Does Short-form Video Application Shape Your Life? : An Empirical Study of TikTok Usage and Persuasive Behavior Change in China

Abstract: Persuasive Technology(PT) was pioneered by BJ Fogg. The theory has been developed in several aspects and applied in education, health, entertainment, and online shopping. Short-form video application TikTok first launched in the media market in 2016. During the global COVID-19 pandemic period, the growing popularity of TikTok helped it reach over 800 million users. As the new form of social media, it is persuasively shaping people’s life. The paper aims to investigate the relationship between behavior change and TikTok usage. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to investigate 178 participants. The research mainly focused on Chinese university students whose ages are around 18 to 25 as the target group. The result shows that 57.3% of participants feel the behavior change and 15.7% of them are not sure about that. In the qualitative research, from the in-depth interview, participants who are not sure about the effect also make using TikTok a habit without perception. The findings of this paper provide evidence that TikTok as a persuasive system has effects on users’ behavior and even changed their attitudes. The ethical concerns and sustainability are also discussed in the following parts.