Imo, tiktoks and facebooks work by destabilizing emotions: they take users on a wild ride thru disgusting and pleasant emotions in an unpredictable manner. This unpredictability of the ride turns off the mind: the user learns that engaging the mind makes no difference and turns it off, leaving more room for the raw emotions. It's not a stretch to say that algorithmic media feed works by muting the human in the users and engaging the animal in them.
In my opinion it is absolutely bad for most people's mental health.
Essentially all other social media platforms have now copied TikTok and do the same.
I still refuse to use TikTok and I never YouTube shorts.