Ben Wolf
Professor Emily Edwards
Intro to Digital Humanities LWP-1000-03
May 2nd, 2023
Does TikTok have a negative effect on the youth of today?
TikTok is a social media app that was created by a Chinese tech company named ByteDance in September of 2016 which at first went under the name Douyin. Douyin is a social media app exclusive to Chian that allows its users to make and share short videos with each other. Later on, in 2017, ByteDance acquired the rights to musical.ly which they went on to merge with Douyin to create TikTok. TikTok is very similar to Douyin and is built around the idea of its users being able to make and share their own videos with people anywhere in the world as long as they have TikTok downloaded. Which can end up being analyzed and studied to gain an idea of how people go about expressing themselves, interacting with one another, and how culture is created during the digital age. With the purchase of musical.ly ByteDance was able to launch TikTok internationally later that year with it receiving 132 million downloads during its first year. During 2020 however, during the lockdown due to Covid TikTok became the most downloaded app globally across both the iOS app store and Google Play store, where it was downloaded 850 million times which increased TikTok’s user base by over 75% in this year alone. These numbers only increase further throughout the years where in 2022 it was reported that TikTok was downloaded 879.2 million times with it being the most downloaded app that year. To further put into perspective how much TikTok is used globally and how many users it has, according to the article TikTok Statistics For Marketers In 2023:
TikTok is used by 30.25% of the world’s 5.07 billion internet users. TikTok is used on a regular basis by 22.32% of the 4.9 billion active social media users
While TikTok is able to provide a creative and entertaining outlet for its users to be able to express themselves and connect with others, there have been growing concerns about its potential negative effects on the youth. Such of these issues include mental health, body image issues, and exposure to dangerous content.
One of the main defining features that TikTok is known for is its viral trends from dance challenges, lip-sync videos, to a-day-in-the-life videos and many more. These trends will end up quickly going viral not only across TikTok but areas outside of TikTok such as Twitter and Instagram which ends up allowing even more people to be able to see and interact with these videos. However, for every safe or innocent trend that exists there have been several dangerous ones that have been spread thanks to TikTok. One of these such challenges is devious licks, this was a trend that started back in late 2021 that consisted of people who were mostly teenagers stealing items from their school or other such institutions. Such items range from calculators and books to items such as laptops, a fire hydrant, and even one recorded instance of a school bus being stolen. In an interview conducted by PBS titled Viral ‘devious licks’ TikTok challenge encourages kids to steal from school students and teachers talk about the effect that the trend has had on them and the school:
My classroom had pretty much been destroyed. There was like posters tore off the wall. The kids had taken books that I'd personally bought. And they took the books and they, like, took them, took a paper cutter, and, like, cut the covers and pages of the books
Furthermore, some individuals even ended up stealing items such as face masks, hand sanitizer dispensers, and soap dispensers during this time which helped to lead to the surge in Covid-19 cases rising in September due to people being unable to gain access to these items to help them go about fighting Covid-19. Later on, in the challenge’s lifecycle, devious licks evolved to include destroying public restrooms as well as theft which could’ve further led to the rise since people were unable to use the bathrooms due to how badly they were damaged. To put into perspective how bad the damages were according to the new articles Round Rock ISD says ‘devious lick’ challenge will cost more than $15K, warns about future challenges:
stink bombs in restrooms resulted in two schoolwide evacuations and mandatory gas line testing that cost the district $15,000…Additionally, across RRISD’s secondary schools, school leaders say more than 100 restroom soap and paper towel dispensers had to be replaced, and staff had to spend a “significant” amount of time cleaning and repairing vandalized items in restrooms When TikTok eventually stepped in to ban the trend, however when they did the damage has already been done with them banning the trend halfway through September meanwhile the trend first started on TikTok on September 1st. Moreover, people were able to circumvent this ban by slightly changing one letter on the hashtag which allowed for users to continue uploading the same videos to the site.
TikTok can end up having a negative impact on a person’s mental health one of the biggest ways in which they can negatively affect a young person’s mental health would have to be through the spread of misinformation with users self-diagnosing themselves. The beginning of people starting to self-diagnose themselves was during the height of Covid-19 back in 2020 when its users shared their knowledge of the symptoms of Covid in an attempt to tell whether or not they might have caught the virus. This then evolved to many young users on the site sharing symptoms or experiences that relate to certain mental health or physical health disorders amongst themselves and receiving feedback from others in the form of comments or messages. While this can be a helpful way to find support and resources, it can also lead to inaccurate self-diagnosis and inappropriate or harmful treatments. These sorts of videos also end up failing due to them trying to simplify disorders into basic points to make them digestible to people when in reality it's impossible to do according to the article Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis:
But part of what makes diagnosis so complicated is that the same disorder can express itself in a child, adolescent, and adult very differently — in other words, the same list of symptoms does not apply to every age group. “It’s incredibly easy to misdiagnose,” said Mitch Prinstein, the chief science officer of the American Psychological Association. “You might have symptoms that look like what an adult’s depression would look like, but as a child or adolescent it very well could mean something completely different
Furthermore, videos are spread around more false information than opposed to ones that might be able to give helpful or factual information due to the way that TikTok works. Where TikTok in a strange way promotes these types of videos since the site is monetized, with the goal to have your videos reach out to as many people as it possibly can. It is far too easy for creators on TikTok to create videos that go about encouraging users to give into their weaknesses and to give them diagnoses that most of the time are not at all correct. All to pump out a video quickly so it can get monetized so that the creators can get their money from the videos that they made. This is incredibly dangerous as explained by psychiatrist Alan D. Blotcky during the Q&A in the article TikTok: Biggest Concerns for Children and Adolescents:
Unfortunately, some kids think they can be “treated” by peers on TikTok rather than seeing a psychologist, psychiatrist, or other mental health professional. And not getting treatment for a mental health disorder can potentially be life-threatening
If you’re being given a misdiagnosis especially if you don’t suffer from one is incredibly harmful due to leading to potentially just worsening the person’s mental health because of the unnecessary use of medication or treatments. This could also end up leading to people treating you differently because of assumptions made about you, especially in a digital space such as the internet. Just because you read that about having a disorder on social media even outside of TikTok does not mean that you have that disorder. Especially if you’re being told this by a random stranger online who is more likely than not going to have any credentials to show that they have experience in the field. Which in the end makes it more difficult for actual professionals to help those suffering due to people finding it easier to just open up TikTok and watch a video created by a random person instead of talking to a professional which was showcased in a study in Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis:
A study published in March analyzed 100 videos on TikTok with the hashtag #mentalhealth that had collectively received more than 1 billion views. It showed that adolescents appear to be turning to TikTok as a source of support, and the advice there is largely driven by users’ conversations
This study shows to highlight the role that TikTok has in influencing the conversation of mental health in young people. With hashtags like #mentalhealth being able to gain over 1 billion views, it's evident that many people are going to TikTok as a form of support. However,
some users on the app have begun to see their mental health disorder as part of their personality instead of something that they want to overcome. Which goes to further raises the question of the type of impact that TikTok can end up having on a young person's health.
TikTok like many social media has led to people developing body dysmorphia through its use of promoting an unrealistic beauty standard on its platform. The first aspect that contributes to this by having its algorithm only promote accounts on the front page that it deems as attractive. TikTok moderators were trained to remove the following types of people from the front page in TikTok 'tried to filter out videos from ugly, poor or disabled users:
TikTok’s moderators were instructed to exclude videos from the For You feed if they failed on any one of a number of categories, the documents show. Users with an “abnormal body shape (not limited to: dwarf, acromegaly),” who are “chubby … obese or too thin” or who have “ugly facial looks or facial deformities” should be removed, one document says
This was done since if the person on the video wasn’t attractive then the video itself wouldn’t be attractive, thus it would be worth people’s time to go watch. This goes about reinforcing the beauty standard which can lead to the feeling of imperfection and the development of body dysmorphia, especially in young girls which is further exemplified in a study conducted in the article TikTok use is associated with increased body dissatisfaction, study finds:
Our study extends previous research by demonstrating that TikTok use is linked to more body dissatisfaction through upward appearance comparison and body surveillance in serial. Surprisingly, exposure to body positive content and commercial social media literacy skills did not protect against these risks, the researchers concluded. Thus, our results suggest that women should limit their time on TikTok in order to reduce body dissatisfaction
Another contributing factor to this is the use of content that is both heavily filtered and edited, such filters can make a person end up appearing more physically fit, changing their facial features and making them appear as if they were flawless. The content supporting of the beauty standard from this sort of content can result in damaging effects on an individual’s mental health. So much so that even if the user is exposed to content that has body positivity in it, at that point the negative effects of the beauty standard are still present and can continue to lead to the rise of people who experience body dysmorphia. According to a survey that was conducted by the Mental Health Foundation in the study Millions of teenagers worry about body image and identify social media as a key cause – new survey by the Mental Health Foundation it was stated that:
Four in ten teenagers (40%) said images on social media had caused them to worry about body image
This study helps to show how much influence a site like TikTok can end up having on a young person’s mental health and why it's so crucial for those using the app to take this into consideration before they use it. Moreover why it's so important for awareness to be raised by adults to inform young children, especially girls as to help them not develop body dysmorphia.
TikTok has changed the landscape of social media while allowing us to understand how it is technology shapes our media consumption habits and how it is we choose to go about interacting with digital content. While at the same time allowing for people to gain access to a platform in which they can connect with one another in a fun and entraining way. Despite all that, however, it has also left a huge negative impact on the youths of today that end up using it. From the promotion of dangerous trends, self-diagnoses, and body dysmorphia. TikTok can be extremely damaging to a person’s mental health and it is very important for people to be aware of this to ensure that they can receive the help that they if they need professional help to ensure they don’t fall under any mental stress or influence.
References
Caron, Christina. “Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis” The New York Times, 29 Oct. 2022
Hern, Alex “TikTok 'tried to filter out videos from ugly, poor or disabled users” The Guardian, 17 Oct. 2020
Kuntz, Leah. “TikTok: Biggest Concerns for Children and Adolescents” Psychiatric Times, 22 Mar. 2022
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/tiktok-biggest-concerns-for-children-and-adolescents
Manis, Emily “TikTok use is associated with increased body dissatisfaction, study finds” PsyPost, 21 Jan. 2023 https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/tiktok-use-is-associated-with-increased-body-dissatisfaction-study-finds-65126
Ramikssoon, Jaclyn. “Round Rock ISD Says “Devious Lick” Challenge Will Cost More than $15K, Warns about Future Challenges.” KXAN Austin, 1 Oct. 2021,
Ruby, Daniel. “TikTok Statistics For Marketers In 2023” Demand Sage, 27 April. 2023,
https://www.demandsage.com/tiktok-user-statistics/
“Viral “Devious Licks” TikTok Challenge Encourages Kids to Steal from School.” PBS NewsHour, 25 Oct. 2021, www.pbs.org/newshour/show/viral-devious-licks-tiktok-challenge-encourages-kids-to-steal-from-school
“Millions of teenagers worry about body image and identify social media as a key cause – new survey by the Mental Health Foundation” Mental Health Foundation, 15 May. 2019