The TikTok Generation: How Social Media Is Redefining Teen Culture
“It is okay to own a technology, what is not okay is to be owned by technology.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mucize Insan: When The World is Family
Image courtesy of Unsplash
Groups of teens huddled together, heads bent over phones, laughing and watching videos is nothing new. It’s the Digital Age, after all. However, “the TikTok generation” has evolved from tech-obsessed teens into a new wave of young people whose mental health and well-being has been negatively altered by their online media habits.
If the TikTok craze has passed you by, here’s a brief history: Released in China in 2016, TikTok allows users to upload videos of a duration of 3 seconds to 10 minutes. Topics range from pet videos to dance challenge videos to tutorials on a variety of subjects. With over 1.6 billion users, it’s no exaggeration to say that the app’s usage is ubiquitous.
As an educator, I hear about TikTok trending videos, like the Corn Kid and Tasty recipe videos, and I see my students propping their phones on rails, ledges, and whiteboard trays as they film themselves synchronizing their dance moves and then uploading the results to the app.
And they use the app a lot. If we end class a minute or so early, I allow my students to check messages on their phones or attend to other business. Most students, however, use that brief period of time to access TikTok.
On March 23, The New York Times published Lauren Jackson’s article “The Threat of TikTok,” which outlines US concerns over Chinese-owned TikTok, including the threat of data and privacy leaks and the possibility of Chinese influence on Americans. Jackson’s article appeared the same day that TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew was questioned by Congress about the app’s privacy policies, its ties to China, and its potential damaging effects on Americans, particularly on teens’ mental health.
This is not the first time TikTok has found itself at the center of controversy. In 2020 Donald Trump attempted to ban it from online app stores. Additionally, both China (TikTok’s home country, interestingly enough) and India have banned TikTok completely within their borders. And in March of this year, perhaps as a concession to the negative publicity the app has received, TikTok has announced a 60 minute time limit for teens under the age of 18, a restriction that should be rolled out in coming weeks.
Jackson’s article appeared in The New York Times Learning Network in conjunction with a lesson plan on how to introduce the controversy to high school students. I asked my seniors to write their final blog post of the year in response to the information presented in the article, but first, I gave them a Google form survey about their own TikTok habits and usage to provide some context for the writing assignment.
My questions asked students to quantify the frequency and duration of their TikTok usage and to state their opinions on matters of privacy, safety, and well-being with regard to the app. Even though I was prepared for their responses to reflect an overuse of TikTok, what I found still surprised me. Please note: my survey is informal and decidedly unscientific.
Seventy-nine per cent of my students reported that they use TikTok every day; my own estimations were in that range. However, the duration statistics were most shocking. Only 14% of my students are on TikTok between 30 minutes to an hour each day; 56% of my students use TikTok anywhere from an hour to three hours per day, and 14% are on TikTok over three hours every single day of the week.
Regarding what they search for on TikTok, most of my seniors said that they primarily watch trending videos or look for specific tutorials on a variety of topics.
On questions of privacy and security, 77% of my seniors expressed agreement that TikTok is likely to disclose personal information, but they noted that it would not stop them from using the app. And to their credit, 66% of them agreed with the statement that “TikTok may be addictive and a waste of time.”
Their blog posts expanded upon their time-sucking TikTok addictions and most ultimately decided that TikTok should not be banned, for reasons ranging from free enterprise to personal enjoyment.
The research on social media’s relationship to teens’ mental health suggests that as online usage increases, so do depressive symptoms, though the findings may be correlative instead of causal. Netflix’s The Social Dilemma revealed that “from 2009 through 2015, girls ages 15-19, who were admitted to the hospital for non-fatal self harm rose 62%. For girls 10-14, it rose 189%. Even worse in the same years, suicide rates of girls 15-19 rose 70%. For girls 10-14, it rose 151%.”
Image courtesy of Unsplash
And beyond our social and emotional health, social media is having a negative impact on our brains, as “likes and comments” provide dumps of dopamine that we crave more and more.
The connections are clear, but the remedy is anything but. A quick Google search will reveal all sorts of tips to help parents navigate the Digital Age, but advice such as limiting screen time, using privacy settings, and reminding children of the dangers of revealing too much information online only goes so far. We face a precarious situation as we weigh out how to best protect our children versus how many regulations and impositions on our freedoms we’ll allow. It is interesting to note that China and India have made the decision for their citizens. Are they onto something? Should the United States ban TikTok?
(This article was originally published May 6, 2023 in the Times-Georgian.)
