Why Isn't TikTok Used in China?
TikTok: How Attention Is Programmed in the Digital Age
TikTok is a short video platform owned by ByteDance Ltd., a technology company founded in 2012 in Beijing, China by Zhang Yiming. While it operates globally, ByteDance maintains a strategic link with the Chinese government, which since 2019 has held what is known as a “golden share”: a symbolic stake (1%) that grants veto power over key decisions related to content and algorithms. This structure allows the state to influence sensitive sectors without the need for direct corporate control.
Before its international launch, ByteDance developed the original version of the app under the name Douyin, intended exclusively for the Chinese market. It was launched in 2016, and owing to its success, the company created a parallel version for the rest of the world: TikTok, which debuted in 2017 after acquiring and integrating the American app Musical.ly.
Since then, TikTok has experienced explosive growth. In 2018, it had about 350 million monthly active users, and by 2020, it had surpassed one billion, with an average annual growth rate above 70%. By 2025, the platform is nearing two billion active users, establishing itself as one of the most influential applications in the global digital ecosystem.
In terms of daily use, users are estimated to spend between 60 and 90 minutes per day on the app. Given that videos last between 15 and 60 seconds, it is estimated that the average user watches between 60 and 100 videos daily, depending on the type of content and browsing pace. A dynamic that is fast, intense, and difficult to pause.
What Is Douyin?
TikTok and Douyin—its Chinese version—are developed by the same company, ByteDance Ltd., but operate as separate products. Douyin functions exclusively in China and is regulated by local legislation, while TikTok is designed for the rest of the world. This division reflects the digital control policies imposed by the Chinese government, with special emphasis on the protection of minors.
In this context, Douyin enforces a set of mandatory restrictions for underage users, which stand in stark contrast to TikTok's permissive approach in other regions. These measures include:
Strict time limits: minors can only use Douyin between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., to avoid interfering with sleep hours. Outside that timeframe, the app automatically locks.
Maximum usage time: access is limited to 40 minutes per day, in order to prevent compulsive use and preserve study, rest, and active playtime.
Mandatory youth mode: every user under 14 years old automatically enters an environment featuring educational, cultural, and scientific content. Videos about museums, history, science, or art replace viral challenges and light entertainment.
No live streams or comments: minors cannot participate in live broadcasts or leave comments, to restrict public exposure and protect their privacy.
Identity verification: a real phone number is required and cross-checked with official records to prevent age falsification.
These measures show that, although TikTok and Douyin share origins and technological structure, they function as two clearly different platforms regarding restrictions and content. This difference becomes even more pronounced in the case of minors, as Douyin imposes strict limits that stand in sharp contrast to TikTok's free and deregulated operation in other countries.
The Dopaminergic Imbalance
The logic of TikTok—and other similar platforms—relies on delivering a constant stream of short, highly stimulating videos. In a daily session, a user might watch between 60 and 100 videos, ranging from jokes, viral challenges, and flashy dances to suggestive sexual content, absurd scenes, moderate violence, or surprises designed to provoke an immediate reaction. It's a barrage of micro-stimuli that keep attention captive and fuel a continuous consumption dynamic.
This dynamic repeatedly stimulates the brain's dopaminergic system. Contrary to the popular notion that directly links dopamine to pleasure, it is not the “pleasure molecule” but rather the molecule of anticipatory desire: it is the neurotransmitter that prepares the organism for a potential reward. It is activated not when something is obtained, but when something seems to promise gratification, even if it hasn't happened yet. That anticipation keeps an individual moving, expectant, oriented towards possible achievement or satisfaction.
This function is fundamental in activities like studying, art, problem-solving, or deep learning: the reward is not immediate, but the expectation of achieving it in the long term keeps the system motivated.
However, the same circuit is also activated by trivial stimuli, as long as they manage to suggest an upcoming reward. On platforms like TikTok, what triggers dopamine release is not so much the current video but the expectation of what comes next: funnier, more impactful, more attractive. This constant promise of something better in the next scroll holds attention captive, even if the content being viewed is not particularly memorable. An active waiting mode is established, where the user does not want something specific but simply expects to be stimulated again and again.
The problem arises when this circuit, designed to sustain desire over time, is overwhelmed by brief, trivial, and continuous stimuli. The brain gets used to receiving small doses of anticipation and micro-gratification without effort, elaboration, or delay. An immediate gratification pattern is thus established, displacing the ability to sustain attention, develop interest, or build consistent desire.
As this mechanism consolidates, it creates what could be called stimulus inflation: the more consumed, the harder it is for anything to make an impact. The threshold for something to seem interesting is artificially raised. Everyday experiences—reading, talking, cooking, studying, playing without screens—begin to feel inadequate, slow, boring, or meaningless. Attention fragments, desire becomes impoverished, and boredom becomes unbearable.
Now, when thinking about this imbalance, it is often assumed that an adult has the ability to “return” to a previously more balanced state. The idea is that, having grown up at a different pace, in a different environment, with other ways of maintaining attention, adults can recognize the change and correct their trajectory. In many cases, this is true. Some adults can retrain their attention, rebuild their desire, and regain the ability to stay interested without the need for constant stimulation. But this relies on having once experienced sustained, high-quality activities: having read with pleasure, played without prefabricated stimuli, held a conversation without distractions, or learned something difficult over time.
The problem is that not all adults have that starting point. Many also grew up in environments saturated with rapid-fire stimuli: the television on all day, absence of family structure, emotional precariousness, fragmented schooling, zapping culture. For them, returning to a “healthier” state may not exist as a lived experience. In this sense, dopaminergic imbalance is not only an individual or generational issue, but also a structural one.
The most critical difference is found in those whose brains, desires, and ways of existing in the world are still developing. A child or adolescent who builds their relationship with stimulation through immediate gratification from the outset has no other point of reference. For them, infinite scrolling is not a distortion, but the norm: the starting point from which everything else is interpreted. It's not about having lost something richer and more developed, but about never having known it.
In these cases, assuming that a child's brain will simply “recalibrate” over time is a risky assumption. If there are no prior experiences of sustained attention, creative boredom, free play, delayed gratification, or learning through effort, the quick-response circuit may become the only possible way to relate to the environment. This not only compromises the ability to concentrate but also the construction of desire, patience, tolerance for emptiness, and the ability to project oneself into the future with depth and meaning.
Nevertheless, this situation is not final. It's not the inevitable fate of an entire generation but the urgent challenge of providing alternative forms of experience, ways to inhabit time, and relate to the world. The possible path involves creating contexts where desire is not instantly consumed, where there is room for pause, waiting, and the slow development of interest. Ultimately, it's about reintroducing depth to everyday experience: reading, conversation, art, nature, silence, presence. Only then can we build an alternative framework not colonized by the urgency of the immediate.
It's important to understand that the platform does not impose a culture, but reflects and amplifies what already circulates. It acts as an amplifier: organizing, accelerating, and magnifying the content a society produces and values. In the West, this usually translates into hyperstimulation, exhibitionism, and constant gratification. But when a regulatory framework is introduced—as in the Chinese version for minors—the same tool can become a space for containment and guidance. It's not just about limiting, but about caring for the space where desire and attention can still be shaped. In this sense, the imposed restrictions are not intended to repress, but to protect something that, without intervention, could be lost before it ever develops: the ability to build meaning beyond the immediate.