Here’s a stat you probably didn’t know: More than 75 percent of students use social media for learning.
It turns out, if you can get quality educational content onto someone’s For You feed, they’ll want to learn with it.
When TikTok launched its dedicated STEM feed in 2023, it created an opportunity for learning and discovering new interests. This corner of the platform serves up content on physics, coding, and engineering—all curated for accuracy and easy learning.
Since its launch, more than 10 million STEM-related videos have been published globally. The feed is enabled by default for all US users, helping learners find new lessons and aha moments within their daily For You feed mix.
The timing was spot on. One benefit of online content is its educational value. Because of its short, easy-to-watch formats, social media video content can be a useful tool for real learning. From a neuroscience perspective, bite-sized lessons are how the brain learns most effectively. Research also shows that learning through online content increases information retention rates up to 60 percent, compared to 8 to 10 percent for traditional learning.
At their best, educational resources like TikTok’s STEM feed are extending the classroom in ways that haven’t been as accessible before. And they’re making it fun.
Little Lessons for Big Learning
In educational psychology, the format of a short one-minute video or a 10-minute lesson, complete with catchy music and delightful visual effects, aligns with the concept of microlearning—the delivery of small, self-contained lessons that reduce cognitive overload and improve long-term recall. Turns out, we’re drawn to the type of learning that suits our brain best.
A 2019 review found that microlearning can strengthen retention by minimizing “mental exhaustion” and supporting the transfer of knowledge into long-term memory. Similar findings report that short instructional videos improve comprehension and engagement by keeping information within the limits of working memory.
Microlearning delivered through social media “enhances learning effectiveness and satisfaction by meeting learners in familiar digital spaces” while offering measurable improvements in engagement, flexibility, and information retention when short-form lessons were integrated into coursework.
Because of its integration of educational content, TikTok itself has been studied as a microlearning tool. One evaluative report found that the platform can enhance the students' motivation and can make them more active in academic participation. Most of that can be attributed to the quality of the content and the ability for algorithms to reach people with stuff that they’re truly interested in (or likely to be interested in) in formats that make the most sense for that individual’s style of learning—meeting students in the spaces where they already spend time.
When the right video from the right creator reaches someone on the other end, what that person receives matters from both an entertainment and a content perspective. Every video on the feed is reviewed by Common Sense Networks and independently fact-checked by the nonprofit research organization, helping to ensure that what you’re seeing is credible. Each vetted video is brief enough to hold attention yet substantive enough to introduce a concept—like Newton’s laws or the logic behind Boolean operators—in a form optimized for quick understanding.
As users consistently engage with the STEM feed content they’re interested in, the content builds on itself. That means for students—and for everyone curious enough to click—the STEM feed can serve as a diving board into exploration and knowledge. Currently, one in three teens in the US visit the TikTok STEM feed weekly, and some of them have found their inspiration for coding projects and science-fair experiments from the content. Adults and lifelong learners use the feed to refresh math fundamentals or explore new tech.
Why does it work? Neuroscience and educational research agree on a few explanations. Microlearning fits how the brain manages information: Smaller, spaced sessions prevent mental overload and strengthen synapses. Scans of brains at work show that short, repeated lessons improve the movement of information from the working brain into long-term memory. And when we remember something, we like that feeling. That’s chemical, too. The brain releases feel-good hormones like dopamine when you remember something you've learned, making learning feel both exciting and like something that you want to keep experiencing. Those feelings of satisfaction and motivation are biologically entrained so that we continue using our brains effectively.
On a more microscale (literally), microlearning has been shown to help “protect mental health and support resilience” by giving learners repeated, low-stress opportunities for building skill and knowledge. The emotional and mental support achieved from learning is important on even a cellular level.
The Future of Learning
Using the internet to engage with each other and with education is only going to grow. Since online learning became possible in 2000, it has grown 900 percent in availability and use. Social media itself is projected to grow from an estimated 5.6 billion users in 2025 to nearly 6 billion by 2027.
The way a brain functions isn’t changing as much as the world itself is.
That’s why the evolution of learning isn’t so much about how learning is done inside our brains, but the ways that we learn while interacting with the outside world and the educational material—and teachers—available.
That’s why TikTok’s STEM feed reflects a broader shift, defined by education that is increasingly aligned with how people prefer to consume and process information. Researchers, educators, students, and everyday folks are figuring out how to use the content at its best.
Outlets like TikTok’s STEM feed can demonstrate that educational integrity and social accessibility are able to coexist, given the right oversight. The opportunities that become available as this type of educational tool reaches more people are significant.
Learning spaces are becoming less tied to physical spaces or single teaching styles. People can learn on their time, wherever they are, with the creators and content they connect with most. As the STEM feed continues to grow, it offers a model for how educational microlearning can scale even further with a fact-checked, inclusive, and accessible-by-design formula. When curious minds have the chance to learn something new—in a meaningful, scientifically beneficial way—it turns out that a 15-second clip can be the start of a much longer lesson.
Begin your STEM journey at tiktok.com/exploremore.
