ISSN: 1130-3743 - e-ISSN: 2386-5660
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14201/teri.32815
Cerebro tiktoniano: cognición y aprendizaje en la cultura digital algorítmica
Daniel PATTIER
Universidad Complutense de Madrid. España.
dpattier@ucm.es
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3426-922X
Date received: 05/09/2025
Date accepted: 28/11/2025
Online publication date: 23/06/2026
How to cite this article / Cómo citar este artículo: Pattier, D. (2026). Tiktonian Brain: Cognition and Learning in Algorithmic Digital Culture [Cerebro tiktoniano: cognición y aprendizaje en la cultura digital algorítmica]. Teoría de la Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria, 38(2), 211-229. https://doi.org/10.14201/teri.32815
ABSTRACT
The proliferation of digital platforms based on short, intense and highly stimulating videos, such as TikTok, is transforming the way young people process information, shape their attention and construct learning. This study proposes the concept of the Tiktonian brain as a critical category and operational construct for analysing the emerging cognitive configurations within algorithmic digital culture. Unlike media-driven or clinical notions framed from an alarmist or reductionist perspective, the approach developed here places the issue within its educational, critical and interdisciplinary dimension, integrating contributions from neuroeducation, critical pedagogy, and cultural and media studies. The methodology is framed within a critical-theoretical approach, grounded in literature review and conceptual analysis, with the aim of constructing an interpretative framework capable of guiding future empirical research and pedagogical practices. The findings highlight processes such as attentional fragmentation, the pursuit of instant gratification, and the reshaping of the desire to learn. The main contribution lies in offering criteria for educational application, including the integration of critical digital literacy into curricula, ongoing teacher training, and the design of learning environments that balance immediacy and reflection. Furthermore, institutional and educational policy implications are considered, such as curriculum review and the promotion of digital equity. Overall, the article proposes strategies to transform the risks of algorithmic culture into opportunities for critical and conscious learning, providing insights to inform both contemporary pedagogical debate and the design of educational policies adapted to the demands of the digital era.
Keywords: brain digital culture critical pedagogy social media educational technology TikTok.
RESUMEN
La proliferación de plataformas digitales basadas en vídeos breves, intensos y altamente estimulantes, como TikTok, está transformando la manera en que los jóvenes procesan la información, configuran su atención y construyen aprendizajes. Este estudio propone el concepto de cerebro tiktoniano como categoría crítica y constructo operativo para analizar las configuraciones cognitivas emergentes en la cultura digital algorítmica. A diferencia de nociones mediáticas o clínicas planteadas desde una lógica alarmista o reduccionista, el enfoque aquí desarrollado sitúa el problema en su dimensión educativa, crítica e interdisciplinar, integrando aportes de la neuroeducación, la pedagogía crítica y los estudios culturales y mediáticos. La metodología se inscribe en un enfoque teórico-crítico, sustentado en la revisión de literatura y el análisis conceptual, con el fin de construir un marco interpretativo capaz de orientar futuras investigaciones empíricas y prácticas pedagógicas. Los hallazgos destacan procesos como la fragmentación de la atención, la búsqueda de gratificación inmediata y la reconfiguración del deseo de aprender. La principal aportación radica en ofrecer criterios de aplicación educativa, que incluyen la integración de la alfabetización digital crítica en los currículos, la formación docente continua y el diseño de entornos de aprendizaje que equilibren inmediatez y reflexión. Asimismo, se plantean implicaciones institucionales y políticas educativas, tales como la revisión curricular y la promoción de equidad digital. En conjunto, el artículo propone estrategias para convertir los riesgos de la cultura algorítmica en oportunidades de aprendizaje crítico y consciente, ofreciendo claves para orientar tanto el debate pedagógico contemporáneo como el diseño de políticas educativas adaptadas a las exigencias de la era digital.
Palabras clave: cerebro cultura digital pedagogía crítica redes sociales tecnología educativa TikTok.
We live in a time marked by a radical shift in the ways we access, produce and share knowledge. Social networks have gone from being mere spaces for interaction to become powerful agents of socialisation, meaning construction and mediated learning. One such platform, TikTok, has become one of the most influential among adolescents and young people (Katsiroumpa et al., 2025). With its short, highly visual, quick-to-consume videos, it gives rise to a cognitive experience characterised by content fragmentation, constant gratification and the logic of algorithmic reward (Avus & Xavier, 2024; Ye et al., 2025).
The study of cognition and learning in this type of environment is crucial, as recommender systems are increasingly affecting the way we access, process and give meaning to knowledge. From a pedagogical perspective, this analysis is essential because these platforms shape attentional, motivational and communicative tendencies that directly impact how students learn and engage in school life. Understanding these processes will serve to adapt teaching practice to a media context that is reshaping attention and the ways we relate to knowledge, forcing a rethink of its pedagogical and educational policy implications.
Globally, the literature is yet to offer evidence-based studies on the potential educational impact on young students who use platforms like TikTok (Gálvez-Ruiz et al., 2025). While some studies suggest potential benefits (Benitez-Correa & Gonzalez-Torres, 2025; Jerasa & Ura, 2025), such as boosted student motivation (Yélamos-Guerra et al., 2022), several authors highlight the risks associated with their algorithm design, intended to induce submission and dependence (D’Agnese, 2025; Wang & Guo, 2023). This article focuses not on the applicability of these platforms in the classroom (Caldeiro-Pedreira & Yot-Domínguez, 2023; Pattier, 2024), but on their consequences for cognition and education from a critical perspective.
This raises questions that remain unanswered: how does this audiovisual consumption affect attentional processes? What consequences does this have for knowledge construction? What pedagogical challenges arise from continuous exposure to constantly stimulating digital environments? These questions invite us to rethink current learning conditions from a critical and multidisciplinary perspective, beyond new pedagogical trends that blur the focus of education (Barrio Maestre, 2025). The field of education cannot remain on the sidelines, as these cognitive configurations determine how students engage with, process and give meaning to information; ignoring them would imply designing learning practices and expectations far removed from the reality of the conditions in which learning takes place today (Sánchez-Rojo et al., 2024).
This context gives way to the concept proposed in this article: the Tiktonian brain. Rather than describing a clinical status or closed neuroscientific model, this term describes a theoretical and metaphorical construct as the basis for interpreting new cognitive configurations in digital culture. It is proposed as a critical category that revolves around brain plasticity, technological mediation and cultural shifts in the modes of attention, memory and learning. It thus operates as a lens through which to anaylse and interpret cognitive dynamics driven by platforms like TikTok, embedded in the algorithmic logic of visibility and immediacy. Far from being reduced to a technological or generational phenomenon, it implies a shift in the learning ecology (Barron, 2006), with effects on neurological structures, educational practices and pedagogical imaginaries (Pattier & Reyero, 2022).
The objectives pursued in this article are two-fold: to offer a theoretical perspective of how social media impacts learning processes, and to propose the Tiktonian brain as a critical category to understand them. This category serves to express how algorithmic environments shape patterns of attention, motivation and cognition, and offers a pedagogical framework to interpret these shifts and adapt educational practices to this context. To this end, the article adopts a theoretical and argumentative methodology based on a narrative literature review on a global scale—focusing on recent literature on digital cognition, critical pedagogy and neuroeducation—and on the conceptual analysis of these contributions.
Despite initiatives in digital literacy and critical pedagogies, there remains a gap in understanding how algorithmic environments shape new forms of cognition and learning. This gap makes it difficult to link these shifts to pedagogical decisions and educational policy. To this end, this study proposes the following research questions: how should cognitive configurations stemming from algorithmic culture be conceptualised? What implications do they have for pedagogical practices, teacher training and educational policy design in the modern digital age?
The article is structured as follows: the section following this introduction offers an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that integrates aspects of cultural cognition, neuroeducation and critical pedagogy. Next, the methodology is outlined. The following section explains the concept of the Tiktonian brain and analyses its main characteristics, capabilities, risks and potential forms of operationalisation in the field of education. This is followed by exploration of the pedagogical implications of the phenomenon (challenges and opportunities), together with its institutional and policy implications. Finally, the conclusions of the study are presented.
As such, the study seeks to build interdisciplinary bridges by proposing the Tiktonian brain as an analytical framework used to understand how algorithmic culture is reshaping cognition and learning. It primarily contributes to the educational and pedagogical sphere, offering critical insights to guide both teaching practice and political debate around education in the digital age.
This section offers an interdisciplinary overview as the basis for analysing the impact of social networks such as TikTok on learning processes. The reflection is structured around three complementary dimensions: cultural cognition, neuroeducation, and critical pedagogy. This triangulation seeks to understand how digital platforms mould behaviour, cognitive structures and pedagogical tendencies (Pattier & Reyero, 2022).
The growth of social media falls within a socio-technical context marked by acceleration (Rosa, 2016), immediacy (Ye et al., 2025) and hyperconnectivity, understood as continuous access to multiple networks and information flows (Muñoz-Rodríguez, 2021). Under these conditions, learning is no longer a slow and reflective process. Instead, it is a constant influx of short, visual, decontextualised stimuli. TikTok, with an algorithm designed around personalisation and endless scrolling, serves as a paradigm of this culture of accelerated entertainment (Wang & Guo, 2023). These shifts not only redefine students’ cognitive tendencies but also give rise to concrete pedagogical challenges in terms of managing attention, motivation and the depth of learning, which requires a rethink of teaching practices and methods of organising work in the classroom.
McLuhan (1964) claims that media is not neutral, as it moulds cognitive perceptions and structures. In this vein, Carr (2010) warns that intensive use of digital environments erodes in-depth reading and critical reflection, while Han (2012) describes a ‘burnout society’ characterised by overstimulation and attentional fatigue. Turkle (2011) adds that digital technology is reshaping the ways in which we relate to others and ourselves, giving way to a multi-tasking yet cognitively more superficial subject. Citton (2016) places these dynamics within an attention economy, where the user’s time is the primary resource that platforms compete for in a ‘battle for attention’, affecting how we process and retain information. Recent research confirms that algorithmic environments foster attentional fragmentation and instant gratification, which directly impact learning processes (Chiossi et al., 2023; Frauhammer & Dreston, 2025; Ye et al., 2025). This highlights a profound change in the current conditions of learning in the digital age.
Taken together, these perspectives suggest that the dynamics of the digital ecology are reshaping attention, relationships and cognitive processing, forcing the educational field to consider their implications to understand the new conditions of learning in algorithmic environments. This theoretical overview constitutes the basis for introducing the concept of the Tiktonian brain as a tool for interpreting these emerging configurations.
Neuroeducation is an emerging interdisciplinary field that brings together knowledge from neuroscience, cognitive psychology and pedagogy, with the aim of understanding how the brain learns and how teaching and learning processes can be optimised (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2011). In this regard, one of the most important principles is brain plasticity, understood as the brain’s capacity to structurally and functionally reorganise itself throughout its lifetime in response to environmental stimuli, experience and learning (Doidge, 2007; Draganski et al., 2006). From this perspective, neuroeducation not only allows us to critically interpret the cognitive effects of digital culture, but also to inform the design of pedagogical strategies that respond to these new learning environments.
Numerous studies have shown that repeated experiences, especially those that are emotionally significant or multisensory, can induce synaptic and structural changes in various regions of the brain such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, or striatum (Kolb & Gibb, 2011). This implies that educational settings, both formal and informal (Mosquera Gende, 2023), have a direct impact on the individual’s cognitive, emotional and behavioural development.
From this perspective, digital technologies are not neutral: their intensive use during critical stages of neurodevelopment may mould certain brain functions, such as attention, concentration, memory, reflection, cognitive flexibility, autonomy and planning (Pattier & Reyero, 2022). Various studies suggest that the repeated consumption of short videos may be associated with both a greater pursuit of immediate gratification and difficulties in attentional control (Avus & Xavier, 2024; Ye et al., 2025). While studies on the former involve theoretical hypotheses about the potential effects of algorithmic design, studies on the latter provide correlational empirical evidence based on self-reports.
This neuroeducational focus helps to understand the phenomenon of the Tiktonian brain as a manifestation of brain plasticity in the context of an accelerated media ecology. Prolonged exposure to certain digital formats may impact various human cognitive abilities closely tied to the educational process. As such, contemporary education must take on the challenge of integrating these environments critically, and design teaching strategies that stimulate higher-order executive function, without ignoring the neurobiological conditions of learning in the digital age. Some examples include tasks that require sustained planning, inhibitory control or prolonged attention spans, which are gradually integrated into classroom dynamics.
Critical pedagogy, rooted in the thinking of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1970), is based on the view that education is a political act, and that learning cannot be unbound from the social, cultural and technological conditions in which it takes place. This approach invites educators to question power structures, encourage students’ critical awareness and foster intellectual and social emancipation through dialogue, reflection and transformative action.
From this perspective, social networks cannot be seen as neutral tools or mere communication channels. Rather, they are ideologically driven spaces that either promote or challenge hegemonic discourse, models of subjectivity and forms of cultural control. In this vein, various empirical studies and reviews show that educational interventions geared towards critical media literacy, such as guided content analysis or reflection on digital discourse, allow students to identify the biases, power dynamics and influence mechanisms that exist on these platforms (Valle et al., 2025). As Henry Giroux (2011) warns, we are navigating a market-mediated ‘public pedagogy’ where digital platforms shape young people’s aspirations, values, and perceptions, often in a consumerist and superficial way.
As such, platforms like TikTok not only distribute content, but practice a sort of informal and ubiquitous education, through which its users learn behavioural norms, social hierarchies, visual languages and emotional patterns (Li & Shi, 2024). Critical pedagogy warns that the problem is not just the information they share, but how these platforms shape attention, mould identity and limit independent critical thinking. Authors like McLaren and Kincheloe (2007) have underlined the need to denature media and use technology for social justice purposes, while exposing its impacts on attention and interpersonal relationships (McLaren, 2021). Hence, media and digital literacy is key to understanding not only content, but also the algorithmic logic, power structures and influence mechanisms that operate in these environments (Livingstone, 2004). In this context, the concept of the Tiktonian brain serves as a pedagogical warning, as it highlights the risks of subjectivity moulded by the inherent immediacy, fragmentation and gratification of algorithmic culture. In response to this, critical pedagogy proposes redirecting education towards reflective thinking and transformative social action.
Taken together, the cultural and cognitive shifts of the digital ecology, the processes of brain plasticity studied in neuroeducation, and contributions from critical pedagogy show that learning now takes place in an environment characterised by accelerated stimuli, algorithmic logic and power dynamics. The notion of the Tiktonian brain connects these three dimensions, bringing together perspectives that usually operate separately: neuroeducation, focused on plasticity; technoculture, responsive to algorithmic logic; and criticism, focused on power relations. The tensions between them—such as focus on the individual versus structures, or functional description versus political analysis—contribute to shaping a more comprehensive framework for interpreting new configurations of learning.
This article adopts a critical-theoretical approach based on a narrative literature review and conceptual analysis. The review adopted an international scope, consulting databases such as Scopus and Web of Science in order to select relevant literature on neuroeducation, critical pedagogy, digital cognition and cultural studies. The search sought to identify significant conceptual contributions that were representative of these fields, combining recent studies with key leading texts, without intending to be systematically exhaustive.
These three disciplines were integrated by means of a thematic review and theoretical triangulation, identifying shared conceptual categories (such as attention, subjectivity, plasticity, gratification and power) and contrasting how each discipline interprets them in the context of digital culture. This process served to bring their contributions together to form a coherent interpretive framework in order to better understand the phenomenon studied.
Conceptual rigour was ensured by selecting representative authors, comparing complementary and critical perspectives, and validation through theoretical triangulation. Thus, convergences and tensions were integrated without subsuming certain perspectives under others. This methodological strategy served to construct analytical category of the Tiktonian brain as a basis for future applied studies.
The choice of a critical-theoretical approach is supported by the need to problematise and conceptually define an emerging phenomenon prior to subjecting it to empirical processes or systematic synthesis. Designs such as systematic review, scoping review and biometric analysis are more suitable for mapping well-established evidence than for constructing analytical categories in conceptually open fields of study. Nevertheless, this approach features inherent limitations—such as the lack of empirical validation and dependence on theoretical interpretations—that should be addressed in future research using empirical or mixed methods capable of contrasting and operationalising the category proposed.
The concept of the Tiktonian brain is proposed as a theoretical (non-clinical) tool for discovering how intensive use of platforms like TikTok is shaping new forms of attention, learning and symbolic processing, characterised by an accelerated, fragmented, highly visual digital logic.
The Tiktonian brain is, therefore, a metaphor that captures and synthesises various interrelated processes.
From a neurocognitive perspective, it refers to the way the brain functionally reorganises itself in response to intense, frequent, short digital stimuli. These stimuli tend to prioritise instant gratification over sustained thinking or deep reflection, affecting various cognitive abilities (Doidge, 2007; Draganski et al., 2006; Kolb & Gibb, 2011).
Culturally speaking, it refers to a media ecology that rewards the fleeting, the spectacular and the emotionally impactful, to the detriment of reasoning, complex narrative or critical thinking (Barron, 2006; Carr, 2010; Livingstone, 2004).
In terms of education, it allows us to describe a new learner profile that presents difficulties in maintaining prolonged attention, showing tolerance to frustration, or performing cognitively demanding tasks that do not fit with the logic of instant reward (Avus & Xavier, 2024; Pattier & Reyero, 2022; Sánchez-Rojo et al., 2024).
In recent years, the term TikTok brain has begun to circulate in the media, clinical literature, and some popular articles. It is used to describe the adverse effects that intensive use of this platform can have on attention, working memory and emotional regulation, especially in adolescents and young people. The use of this term has been employed from a clickbait perspective (content designed solely to attract clicks through sensationalist headlines), rather than as a well-founded theoretical concept. So much so that currently only two academic articles can be found in Scopus that use this concept in their title, doing so from a purely descriptive and clinical perspective.
On the one hand, David and Roberts (2024) explore the relationship between the use of short videos, behavioural self-awareness and the phenomenon of ‘phubbing’ (ignoring the person in front of you to prioritise your mobile phone), without delving into the theoretical basis of the concept. On the other hand, the TikTok brain is addressed by Ye et al. (2025) as an emerging psychometric variable related to short video addiction and loss of attentional control, in the context of the stimulus-organism-behaviour-consequence (SOBC) model.
This article proposes the concept of the Tiktonian brain as a theoretical and analytical construct (rather than diagnostic or media-related) in order to describe cognitive configurations inherent to accelerated digital culture. Integrating the contributions of critical pedagogy, neuroeducation and socio-technical theory serves to better understand how visual, fragmented, rewarding environments model attention, learning and subjectification, offering a rigorous tool to interpret the educational challenges of the current media ecosystem.
Epistemologically, the Tiktonian brain is presented as a hybrid category: a critical metaphor for interpreting the cognitive shifts of algorithmic culture and, at the same time, an operational construct susceptible to future empirical validation. Its metaphorical aspect allows for broader interpretation, while its analytical one allows for its future operationalisation without resorting to clinical diagnoses or determinism.
We can identify five main features of the Tiktonian brain, each of which has direct implications on learning and pedagogical design.
Firstly, attentional fragmentation. TikTok’s content is designed to capture the user’s attention in the first few seconds, which prompts a kind of partial, disjointed attention. The Tiktonian brain adapts to short stimuli and resists linear thinking. This seriously compromises the capacity to sustain mental focus for prolonged periods, an essential condition for tasks such as reading, writing and complex problem-solving.
Secondly, constant stimulation and sensorial overload. Continuous exposure to visual and auditory stimuli provokes a high threshold for neural activation. The subject develops dependence on the external stimulus to trigger mental activity. In educational contexts, this may result in boredom, anxiety or frustration when doing activities that do not involve immediate novelty or sensorial intensity. This explains the current success of a range of active methodologies in education that involve these types of elements in a way that motivates students.
Thirdly, the logic of immediate reward. TikTok, like other social networks, operates through a reward system based on ‘likes’, views, comments and algorithms that reinforce the user’s tastes. This logic drives a constant pursuit of positive reinforcement that may weaken the capacity to postpone gratification, a key competence for all kinds of deep or self-regulated learning.
Fourthly, reduced tolerance to complexity. The prevalence of short-form content fosters a culture of superficial knowledge, where simplification prevails and complex thinking becomes difficult.
Fifthly, detachment from the bodily and temporal experience. The digital experience gives rise to a different kind of relationship with the body and time. Endless scrolling removes the perception of completion, and constant connection blurs the distinction between leisure time and work time. This disrupts the subject’s time management and capacity to self-regulate, which are crucial for independent learning.
The concept of the Tiktonian brain presents—as do all emerging categories—analytical potential and risks of ambiguity. Its use therefore requires critical reflection about its limits and potential to understand phenomena at the intersection of technology, cognition, and learning.
Regarding its strengths, the term captures cognitive and cultural shifts that currently lack a unifying term. Unlike terms such as ‘TikTok brain’, which are media-driven or alarmist, it serves an interdisciplinary purpose by bringing together contributions from neuroscience (Doidge, 2007; Draganski et al., 2006), critical theory (Giroux, 2011; McLaren & Kincheloe, 2007), the learning ecology (Barron, 2006) and media studies (McLuhan, 1964). It also offers a tool to rethink educational practices without falling into technophobia, by guiding pedagogical responses that take advantage of certain skills inherent to digital ecology (quick perception, audiovisual sensitivity or multitasking) based on ethical and educational criteria (Greenfield, 2015; Thomas et al., 2020).
In terms of its risks, one of the greatest is that it may lead to biologising or essentialising complex behaviours, thus ignoring contextual and educational factors (Palfrey & Gasser, 2016). This includes the tendency to generalise effects that depend on age, content, intensity of use or pedagogical mediation (Livingstone, 2004). It may also lead to stigmatising labels in schools, fuelling discourse about ‘brain rot’ that obscures educational opportunities (Caldeiro-Pedreira & Yot-Domínguez, 2023; Pattier, 2024).
In short, the concept requires careful, critical use: its value lies in opening up an interpretative space that recognises the complexity and ambivalence of the digital experience, challenging both technophobic discourse and instrumentalist perspectives that uncritically celebrate technological innovation.
For the concept of the Tiktonian brain to be of value in contemporary educational research, its theoretical framework is not enough: ways to empirically and pedagogically operationalise it must also be offered, in order to establish well-founded knowledge and guide transformative practices. The following are three potential complementary forms of application.
Firstly, as an analytical construct. From an empirical perspective, the Tiktonian brain can be understood as an analytical construct used to described observable attentional, cognitive and motivational patterns in real educational settings. This would allow for conducting qualitative, quantitative or mixed research to examine the relationship between intensive use of platforms such as TikTok and variables such as sustained attention, working memory, self-regulation, intrinsic motivation, academic performance, tolerance for cognitive frustration, perceived cognitive load, etc. Instruments such as psychometric scales, systematic classroom observations, interviews, or digital trajectory analyses can serve to shape the concept empirically, promoting its validation and differentiation from more vaguely used notions such as ‘attention deficit’ or ‘digital distraction’ (Thomas et al., 2020).
Secondly, as a critical category. The concept of the Tiktonian brain can be used as a critical category, capable of questioning traditional pedagogical models that still cling to a decontextualised vision of the student. Many educational institutions still function on the implicit assumption that individuals learn in a cultural vacuum or with the same cognitive tendencies as two decades ago. The proposed concept highlights that digital environments are extensively reshaping cognitive subjectivity, forcing a review of teaching methods, expected attention spans, methods of assessment, and motivational strategies. This aspect falls within the scope of critical pedagogy and socio-technical studies of learning, allowing us to question not only the effects these platforms have, but also the educational responses that ignore them, perpetuate them uncritically or condemn them without offering alternatives. In this respect, it can fuel innovative teaching approaches that combine the digital with the reflective, the playful with the rigorous, and the multimodal with the argumentative (Giroux, 2011; Pattier, 2024).
Thirdly, as an educational metaphor. The Tiktonian brain can be used as a powerful, accessible metaphor for educational awareness not just with teachers, but also with students and their families. As such, it is not about making diagnoses or applying labels, but about provoking a shift in our perspective and becoming aware of the ways in which digital environments are modelling how we learn, pay attention, remember or relate to information (Sánchez-Rojo et al., 2024). As an educational metaphor, it can be used in teacher training sessions, family workshops, critical digital literacy initiatives, mental health and school well-being intervention programmes, and so on. Its evocative nature can open up conversations without resorting to panic-driven discourse, while still maintaining a critical perspective. If used properly, this metaphor can trigger processes of conscious reflection and regulation with regard to digital consumption, thus strengthening key skills for learning in a hypermediated, hyperconnected society (Muñoz-Rodríguez, 2021). In this way, operationalising the concept responds to the aim of building a theoretical framework that links the cultural and neurocognitive shifts described to concrete pedagogical decisions.
The diagnosis of the Tiktonian brain, understood as a conceptual figure that captures the cognitive and cultural shifts caused by intensive use of platforms such as TikTok, would have no pedagogical relevance if not followed-up by reflection on how it impacts educational practices and institutional teaching and learning frameworks. This section examines the consequences that these shifts have for the actors involved in education (teachers, students, institutions), addressing both the pedagogical risks and opportunities that arise in this new scenario. The aim is to turn the theoretical framework of the Tiktonian brain into concrete guidelines for curriculum improvement, teacher training and institutional decision-making.
For education, one of the greatest risks associated with intensive use of social media is the development of a cognitive style based on passive reception and superficiality. The prevalence of short-form, decontextualised content weakens our capacity to sustain complex ideas, link concepts and develop deeper comprehension (Carr, 2010). ‘F-shaped reading’, a pattern typically used to scan online text in a fragmented way (Nielsen & Pernice, 2010), threatens to replace focused and reflective reading, which is essential in educational settings.
It may also strip sustained effort of its value. The digital environment, especially its more playful and gamified side, reinforces the dynamics of immediate reward that contrast with the logic of deep learning, which requires time, patience, error and review (Barrio Maestre, 2025). The Tiktonian brain tends to avoid tasks that do not provide instant gratification, which may lead to frustration when doing activities such as extensive reading, lectures, argumentative writing and complex problem-solving. This arises as a challenge for pedagogies that are more process-focused than results-focused.
We can also assert that we are up against a clear attention and self-regulation crisis. The impact on attention has been well-documented in neuroscience and educational psychology. Sustained attention is an essential condition for meaningful learning. Constant exposure to digital stimuli makes it difficult to train this skill, while also limiting the development of executive functions like planning, self-control and perseverance. In this respect, education must consider how to counteract a digital culture that undermines the ability to concentrate, wait and progressively develop knowledge.
Beyond this, there is a risk of cultural homogenisation and consequential linguistic decline. Social media tends to foster a communication style that is simplified, repetitive and homogeneous. Language is being used poorly and shortened while visual codes are becoming standard. This may have a negative impact on students’ ability to express themselves, master formal register and engage in abstract thinking. Schools, in their democratising role, cannot fail to offer tools that broaden students’ linguistic and symbolic skills.
Finally, we highlight the difficulties that may arise in face-to-face educational interactions. The prevalence of interaction through screens alters our perception of others and the dynamics of communication in face-to-face settings. Many teachers report finding it increasingly difficult to achieve group attention, promote sustained dialogue and build an educational community in the classroom. Technology is not solely to blame for this phenomenon, but it undoubtedly contributes to redefining the material and symbolic conditions of pedagogical interaction.
Despite the risks outlined, it is important to avoid falling into technophobia or taking a deceptively nostalgic ‘it-was-better-in-my-day’ stance. The diagnosis of the Tiktonian brain should not lead us to a mere idealisation of past educational models, but rather to a critical rethinking of current practices. In this regard, a range of pedagogical opportunities can be identified when approaching the phenomenon consciously, creatively and through a commitment to education. Thus, the digital environment becomes a prime object of pedagogical reflection. Instead of banning or ignoring social media, it should be introduced into the classroom as an object of analysis: how do algorithms work? What success models do they promote? What traces do we leave behind when we interact with them? What addiction mechanisms do they trigger? This kind of literacy not only improves students’ digital competence, but also helps them to develop critical thinking, autonomy and active citizenship.
Another major opportunity is the potential integration of a range of digital formats. Education could benefit from using certain digital resources, so long as they are used for clear educational purposes and are subjected to teachers’ unexpendable pedagogical judgement (Pattier & Reyero, 2022). The use of short videos, animated infographics or visual content can serve as a gateway to learning if introduced as part of a teaching sequence followed up by reflection. It is about combining accessible stimuli with cognitive challenges, without sacrificing content for the sake of format.
Furthermore, social media, particularly audiovisual platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, offer spaces for students to engage in creative expression. Designing their own content (videos, podcasts, educational memes, etc.) could be a way to foster communication skills, narrative thinking and the ability to synthesise information. However, this must be guided by an educational objective, as opposed to being mere entertainment divorced from deep learning.
A great deal has been written about the need to bring the role of the teacher up to date, beyond that of being a mere transmitter of information or knowledge. This shift requires ongoing teacher training, critical awareness about digital culture and the ability to design innovative pedagogical strategies. The challenge is not to compete with social media in terms of entertainment, but to propose a meaningful, engaging, truly educational alternative.
Finally, we must take into account that the endless scrolling model breaks away from the classic temporal structures of learning. This forces a rethinking of school schedules, not to accelerate them, but to create space for slowness, mindfulness and careful reading. In the face of digital vertigo, school can—and should—be a place for cultivating a pace of learning that encourages introspection, concentration, and prolonged dialogue.
Beyond the classroom and individual teaching practices, the phenomenon of the Tiktonian brain challenges educational institutions and public policy as a whole. In this respect, four major lines of action can be identified.
Firstly, rewriting curriculum frameworks. In many countries, these remain rooted in a disciplinary, encyclopaedic perspective of knowledge, without explicitly including critical digital education as a cross-cutting skill. Since much learning takes place outside of school, such as on social media, video platforms, or even in video games (Caldeiro-Pedreira & Yot-Domínguez, 2023; Mosquera Gende, 2023; Pattier, 2024), curricula must urgently be adapted to cover knowledge and skills related to: critical understanding of the media ecosystem; how to manage attention and time spent on digital platforms; ethically-made content; reflection on online identity; and reading in multiple formats (visual, hypertextual, audiovisual). These skills are essential not only for adapting to the modern world, but for playing an active, conscious and critical part in it (Livingstone, 2004).
Secondly, teachers must go through a proper process of critical digital literacy early on in their training and continue developing this in practice. Teacher training, both early on and throughout the teacher’s career, must cover content, methods and tools in order to understand and participate in complex digital environments. This implies: understanding how digital platforms affect students’ attention, motivation and subjectivity; designing teaching strategies that approach digital media critically rather than superficially; and reflecting on the teaching role itself.
Thirdly, redesigning school spaces and schedules. Educational institutions need to rethink not only what they teach, but also how and when they teach. The traditional school structure, based on strict timetables, the separation of subjects and the division between ‘class time’ and ‘free time’, is at odds with a generation that navigates flexible, parallel, highly interactive environments. This does not mean imitating the pace of social media, but instead creating spaces and schedules for learning that recognise the socio-technical context, foster concentration, stimulate metacognition and promote deep learning. In this respect, several responses to the challenge of the Tiktonian brain may be offered: designing hybrid environments, creating spaces for digital detoxification, including time for sustained reading or promoting interdisciplinary projects with a social aim.
Fourthly, commitment to digital equity. The emergence of the Tiktonian brain reveals a new dimension of the digital divide. It is no longer just a question of access to devices or the internet, but of gaps in usage, in the meanings attributed to technology and, above all, in the capacity for critical interpretation. Educational policy must not only ensure universal access to technology, but also the pedagogical, cultural and emotional conditions for its use in a reflective, creative and fair way. This requires investing in tutors or educational mediators, critical digital libraries, digital mentoring programmes, and spaces for emotional support to address the risks of technological overexposure or alienation (Greenfield, 2015; Palfrey & Gasser, 2016).
The accelerated consumption of short, intense and highly stimulating digital content, especially on platforms such as TikTok, has given rise to new forms of attention, perception and learning that challenge traditional pedagogical frameworks. The main contribution of this study lies in the proposal of the Tiktonian brain as a critical category that integrates contributions from neuroeducation, critical pedagogy, and cultural studies to understand the cognitive tensions of algorithmic culture. This framework seeks to guide future methodological design and open up discussions about educational policy that recognises and supports the emerging cognitive shifts. In this regard, it proposes not just a conceptual exercise, but also a space for pedagogical and institutional debate, allowing us to anticipate challenges in teacher training, curriculum development and critical digital literacy.
Far from being a clinical diagnosis or an alarmist label, the concept of the Tiktonian brain has been defended here as a flexible theoretical category, capable of integrating contributions from neuroeducation, critical pedagogy, and cultural and media studies. Neuroscience has identified brain plasticity as a fundamental condition that explains how intensive digital experiences reshape the brain’s attentional, emotional and motivational pathways, especially during certain stages of development. Critical pedagogy has insisted that these shifts cannot be analysed in a neutral or technical way, but require a situated, ethical and political reading of the socio-technical context in which they take place. Finally, cultural and media studies allow us to understand how platforms such as TikTok distribute not only content, but also forms of subjectivity, narratives of the self, hierarchies of visibility, and emotional language that shape the learning experience beyond the classroom. In this sense, the Tiktonian brain is also a cultural construct that reflects the tensions between the attention economy, technopolitics and consumption practices in the age of algorithms.
The article has shown that the Tiktonian brain is expressed as a series of emerging features of modern digital cognition, such as fragmented attention, the pursuit of immediate gratification, difficulty in maintaining sustained thought processes, and growing dependence on algorithmically personalised stimuli. However, it has also been noted that the phenomenon has educational potential, insofar as it offers new channels of expression, forms of incidental learning, creative stimuli and opportunities to rethink the relationship between technology and pedagogy.
In this regard, ways of theoretically operationalising the concept have been proposed, suggesting its use as an analytical construct, critical category and educational metaphor. This triple dimension paves the way for empirical research, curricular design and teacher training, promoting an educational response in line with current challenges without falling into technophobia or uncritically adapting to the dominant digital ecosystem.
Practical implications include reinforcing critical digital literacy, teacher training and including explicit reflection on algorithmic mediation and its cognitive effects in curricular frameworks. All of this calls for a systemic review of education that goes beyond the instrumental inclusion of technology and focuses on educating critical, autonomous individuals who are capable of navigating the complexity of the times they live in.
In short, the concept of the Tiktonian brain functions not only as a critical metaphor, but also as an operational construct in dialogue with recent empirical research (Chiossi et al., 2023; Frauhammer & Dreston, 2025; Ye et al., 2025). Its main contribution is to the field of education and pedagogy, offering criteria for application such as the inclusion of critical digital literacy in curricula, ongoing teacher training and the design of learning environments that balance immediacy and reflection. Thus, recommendations are made in order to turn the risks associated with algorithmic culture into opportunities for critical and conscious pedagogy. Overall, the article offers a holistic framework that contributes to the current research landscape by linking theoretical reflection with educational and institutional recommendations that align with the modern digital ecology.
This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the R&D&i project “The Imperative of Educational Innovation: Analysis of Its Reception and Implementation in the Spanish Educational System (IMP-NOVA)”, reference PID2022-138878NA-I00.
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