Research warns of impact of TikTok videos on children and adolescents: they generate the same effect as slot machines

Consuming short videos on platforms like TikTok or Instagram could have much deeper effects than it seems. This is stated in the study The Slot Machine Effect in Short-Form Video (2026), carried out by researchers from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The research warns that this type of content activates brain mechanisms similar to those of slot machines: it generates reward cycles that encourage repetitive consumption and make it difficult to voluntarily interrupt the session.

Soledad Garcés, an academic in the Diploma in Socio-Emotional Well-being and School Coexistence at the School of Psychology of the Universidad de los Andes, emphasizes that in the case of minors the impact is especially relevant because their brains are in the process of development.

"These effects, at a neurological level, shape the brain development of children and adolescents from a very early age. Therefore, addressing these issues from regulation, prohibition or early education are essential for the proper development of childhood, and also to be able to help them have a better adulthood," says the specialist.

The study describes the phenomenon as a variable reward system: some content generates a much greater emotional response than average, and this unpredictability is precisely what encourages us to continue sliding the screen in search of the next stimulus.

One of the critical points identified by the research is the combination between the design of the platforms and the neurological immaturity of the youngest users. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for impulse control and planning, is one of the last regions to mature, and it is exactly the one that the short video format tests with continuous micro-decisions.

Garcés warns that there is the idea that these tools must be educated in their proper use from an early age. "However, when the design is addictive, and there is also immature development at the brain level, the mixture of both realities is very complex," he explains.

The academic's conclusion points out that responsibility cannot fall exclusively on families or on the minors themselves. It is not enough to promote responsible use: structural measures are required that limit the design of the platforms themselves.

"It is necessary to have strict legislation that favors the care of brain development from childhood and adolescence," he concludes. The approach coincides with the open discussion in the European Union and in several Latin American countries about mandatory pauses, session limits and restrictions on infinite scrolling for accounts of minor users.