Maybe it's because I haven't used it, but a lot of the language around TikTok feels exceptional in ways that aren't justified: Twitter has (tens of?) millions of "terminally online" users, but we don't compare it to "digital crack."
This isn't to say that TikTok isn't addictive; it clearly is. But I think there are strong recency (it's the New Thing) and exoticism (it's a weird Chinese app) biases in how we talk about it compared to other addictive social media (e.g., saying that users are "obsessed with" $FACEBOOK_PROPERTY instead of describing them as digital addicts.)
This isn't to say that TikTok isn't addictive; it clearly is. But I think there are strong recency (it's the New Thing) and exoticism (it's a weird Chinese app) biases in how we talk about it compared to other addictive social media (e.g., saying that users are "obsessed with" $FACEBOOK_PROPERTY instead of describing them as digital addicts.)