TikTok won. Now everything is 60 seconds
TikTok Won. Now Everything Is 60 Seconds. Photo by Solen Feyissa on UnsplashAs of September 2025, approximately 170 million Americans spend, on average, one hour every day in an app that is designed to maximize psychological grip. While Congress fixates on TikTok’s data collection usages, what hasn’t received enough attention is how the platform has successfully industrialized human attention itself. Where earlier media relied on polished narratives (films with arcs, shows with seasons), TikTok turned culture into a never-ending feedback loop of impulse and machine learning.TikTok didn’t invent short videos or algorithmic feeds, though. Vine created looping six-second clips in 2013, YouTube has used recommendations for over a decade, Instagram rolled out Stories in 2016, and…
