AI-Generated Content Disclosure and Prolonged Short-Video Engagement: A Heuristic-Systematic Risk-Trust Model Among Late-Adolescent and Emerging-Adult TikTok Users

Prolonged short-video engagement in the generative-AI era may be shaped by interface cues that encourage or interrupt repeated continuation decisions in algorithmic feeds. This study examines whether AI-generated content disclosure functions as interface-level digital friction for prolonged short-video engagement among late-adolescent and emerging-adult TikTok users. Prolonged watching intention is treated as a cognitive-behavioral proximal tendency relevant to problematic social media use (PSMU), rather than as a clinical diagnosis or an emotional-disturbance outcome. Drawing on the heuristic-systematic model, we tested a dual-pathway risk-trust model in which disclosure directly affects prolonged watching intention, while perceived risk and content trust operate as mediators and AI literacy operates as a person-level boundary condition. An online between-subjects experiment was conducted with 720 valid participants aged 18–24. Disclosure had a positive direct effect on prolonged watching intention, suggesting that AI labels can initially work as salient curiosity and novelty cues. At the same time, disclosure increased perceived risk and reduced content trust, generating negative indirect pathways that constrained prolonged watching intention. AI literacy strengthened both appraisal pathways. The findings reposition AI disclosure from a mere transparency notice to a behavioral cue that can simultaneously attract attention and activate protective appraisal. They contribute to developmental and media-psychological research on prolonged engagement and PSMU-relevant mechanisms without overstating clinical implications.