Tyler Cowen asked Kyla Scanlon (economics communicator/educator) about TikTok, Reels, and social media in general. Her combination of digital publishing experience and economics knowledge makes her POV valuable.

What does the crystal ball say? 🔮

think that the scroll model will have to shift. I’m not sure what it’ll shift to, but I think that sort of motion is going to not be so enticing soon. But yes, I think it’ll definitely be much more interactive, and the user will be able to direct it much more than in the algorithm

Short-form video has eaten the world, which means another format will soon disrupt it.

On TikTok vs Reels:

What’s nice about Instagram as a platform is that you have stories and that you have posts and you have reels, versus TikTok does have stories, but when you scroll on TikTok, you don’t really scroll for a single person. Instagram — you’re able to curate more of a personality because there’s a profile page. It’s not as algorithmic. There’s more intentionality, I think, with the platform design, versus TikTok just wants to keep you scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. I think Instagram — it seems to be okay if you stray from the path awhile.

💡
It’s beginning to feel like two trends are converging in a way that will limit TikTok’s upside more than any ban.

The first is how the transition from school life to work life caps available media time, forcing an age out of sorts on The Trend Machine’s attention black hole effect.

The second is The Clock App’s Shop obsession:

TikTok really wants to make a lot of money, and they’re like, “If we sell commerce, if we sell goods to people, that’ll be the way that we make money.” Now, every other video for people is a face mask or a purse or clothes. You have users that are constantly being advertised to. I think more people view TikTok as an exhausting experience than one of connection, as it was in 2020.