That ship has sailed. Advertisers have been exploiting and reducing our attention spans for decades.

I've deleted TikTok, myself; I installed it because my daughter and her colleagues made a cute handwashing PSA there. I stayed because I found videos of dancing Fresian horses; a deaf man teaching sign language; dancers teaching samba steps; a stylish nonagenarian dispensing life advice, playfully making TikTok videos with her grandson - I'm sorry you found nothing fun or useful there. BUT...

I am concerned about security; not only are there flaws in TikTok (but are they worse than any in Facebook??), but also our President has suddenly shown an unusual obsession with it. I don't think his interest has much to do with cybersecurity - I doubt he'd listen to real experts on those issues. I think it's just another way for him to retaliate against China and also the TikTok users who ordered tickets to his Tulsa rally then failed to show.

Either way, it's not worth enough to me to keep the thing on my phone.

And I don't know how old YOU are, but my two kids (Millennials) are somewhat LESS engaged with social media than people in their 40s and up. They were somewhat disenchanted with it before they could get hooked.

Overall, though, I agree with you that there are much better ways to spend our time.