Reason 9 of 10: Sometimes They Need to Hear it From Someone Else

Part of my series: Everyone Told Me to Delete TikTok. I Refused. Here Are 10 Reasons Why.

My son recently started at high school, one that is known for being quite tough academically. The step up was real. And the way he had been studying simply wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

So I did what I always do. I went to TikTok.

I found study techniques, focus hacks, and methods I hadn’t heard of before. But the one we implemented immediately was the Pomodoro technique — focused work in timed blocks, with structured breaks in between. Simple. Effective. And critically — during those breaks, no phone.

That last part came from another TikTok insight that stopped me completely. When you study and then scroll your phone in a break, your brain gets such a powerful dopamine hit that returning to the material becomes genuinely difficult. The phone doesn’t rest your brain. It hijacks it.

So he did not use the phone during breaks, it was hard at first but he could feel it working.

We also used a reflection technique and found short videos explaining the subjects he was studying — a different voice, a different angle, the same material. We even tried out using Notebook LM for creating short videos.

And here is what made me smile. I had been saying some of these things to him for months. He wasn’t really listening. But when TikTok said it — suddenly it made sense.

Anyone who has worked in organisations knows this feeling. Sometimes the idea lands only when it comes from outside. We even have a saying for it in Icelandic — “´sérfræðingur að sunnan” or “the pointer” – the one that points at everything that needs fixed except our own team has been saying it for years.

Sometimes people just need to hear it from someone else. Even if that someone else is an algorithm.

Next week: Reason 10 of 10 — the final one.

#Parenting #StudyTips #Pomodoro #Leadership #TikTok #10ThingsILearnedofTikTok