S
4

Had a chat with a 12 year old that wrecked my assumptions about social media algorithms

My niece was over last weekend and she started explaining why her TikTok feed is "perfect" while mine is full of random junk. She said the secret is watching a video all the way through without rewinding or pausing even once, because the algorithm takes that as a negative signal. I never thought about it that way - I always just thought pausing was normal. She also said commenting within the first 10 seconds boosts your visibility like crazy. Has anyone else heard this from younger users or am I getting played by a middle schooler?
3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In
3 Comments
casey_harris
That niece might be smarter than half the adults in this sub, honestly. @diana20 hit it on the head - these kids grew up with algorithms and they just get it. My own nephew showed me that watching a video twice actually hurts your feed because the algorithm thinks you're confused or something weird happened. Take that with a grain of salt though because I've also heard the opposite from other people. The 10 second comment thing sounds like TikTok magic to me but your mileage may vary. At the very least she gave you something to test out which is more than most tech articles do these days.
3
diana20
diana2021d ago
12 year olds really do run the internet now, huh?
1
kelly385
kelly38518d ago
Pausing doesn't seem like a negative signal to me. Wouldn't platforms want people spending more time on their content? Kinda makes me wonder if @diana20 is right about kids running the internet or if they're just repeating stuff they heard from some TikTok guru.
1