship is more like how our friend Miranda describes clothes from Shein, “They’re for a good time, not a long time.” In other words, I’ll get on TikTok occasionally when somebody sends me a funny video, I’m looking for comic relief, or I’m avoiding difficult work. Mostly, I don’t intentionally choose TikTok--it chooses me. Red flags, right? I know we have had more than one conversation about how to use apps on our phones--specifically social media intentionally.
One night, your dad was out of town. A friend sent me a link to a funny video on TikTok. I watched. I laughed. But then I didn’t close the app. I flipped through a few videos. Swipe up. Lame. Swipe up. Weird. Swipe up. Oh, that’s cute. Swipe up. Eeek! Do they even know who they’re sending this video to? Swipe up. No swearing, please! Swipe up. Oh, that’s creative.
After about twenty minutes, I realized I didn’t like TikTok all that much. I had to filter through a load of stupid stuff before I connected with a message or laughed at a video. What a waste of time! But then I got a genius idea--what if I could intentionally use TikTok? What if I could train TikTok to play only videos I was interested in or liked? What if I could get it to stop swearing or showing weird stuff? Then, I’d be wasting less time flipping through video after video looking for something worthwhile, right? RIGHT?
I got to work. It was about 10 p.m. I would normally drift off to sleep at this hour, but the idea of training my TikTok was too intriguing.
The plan: swipe up quickly on videos I found offensive or weird, linger on videos I found funny or interesting, “like” videos that made me laugh out loud, and follow accounts that reliably posted content I like.
An hour later, I continued to swipe, like, and follow. The frequency of interesting videos did not increase, but I noticed less offensive content. Progress!
Another hour. Swipe, like, follow. Why isn’t TikTok listening to me? I thought I made it clear that I find that trend absolutely annoying. Must. Swipe. Faster.
Another hour. Swipe, like, follow. This creator is hilarious. And clean. My kind of humor. But I’m still getting about a three-to-one ratio of videos I don’t like versus videos I do.
3 a.m. Oh no. It’s been five hours? Apparently, the algorithm doesn’t work that well.
Or does it?
I’m a FOOL! TikTok doesn’t care what I want to see; it only cares how long I keep the app open.
So, who made me stay up all night watching stupid videos? Who experiences the consequences? You already know I didn’t get a call from the TikTok bosses apologizing for the amount of sleep I missed and offering to reimburse me by cleaning the house and doing laundry while I took a long nap the next day.
I paid the price because I made a decision. Yes, the decision was a passive one. Yes, TikTok took advantage of the late hour and the mind-numbing pattern of swiping to the next video in search of a dopamine hit. The natural man took over, but since I experienced the consequences, I also learned the lesson.
How will you show up in similar circumstances? How will you use what you have learned to intentionally choose?
You decide.