TikTok is a social media platform that’s signed up more than half of the US population as users and is owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance Ltd.—a relationship that has raised significant national security concerns.
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A 2025 Washington Post study found that 75% of the TikTok users it studied nearly doubled the amount of time spent on the app within a month. Experts in design and psychiatry say that's due to the app's interface and algorithm, which feed on the brain's desire for dopamine.
Since 2018, the short-form, video-sharing app TikTok has gone from launching in the US to becoming a habit-forming cultural force that’s signed up more than half of the country's population as users.
After years of concerns about ByteDance Ltd.'s affiliation with the Chinese government, Congress passed a bill banning TikTok in the US. The main argument favoring the ban is that Beijing could use the wildly popular app to run foreign influence campaigns. Americans opposed to the ban say the law will negatively impact the livelihoods for TikTok shops and influencers.
In 2024, US lawmakers passed a requirement for parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the country, which the company challenged in court. After several extensions granted by President Trump, ByteDance agreed to sell the company's US branch to a group of US investors, including Oracle, which will oversee the app's security and cloud computing.
The app's ownership is now majority American, though TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who is Chinese, remains on the board of directors. It's unclear what, if anything, has changed for American users, as the company has historically kept the specifics of its algorithm a secret.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act makes it unlawful for any “foreign-adversary controlled” entity to distribute, maintain, or update any “website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application” within the US.
TikTok’s algorithm is the powerful engine driving the vast majority of the app’s engagement. While its inner workings remain a secret, the key ingredient is how long a user lingers on content. Experts believe the app develops user profiles in as little as two hours.
The app has surged in popularity recently, with usage surging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those users have generated high revenues, too, with over $23B in 2024.
According to HubSpot, the average TikTok user spends 95 minutes per day using the app, and an estimated 90% of users access TikTok daily. TikTok also has the highest average session length among social media platforms: Its users spend almost 11 minutes per session.
A Pew Research Center publication reports that most members of Gen Z use the app. That's significantly more than other age groups: 39% for those ages 30 to 49, 24% for those 50 to 64, and 10% for those 65 and older.
Art, music, sports, entertainment, movies, and many other subjects—these elements define who we are as a society and how we express ourselves as a culture. Take a deep dive into the topics shaping our shared norms, values, institutions, and more.