NEW YORK: TikTok teams identified harmful effects of its platform on young users, but limited preventive measures so as to avoid a drop in traffic, according to internal documents revealed by a US public radio station on Friday.

The documents, mentioned in a subpoena issued by the Kentucky attorney general, are part of a lawsuit filed by 13 states and Washington DC, accusing TikTok of harming young users’ mental health.

The papers reveal TikTok’s awareness of its platform’s appeal and its recommendation algorithm, which offers a seemingly endless chain of short videos.

One unnamed TikTok executive noted the need to be “cognisant” of the app’s impact on “sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at someone in the eyes”.

Kentucky Public Radio reconstructed the internal communications before a state judge ordered the documents removed from the public record.

The lawsuit claims TikTok’s research found that after viewing 260 videos, a user likely became addicted to the platform.

The company’s studies also correlated “compulsive usage” with negative mental health effects, including “loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety”.

While TikTok has implemented features to limit young users’ screen time, including parental controls and a one-hour timeout, the documents suggest ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, did not seek to improve these tools despite knowing their limited effectiveness.

A TikTok project manager wrote: “Our goal is not to reduce the time spent” on the platform.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2024