TikTok use and overuse have grown rapidly in recent years among adolescents. However, risk factors for problematic TikTok use are still largely unknown. In addition, drawing on the flow theory and parental mediation theory, this study aims to examine how adolescents' perceptions of enjoyment, concentration, and time distortion affect their problematic TikTok use behavior. Further, we examined the moderating effect of active parental mediation. An online survey in China received responses from a sample of 633 adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 (males: 51.2%; Mage = 15.00; DS = 0.975). Our findings showed that enjoyment was positively associated with concentration and, in turn, with time distortion. We also found significant positive effects of concentration and time distortion on problematic TikTok use. The effect of enjoyment, however, was non-significant, indicating that hedonic mood was not associated with problematic TikTok use. Out of the three moderated relationships examined in this study, only active parental control was found to be a significant moderator for the relationship between concentration and problematic TikTok use. The significant negative moderation result showed that as active parental mediation grows, the impact of adolescents' concentration on problematic TikTok use is reduced. Future research directions and implications are discussed.
TikTok has one of the most advanced algorithm systems and is the most addictive as compared to other social media platforms. While research on social media addiction is abundant, we know much less about how the TikTok information system environment affects users' internal states of enjoyment, concentration, and time distortion (which scholars define as the flow experience), which in turn influences their addiction behavior. To fill this gap, this study collects responses from 659 adolescents in China aged between 10 and 19 years old, and the data is then analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS). We find that the system quality has a stronger influence than information quality in determining adolescents' experience with TikTok and that the flow experience has significant direct and indirect effects on TikTok addiction behavior. Notably, this study finds that TikTok addiction is determined by users' mental concentration on the medium and its content. Several theoretical insights from the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model and the flow theory are used to explain the findings.