A Love - Hate Relationship with Douyin

Posted on Views: Waline: Word count in article: 432 Reading time ≈ 2 mins.
The author has a love - hate relationship with Douyin. They love its practicality, as it can be used to find solutions to various problems, such as dealing with window drafts and baby - care knowledge. However, they hate the fact that it's hard to control oneself when using it, which affects daily life, like delaying naps and causing the elderly to stay up late scrolling. It's a double - edged sword that can harm oneself.

I wonder if others have the same feeling as me. I really have a love - hate relationship with Douyin.

I love Douyin because it’s extremely practical.
Most of the time, Douyin serves as a place for me to find solutions to all kinds of problems.

Douyin is truly a magical platform. All sorts of people share all kinds of knowledge and skills on it. Almost any problem encountered in daily life can find an answer on Douyin.

For example, my study’s casement window was a bit drafty. I searched on Douyin for how to deal with it and found that many people shared their methods, a wide variety of them.

Another example is that my baby was born last month. I often search for baby - care - related content on Douyin, like how to make formula milk, change diapers, and give a bath. You can find all kinds of such content. Of course, you can’t believe everything you see and need to distinguish for yourself. But without Douyin, I would hardly have anywhere to learn this knowledge.

There are many other examples, such as learning to cook, cleaning the washing machine… You can learn about these on Douyin. There are just too many such cases.

I hate Douyin because it makes me lose self - control.

I guess most people scroll through Douyin. I often see people doing it in elevators and on subways. When waiting at high - speed rail stations, it seems that about half of the people are scrolling through Douyin. I even often see people scrolling while walking.

I’m a bit better than those people, but I often unintentionally open Douyin and start scrolling one video after another.

For instance, a common problem I have is that after lunch, I’ll open Douyin to check if the people I follow have updated, thinking that I’ll close it right after. But often, I end up scrolling for half an hour, seriously affecting my afternoon nap.

Some people call Douyin “mental opium”, and this metaphor is quite vivid.
Indeed, many people can’t control themselves and can’t resist the urge to scroll through Douyin, including many elderly people. Take my mom as an example. She often scrolls through Douyin when she has nothing to do. I’ve reminded her many times not to stay up late scrolling, but she still can’t help it.

From a product perspective, Douyin is extremely successful, attracting a large number of highly - engaged users.
From a user’s perspective, it’s a double - edged sword, and I think the edge that faces oneself is even sharper. One can easily get hurt by it.