SHOCKING! Childhood trauma, negative experiences drive addiction to short-form video platforms, study finds
Researchers have uncovered a compelling link between adverse childhood experiences and addiction to short-form video platforms like TikTok.
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FollowIn a groundbreaking study published in Computers in Human Behavior, researchers have uncovered a compelling link between adverse childhood experiences and addiction to short-form video platforms like TikTok. Conducted among a vast sample of college students in China, the study points to childhood abuse and neglect as potential triggers that increase the likelihood of developing addictive behaviors towards these platforms.
Short-form video platforms have become wildly popular among young users, thanks to their fast-paced, engaging content. With their personalized algorithms and user-specific features, these platforms encourage extended viewing, with many college students in China admitting to spending hours daily on these apps. Some even recognize that their video consumption habits may have reached problematic levels.
“We became interested in this topic due to the rapid growth in active users of short-form video platforms such as TikTok and Douyin globally in recent years. In China, short video users now account for 96.4% of the overall internet population,” noted study author Hai Huang, an associate professor of psychology at the China University of Geosciences, reported PsyPost.
“However, many individuals, especially young people, have developed an addiction to these platforms, leading to physical, psychological, and social dysfunctions. This prompted us to investigate the current state of short-form video addiction among Chinese college students,” Huang added.
Huang and his team were particularly drawn to the connection between adverse childhood experiences—recognized as a global public health issue—and digital addiction. The researchers set out to determine whether early life trauma, such as abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction, could be influencing students' reliance on short-form videos as an escape.
The research included 11,425 college students from Wuhan, China, with participants averaging slightly over 20 years old. Utilizing an in-depth survey to assess adverse experiences, the researchers evaluated participants’ levels of resilience and life satisfaction. Additionally, they modified a well-established internet addiction scale to gauge tendencies toward short-form video addiction, looking specifically for behaviors such as craving, withdrawal, and difficulties cutting down on usage.
Their findings were striking. Students reporting higher levels of adverse childhood experiences—particularly cases of neglect and abuse—showed a significantly higher risk of short-form video addiction. The data revealed that individuals with five or more types of adverse experiences faced a nearly fivefold increase in addiction risk compared to those without such experiences. Importantly, resilience and life satisfaction emerged as key mediators: students with lower levels of these protective factors were more prone to rely on short-form videos as a coping tool.
The study underscores the buffering effect of resilience and life satisfaction. Those with higher levels of these protective factors seemed less likely to seek refuge in short-form videos to escape unresolved emotional scars from their past.
“From our findings, people can understand that adverse childhood experiences serve as a significant risk factor for short-form video addiction,” Huang explained to PsyPost. “Specifically, adverse childhood experiences characterized by violence, abuse, and neglect have a stronger impact compared to other types of adverse childhood experiences. Interventions focusing on the early prevention of adverse childhood experiences, along with promoting resilience and life satisfaction, may prove beneficial in preventing short-form video addiction among young people.”
The study, titled “Adverse childhood experiences and short-form video addiction: A serial mediation model of resilience and life satisfaction,” was authored by Jiao Xue, Hai Huang, Ziyu Guo, Jing Chen, and Wenting Feng, offering a sobering glimpse into the powerful, often overlooked impact of childhood experiences on today’s digital addictions.
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