informative essay about tiktok

Kyle Chayka Industries

Essay: How do you describe TikTok?

The automatic culture of the world's favorite new social network..

Hi! This is a 3,400-word essay about a technology that was totally new to me as of a few weeks ago. You can click the headline to read it in your browser. It’s a total experiment, so please let me know what you think.

This newsletter is a running series of essays on algorithmic culture and work updates from me, Kyle Chayka . Subscribe here .

For someone who writes about technology, I’m not really an early adopter. I don’t use virtual-reality goggles or participate in Twitch streams. Like everyone on the internet, I heard a lot about TikTok — teens! short videos! “ hype houses ”! — but for a long time I didn’t think I needed to try it out. How would another social network fit into my life? Don’t Twitter and Instagram cover my professional and personal needs at this point? (Snapchat I skipped over entirely.) What could TikTok, which serves an infinite stream of sub-60-second video clips, add, especially if I don’t care about meme-dances, which seemed to be its main purpose? 

Then, out of some combination of boredom and curiosity, like everything else these days, I downloaded the app. What I found is that you don’t just try TikTok; you immerse yourself in it. You sink into its depths like a 19th-century diver in a diving bell. More than any other social network since MySpace it feels like a new experience, the emergence of a different kind of technology and a different mode of consuming media. In this essay I want to try to describe that experience, without any news hooks, experts, theory, or data — just a personal encounter. 

The literary term “ ekphrasis ” usually refers to a detailed description of a piece of visual art in a text, translating it (in a sense) into words. Lately I’ve been thinking about ekphrasis of technology and media: How do you communicate what using or viewing something is like? Some of my favorite writing might fall into this vein. Junichiro Tanizaki’s 1933 essay “ In Praise of Shadows ” narrates the Japanese encounter with Western technology like electric lights and porcelain toilets. Walter Benjamin’s 1936 “ The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ” shows how the rise of photography changed how people looked at visual art. By describing such experiences as exactly as possible, these essays become valuable artifacts in their own right, documenting historic shifts in human perception that happened as a result of tools we invented. 

We can’t return to the headspace of buildings without electric lights or a time when photography was scarce instead of omnipresent, but the texts allow us a glimpse. So this is my experiment: an ekphrasis of TikTok, while it’s still fresh.  

When you begin your TikTok journey, you are not faced with a choice of accounts to follow. Where Twitter and Instagram ask you to build your list yourself (the former more than the latter) TikTok simply launches you into the waterfall of content. You can check a few boxes as to which subjects you’re interested in — food, crafts, video games, travel — or not. Then there is the main feed, labeled “For You,” an evocation of customization and personal intimacy. Videos start playing, each clip looping until you make it stop. You might start seeing, as I did, minute-long clips of: 

— Gravestones being scraped down

— Wax being melted to seal letters

— An animated role-playing game

— Firefighters making shepherds pie 

— Tours of luxury apartments

— Students playing pranks on their teachers

— Dogs and cats doing funny things

The videos are flashes of narrative, many arduously constructed and edited, each self-contained but linked to the next by the shape of the container, the iPhone screen and the app feed. It’s like watching a montage of movie trailers, each crafted to addict your eye and ear, but with each new clip you have to begin constructing the story over again. Will the cat do something funny? Will the couple break up? Will this guy chug five beers? Or it’s like the flickering nonsense of images and text as a film spool runs out . 

The mechanism to navigate the TikTok feed is your thumb swiping, like a gondolier’s paddle, up to move forward to new content, down to go back to what you’ve already seen. This one interaction is enough to allow For You to get to know your content preferences. You either watch a video to completion and then maybe like or share it, or you skip it and move on to the next. 

The true pilot of the feed, however, is not the user but the recommendation algorithm, the equation that decides which video gets served to you next. More than any other social network, TikTok’s core product is its algorithm. We complain about being served bad Twitter ads or Instagram not showing us friends’ accounts, as if they’ve suddenly stopped existing, but it’s harder to fault the TikTok algorithm if only because it’s so much better at delivering a varied stream of content than its predecessors. 

A Spotify autoplay station, for example, most often follows the line of an artist or genre, serving relatively similar content over and over again. But TikTok recognizes that contrast is just as important as similarity to maintain our interest. It creates a shifting feed of topics and formats that actually feels personal, the way my Twitter feed, built up over more than a decade, feels like a reflection of my self. 

But I know who I follow on Twitter; they are voices I’ve chosen to incorporate into my feed. On TikTok, I never know where something’s coming from or why, only if I like it. There is no context. If Twitter is all about provenance — trusted people signing off on each other’s content, retweeting endorsements — TikTok is simply about the end result. Each video is evaluated on its own merits, one at a time. 

You can feel the For You feed trying subjects out on you. Dogs? Yes. Cats? Not so much. Rural Chinese fishing? Sure. Scooter tricks? No. Skateboarding? Yes. Fingerpicked guitar outside a cabin? Duh. And through the process of trial and error you get an assortment of videos that are on their own niche but put together resemble something like individual taste . It’s a mix as quirky as your own personal interests usually feel to you, though the fact that all of this content already exists on the platform gradually undercuts the sense of uniqueness: If many other people besides you didn’t also like it, it wouldn’t be there. 

A like count appears on the right side of each video, reassuring you that 6,000 other people have also enjoyed this clip enough to hit the button. Usually, the higher number does signify a better video, unlike tweets, for which the opposite is usually true. You can click into a comment section on each TikTok, too, which feel like YouTube comment sections: people jockeying to write the best riff or joke, bonus content after you watch the clip. There are no time stamps on the main feed. Unlike other social networks, it’s intentionally difficult to figure out when a TikTok video was originally posted, and many accounts repost popular videos anyway. This lends the feed an atmosphere of eternal present: It’s easy to imagine that everything you’re watching is happening right now , a gripping quality that makes it even harder to stop watching. 

Over the time I’ve been on TikTok the content of my feed has moved through phases. I can’t be sure how much the shifts are baked in to the system and how much they are a result of me engaging with different content (I’m not reporting on the structure of the algorithm here, just spelunking). There was a heavy skateboarding phase at first, but the mix has evolved into cooking lessons, clips of learning Chinese, home construction tips from This Old House, art-making close-ups, and early 2000s video games. If you search for a particular hashtag, hit like on a few videos, or follow an account, the For You algorithm tweaks your feed, adding in a bit more of that type of content. 

(A note on content mixture: “The mix” is famously how Tina Brown described the combination of different kinds of stories in Vanity Fair when she was the magazine’s very successful editor-in-chief in the ‘80s. Brown’s mix was hard-hitting news, fluffy celebrity profiles, glamorous fashion shoots, and smart critical commentary, all combined into one magazine. TikTok automates the mix of all these topics, going farther than any other platform to mimic the human editor.)

A sense emerges of teaching the algorithm what you like, bearing with it through periods of irrelevance and engaging in a way that shapes your feed. I barely look at the tab that shows me videos from people I actually follow, but I still follow them to make them show up more often in my For You feed. The process inspires patience and empathy, the way building a piece of IKEA furniture makes you like it more . It’s easy to get mad at Twitter because its algorithmic intrusions are so obvious; it’s harder with TikTok when the algorithm is all there is. The feed is a seamless environment that the user is meant to stay within. 

I didn’t tell TikTok I was interested in sensory deprivation tanks, but through some combination of randomness, metrics, and triangulation of my interests based on what else I engaged with, the app delivered a single video from a float spa and I immediately followed the account. Such specific genres of content are available elsewhere on the internet — I could follow a sensory deprivation YouTube channel or Instagram account — but the TikTok feed centralizes them and titrates the niche topic into my feed as often as I might want to see it, maybe one out of a hundred videos. After all, one video doesn’t mean I want dozens more of the same kind, as the YouTube algorithm seems to think. 

Before the 2010s we used to watch cable television, sitting on the couch with the remote pointed actively at the screen. If the show on one channel was boring, we changed it. If everything was boring, we engaged in an activity called channel flipping, switching continuously one to the next until something caught our eye. (On-demand streaming means we now flip through thumbnails more than channels; platform-flipping is the new channel-flipping.) TikTok is an eternal channel flip, and the flip is the point: there is no settled point of interest to land on. Nothing is meant to sustain your attention, even for cable TV’s traditional 10 minutes between commercial breaks. 

Like cable television, the viewer does not select the content on TikTok, only whether they want to watch it at that moment or not. It’s a marked contrast to how, in the past decade, social media platforms marketed themselves as offering user agency: you could follow anything or anyone you want, breaking traditional media’s hold on audiences. Instead, TikTok’s For You offers the passivity of linear cable TV with the addition of automated, customized variety and without the need for human editors to curate content or much action from the user to choose it. (Passivity is a feature; Netflix just announced that it’s exploring a version of linear TV .) Like Facebook , and unlike streaming, TikTok also claims to offload the risk of being an actual publisher: the content is all user-generated. Thus it’s both cheap and infinite.

The passivity induces a hypnotized flow state in the user. You don’t have to think, only react. The content often reinforces this thoughtlessness. It’s ephemera, fragments of the human mundane; Rube Goldberg machines are very popular. Sure, you can learn about food or news, but the most essentially TikTok thing I’ve seen in the past few days is a video of a young man who took a giant ball he made of beige rubber bands to an abandoned industrial site and bounced it around, off ledges and down cement steps, in the violet haze of early dusk. The clip is calm and quiet but also surreal, like a piece of video art you might watch for 15 minutes in a gallery. It has no symbolism, no story arc, only a pleasant absence of meaning and the brain-tickling pleasure of the ball gently squishing when it hits a surface, like an alien exploring the earth, unaccustomed to gravity. 

I’m biased in favor of such ambient content, which is probably why I get so much of it. But numb immersion — like a sensory deprivation tank — seems to be the point of the platform. On Twitter we get breaking news; on Instagram we see our friends and go shopping; on Facebook we (not me personally) join groups and share memes. On TikTok we are simply entertained. This is not to discount it as a very real force for politics, activism, and the business of culture, or a vehicle to create content and join in conversations. But for users, pure consumption is encouraged. The best bodily position in which to watch TikTok is supine, muscles slack, phone above your face like it’s an endless tunnel into the air. 

Sometimes a TikTok binge — short and intense until you get sick of it, like a salvia trip — has the feeling of a game. You keep flipping to the next video as if in search of some goal, though there are only ever more videos. You want to come to an end, though there is no such thing. This stumbling process is why users describe encountering a new subject matter as “finding [topic] TikTok,” like Cooking TikTok or Tiny House TikTok or Carpentry TikTok. There’s a sense of discovery because you wouldn’t necessarily know how to get there otherwise, only through the munificence of the algorithm. A limiting of possibilities is recast as a kind of magic. 

What is the theory of media that TikTok injects into the world? What are the new aesthetic standards that it will set as it becomes even more popular, beyond its current 850 million active users? It seems to combine Tumblr-style tribal niches with the brevity and intimacy of Instagram stories and the scalability of YouTube, where mainstream fame is most possible. The startup Quibi received billions of dollars of investment to bet on short-form video watched on phones. The company shut down within eight months of launch, but it wasn’t wrong about the format; it just produced terrible content (see my review of the service for Frieze ). TikTok is compelling because it’s so wide, a social network with the userbase of Facebook but fully multimedia, with the kinds of expensive-looking video editing and effects we’re used to on television. The platform presents media (or life itself?) as a permanent reality TV show, and you can tune in to any corner of it at any time.

TikTok isn’t limited to power users or a particular demographic (as in the case of the mutual addiction of Twitter and journalists), and that’s largely because of the adeptness of its algorithmic feed. There is no effort required to fine tune it, only time and swiping. Though the interface looks a little messy, it’s actually relatively simple, a quality that Instagram has abandoned under Facebook’s ownership in favor of cramming in every feature and format possible. (Where do we post what on there now — what’s a grid post, a story, or a reel, which are just Instagram’s shitty TikTok clone?) In fact, just surfing TikTok feels vaguely creative, as if you move through the field of content with your mind alone. 

Even if you are only watching, you are a part of TikTok. Internet culture has always been interactive; part of the joy of Lolcats was that you could make your own, using the template as a tool for self-expression and inside jokes. In recent years that kind of creative self-expression via social media has fallen by the wayside in favor of retweets, shares, and likes, centralizing authority around a few influential accounts and pushing the emphasis toward brands (which buy ads and drive revenue) and consumerism. TikTok returns triumphantly to the lowbrow, the absurd, the unimportant. 

The culture that it perpetuates are memes and patterns, like the dance moves that users assign to specific clips of songs. Audio is a way to navigate the platform: You can browse all the videos made to a particular soundtrack, making it very potent for spreading music. Users also create reaction videos to other videos, showing a selfie shot next to the original clip. Everything is participatory, and the nature of the algorithm makes it so that a video from an unknown account can go as viral as easily as one from a famous account. (This is true of all social networks but particularly extreme on TikTok.) The singular TikTok is less important than the continued flow of the feed and the emergence of recognizable tropes of TikTok culture that get traded back and forth, like the “ I Ain’t Seen Two Pretty Best Friends ” meme. The game is to interpolate that phrase into a video, sometimes into an otherwise straight-faced script: the surprise of the meme line, which is more absurdist symbol than meaningful language, tips you to the fact that it’s a joke. 

In his aforementioned essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Walter Benjamin wrote that “aura” was contained in the physical presence of a unique work of art; it induced a special feeling that wasn’t captured by the reproducible photograph. By now we’ve long accepted that photographs can be art, too; even if they’re reproductions, they still maintain an aura. The evolution that I’m grasping for here — having started this paragraph over many times — is that now, in our age of the reproducibility of anything, the meaning of the discrete work of art itself has weakened. The aura is not contained within a single specific image, video, or physical object but a pattern that can be repeated by anyone without cheapening its power — in fact, the more it’s repeated, the more its impact increases. The unit of culture is the meme, its original author or artist less important than its primary specimens, which circulate endlessly, inspiring new riffs and offshoots. TikTok operates on and embraces this principle. 

Could it be that we’re encouraged to assign some authorship to the algorithm itself, as the prime actor of the platform? After all it’s the equation that’s bringing us this smooth, entrancing feed, that’s encouraging creators to create and consumers to consume. I don’t think that’s true, though, or at least not yet. We have to remember that the algorithm is also the work of its human creators at Bytedance in China, who have in the past been directed to “suppress posts created by users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform” as well as censor political speech, according to The Intercept . Recommendation algorithms can be tools of soft censorship, subtly shaping a feed to be as glossy, appealing, and homogenous as possible rather than the truest reflection of either reality or a user’s desires. In Hollywood, a producer tells you if you’re not hot enough to be an actor; on TikTok, the algorithm lets you know if you don’t fit the mold. 

As it is, TikTok molds what and how I consume more than what I want to create. I feel no drive to make a TikTok video, maybe because the platform’s demographic is younger than I am and it still requires more video editing than I can handle, though it can also algorithmically crop video clips to moments of action. But when I switch over to Instagram and watch the automatic flip of stories from my friends and various brands, it suddenly feels boring and dead, like going from color TV back to black and white. I don’t want to only get content from people I follow; I want the full breadth of the platform, perfectly filtered. The grid of miscellany of Instagram’s discover tab doesn’t stand up to TikTok’s total immersion. 

TikTok’s feed is finely tuned and personalized, but I think what’s more important is how it automates the entire experience of online consumption. You don’t have to decide what you’re interested in; you just surrender to the platform. Automation gets disguised as customization. That makes the structure and priorities of the algorithm even more important as it increasingly determines what we watch, read, and hear, and what people are incentivized to create in digital spaces to get attention. And TikTok absolutely wants all of your attention. It’s not about casual browsing, not glancing at Twitter to see the latest news or checking your friend’s Instagram profile for updates. It’s a move directly toward an addiction that will be incredibly profitable for the company. And the more we trust that algorithmic feed, the easier it will be for the app to exploit its audiences.

This was an interesting experiment to write because I had no formal constraints from an external publication and of course no editing or feedback before publishing it. I wrote it just to document an obsession, and as with many obsessions, it’s fading a bit as I write it all out. At this point I’ve documented all the thoughts I have currently, in a fairly loose way. 

I would really like messages about this piece! Did it work, did it not work? Is this productive or not? There are more essays I’d like to write like this, without the pressure to fully compel public readers. But its main utility is to share ideas and start conversations, so it needs to accomplish at least that. 

Please comment, email me by replying, tweet about this, post it on your LinkedIn, or whatever platform you choose. Make a TikTok reaction video.

If you like this piece, please hit the heart button below! It helps me reach more readers on Substack. Email me at [email protected] or reply. Also:

— Follow me on  Twitter

— Buy my book on minimalism,  The Longing for Less

— Read more of my writing:  kylechayka.com

Ready for more?

• Share full article

Advertisement

I’m Not a Fan of TikTok, but We Can’t Blame It for Everything

Instead of scapegoating social media, start regulating it..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

My name is Zeynep Tufekci. And I’m a columnist for The New York Times. I’m also a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University.

So I recently wrote a piece that is somewhat surprising coming from me because I’m a long-time critic of social media. I have written many, many articles talking about some of the downsides of Facebook, YouTube, and, yes, TikTok. So it might seem a little surprising to hear that my latest article is actually taking politicians to task for blaming TikTok.

And that’s because I think what has happened is that we have swung from ignoring and not taking care of the things we need to take care of with social media at the regulation level, at society level, at cultural level to using it as a scapegoat for whatever people, especially people in power, don’t like.

I think if you’re getting your perspective on the world on TikTok, it’s going to tend to be warped.

Social media is really lighting a fire, frankly, under young people that is completely off-base. And TikTok in particular, I think, is to blame.

Before 2016, there were a few of us talking about social media being potentially detrimental to politics. But at the time, it was seen as something that helped the Democrats, that helped Obama. And we were not liked at the time.

And then when Trump got elected, there was a lot of conversations about social media. And for a while, I also was happy, in some ways, that at least, finally, we were talking about it. And I was hopeful that perhaps there would be some sort of action on that front, especially after Biden’s presidency. But instead, what we have is whenever, for example, young people complain about things like handling of the Gaza conflict by the Biden administration —

I hope this administration never knows another moment of peace.

He wants us to tire of protesting. He wants us to tire of calling. We should not stop.

I’m not going to vote for someone who funded a genocide.

— or inflation —

Most of us are living paycheck to paycheck with credit card debt.

The cost of living in 2023 is so bad that I’m pretty sure I actually was better off financially when I was making minimum wage in 2012.

This doesn’t seem like the American dream anymore. We are living the American nightmare.

— there seems to be this immediate, and sometimes bipartisan, finger pointing saying, oh, they’re just brainwashed on TikTok.

And I don’t even doubt that there might be some things on TikTok that are wrong and incorrect, and even horrible. But it’s just possible that there is a lot of dissent from the current administration’s policy on the Israel-Gaza conflict. And to lazily point at TikTok as the only reason why people might disagree with people in power, I think, does a disservice both to those of us who have long been advocating for more oversight and regulation and transparency into these platforms, but also does a disservice to the idea that people can have their opinions.

There are other topics in which I’m pretty convinced that there is a significant effect of social media, especially on young people’s mental health, especially teen girls, where the evidence is overwhelming that there’s something going on that deserves attention. And having something so obviously not plausible, such as the entire young generation is brainwashed about the actual state of their own budget — it’s a big disconnect. And I think it speaks to how much legislation, lawmaking, policymaking, regulation, and oversight has been lost.

As an academic, it’s frustrating to watch politicians simultaneously blame TikTok for so many things without putting in an effort to have independent researchers and legislators understand the scale and the scope of its influence. And this is something that legislation could help with. If tobacco companies had entire lung cancer statistics of the country as their private data and didn’t share it, we wouldn’t really get anywhere. We would want them — we would want to force them to share it.

So social media companies have a lot of data they don’t share. Legislation could try to find a way to allow independent research without violating user privacy. But there’s no movement there.

The criticism of TikTok is bipartisan. And that, itself, is striking enough because very few things these days are bipartisan. But it also raises the question — if they are able to share this criticism, it’s all the more frustrating and intriguing that they’re not able to get together to pass some bipartisan legislation and demanding transparency so that we can have an actual answer to the question they’re raising.

So if they’re really convinced it’s highly influential, it would be nice to have a sense of how and where and why and to disentangle these dynamics. But all we have is finger pointing and nothing. There’s a lot of heat, but no light.

• April 11, 2024   •   6:48 As Ramadan Ends, I Resist the Urge to Insulate
• April 10, 2024 How Much of a Threat Is Kennedy to Biden?
• April 8, 2024   •   8:21 Deepfake Porn Sites Used Her Image. She’s Fighting Back.
• April 4, 2024   •   6:11 Corporate America: Employees Need Stability, Not Constant Change
• April 3, 2024   •   4:45 Could Trump Financially Ruin the G.O.P.?
• April 1, 2024 The War in Gaza and the Emerging Rift in American Jewish Life
• March 27, 2024   •   5:29 The Case for More Insults
• March 26, 2024   •   5:57 Trump Has a Vision for a Second Term. Now There’s a Plan.
• March 20, 2024   •   6:02 David Brooks: Resist the Pull of ‘Us vs. Them’ Thinking
• March 19, 2024   •   6:43 The United States Is Living Under a ‘Nuclear Monarchy’
• March 16, 2024   •   5:35 America Owes a Historical Debt to Haiti
• March 13, 2024   •   6:03 Why Haley Supporters Should Turn to Biden, Not Trump

By Zeynep Tufekci

Produced by Vishakha Darbha

Gen Z and younger millennials are taking to apps like TikTok to express their anger about everything from the conflict in the Middle East to the cost of living. Some politicians are not happy. In this audio essay, the Opinion columnist Zeynep Tufekci argues that lawmakers should stop blaming social media platforms for corrupting people’s minds and instead concentrate on oversight and demand transparency from them.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram .

This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Vishakha Darbha. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing and engineering by Sonia Herrero and Efim Shapiro. Original music by Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski. Special thanks to Derek Arthur.

Zeynep Tufekci  ( @zeynep ) is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, the author of “Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest” and a New York Times Opinion columnist. @ zeynep • Facebook

Read our research on: Gun Policy | International Conflict | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

6 facts about americans and tiktok.

Increasing shares of U.S. adults are turning to the short-form video sharing platform TikTok in general and for news .

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand Americans’ use and perceptions of TikTok. The data for this analysis comes from several Center surveys conducted in 2023.

More information about the surveys and their methodologies, including the sample sizes and field dates, can be found at the links in the text.

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest analysis in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

This analysis draws from several Pew Research Center reports on Americans’ use of and attitudes about social media, based on surveys conducted in 2023. For more information, read:

Americans’ Social Media Use

How u.s. adults use tiktok.

• Social Media and News Fact Sheet
• Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023

At the same time, some Americans have concerns about the Chinese-owned platform’s approach to data privacy and its potential impact on national security. Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill that, if passed in the Senate and signed into law, would restrict TikTok’s ability to operate in the United States.

Here are six key facts about Americans and TikTok, drawn from Pew Research Center surveys.

A third of U.S. adults – including a majority of adults under 30 – use TikTok. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults under 30 (62%) say they use TikTok, compared with 39% of those ages 30 to 49, 24% of those 50 to 64, and 10% of those 65 and older.

In a 2023 Center survey , TikTok stood out from other platforms we asked about for the rapid growth of its user base. Just two years earlier, 21% of U.S. adults used the platform.

A majority of U.S. teens use TikTok. About six-in-ten teens ages 13 to 17 (63%) say they use the platform. More than half of teens (58%) use it daily, including 17% who say they’re on it “almost constantly.”

A higher share of teen girls than teen boys say they use TikTok almost constantly (22% vs. 12%). Hispanic teens also stand out: Around a third (32%) say they’re on TikTok almost constantly, compared with 20% of Black teens and 10% of White teens.

In fall 2023, support for a U.S. TikTok ban had declined. Around four-in-ten Americans (38%) said that they would support the U.S. government banning TikTok, down from 50% in March 2023. A slightly smaller share (27%) said they would oppose a ban, while 35% were not sure. This question was asked before the House of Representatives passed the bill that could ban the app.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were far more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to support a TikTok ban (50% vs. 29%), but support had declined across both parties since earlier in the year.

Adults under 30 were less likely to support a ban than their older counterparts. About three-in-ten adults under 30 (29%) supported a ban, compared with 36% of those ages 30 to 49, 39% of those ages 50 to 64, and 49% of those ages 65 and older.

In a separate fall 2023 survey, only 18% of U.S. teens said they supported a ban. 

A relatively small share of users produce most of TikTok’s content. About half of U.S. adult TikTok users (52%) have ever posted a video on the platform. In fact, of all the TikTok content posted by American adults, 98% of publicly accessible videos come from the most active 25% of users .

Those who have posted TikTok content are more active on the site overall. These users follow more accounts, have more followers and are more likely to have filled out an account bio.

Although younger U.S. adults are more likely to use TikTok, their posting behaviors don’t look much different from those of older age groups.

About four-in-ten U.S. TikTok users (43%) say they regularly get news there. While news consumption on other social media sites has declined or remained stagnant in recent years, the share of U.S. TikTok users who get news on the site has doubled since 2020, when 22% got news there.

Related: Social Media and News Fact Sheet

TikTok news consumers are especially likely to be:

• Young. The vast majority of U.S. adults who regularly get news on TikTok are under 50: 44% are ages 18 to 29 and 38% are 30 to 49. Just 4% of TikTok news consumers are ages 65 and older.
• Women. A majority of regular TikTok news consumers in the U.S. are women (58%), while 39% are men. These gender differences are similar to those among news consumers on Instagram and Facebook.
• Democrats. Six-in-ten regular news consumers on TikTok are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, while a third are Republicans or GOP leaners.
• Hispanic or Black. Three-in-ten regular TikTok news users in the U.S. are Hispanic, while 19% are Black. Both shares are higher than these groups’ share of the adult population. Around four-in-ten (39%) TikTok news consumers are White, although this group makes up 59% of U.S. adults overall .

A majority of Americans (59%) see TikTok as a major or minor threat to U.S. national security, including 29% who see the app as a major threat. Our May 2023 survey also found that opinions vary across several groups:

• About four-in-ten Republicans (41%) see TikTok as a major threat to national security, compared with 19% of Democrats.
• Older adults are more likely to see TikTok as a major threat: 46% of Americans ages 65 and older say this, compared with 13% of those ages 18 to 29.
• U.S. adults who do not use TikTok are far more likely than TikTok users to believe TikTok is a major threat (36% vs. 9%).

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings

WhatsApp and Facebook dominate the social media landscape in middle-income nations

Teens and social media fact sheet, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

• Entertainment

Negative Impact of TikTok on Teens Essay Example

TikTok, a social media platform could potentially harm your daily life. Although we enjoy watching TikTok, we could be doing something else in our lives. On average, there are approximately 50 million users each day in the United States, meaning that’s 20% of the population in the United States (https://backlinko.com). TikTok ultimately wastes our time, meaning it’s harmful for our time and mental health. 

TikTok is a platform where we can easily get invested in watching videos from 30 minutes to an hour each day. The big problem with TikTok is that it does neither of these things—there is no way to gain any valuable information or communicate effectively with anyone on the app. All you do is watch other people’s ridiculous videos and feed them likes. It’s nothing but a catalyst for the paralyzing and unconscious wasting of time (https://dgnomega.org). Whenever we watch TikTok for hours, we unconsciously watch these videos, and mostly we don’t remember most of these videos we watch. We spend a lot of time on TikTok just to get some laughs from ridiculous videos we don’t even remember. TikTok is a waste of time. Students make those silly videos during my class and it impacts their grade because they aren’t working,” said Patrick Greene, technology teacher (https://lhslance.org).Teenagers would rather watch TikTok than to do school work. Most people do not utilize their time correctly, resulting in failure in work or assignments from school. Although TikTok is a good source for laughs and entertainment, it rarely does any good for the time we have wasted watching TikTok. 

The algorithm on TikTok can have a huge impact on teenagers' mental health. There is content that involves dancing, but there is some other content that can deeply influence a teenagers’ emotions and actions. Some experts believe that TikTok’s algorithm can promote content related to depression, anxiety and eating disorders, according to CBS News (https://www.deseret.com). According to the TikTok algorithm, their videos are mostly made up of depression related content. This can deeply influence a teenagers’ mind as it can affect their health psychologically. The cyberbullying, social exclusion and drama that can occur on these networks have been associated with higher rates of mental health issues in teenagers (https://www.latimes.com). The toxic community of TikTok can easily change teenagers’ emotions. Teenagers can have mental issues such as depression, anxiety, and insecurities due to the harmful actions of the community. The toxic part of TikTok can leave negative comments on a TikToker’s video, as it can lead to mental issues in teens, as well as the algorithm of TikTok. 

Despite all the harmful effects, from different perspectives, Tiktok can be very beneficial. TikTok has been a method by which businesses and influencers promote their brand. The video-sharing service has helped this cause by launching Tiktok Ads that allow for businesses to run ads as videos. (https://socioblend.com). Posting ads on TikTok can be very beneficial for an entrepreneur, as you could grow your business by attracting people’s attention from TikTok. Ads can easily attract people’s attention, meaning your business could skyrocket in the matter of minutes or days. Whether you’re watching or making your own videos on TikTok, one thing’s for sure: it’s just plain fun! That’s why a lot of people are on Tiktok—because it’s super entertaining! (https://www.lionheartv.net). TikTok can also be a good way to introduce your talent to some audiences. People that have the same interests as you can stumble upon your video, and can give feedback about your talent. Apps like TikTok can give the attention people desire whether it’s for businesses or if it’s from an audience. 

Ultimately, TikTok can be super harmful for teenagers and adolescents, as it can affect their mental health. The app also leads to poor decisions given the attention spans among humans. Using apps like TikTok less frequently can boost mental health, and it can also boost our performance in doing things. Although there are some benefits on TikTok, there is more harm on TikTok.

Related Samples

• The Development of Adolescents Essay Example
• Review on Wizardingworld.com (Personality Tests Essay Example)
• Essay on Residential Schools and the Effects on Indigenous Health and Well-being in Canada
• Rhetorical Analysis Popular TV Dramas in America
• Nursing Application Letter Sample
• Stress Among College Students Research Paper Example
• Effects of Childhood Trauma on Children Development Essay Sample
• The Causes of College Stress Essay Example
• Research Paper Sample on PTSD
• Essay Sample about An Extended Definition of Popular Culture

Didn't find the perfect sample?

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Sage Choice

Using TikTok for public and youth mental health – A systematic review and content analysis

Globally, TikTok is now the fastest growing social media platform among children and young people; but it remains surprisingly under-researched in psychology and psychiatry. This is despite the fact that social media platforms have been subject to intense academic and societal scrutiny regarding their potentially adverse effects on youth mental health and wellbeing, notwithstanding the inconsistent findings across the literature. In this two part study, we conducted a systematic review concerning studies that have examined TikTok for any public health or mental health purpose; and a follow-up content analysis of TikTok within an Irish context. For study 1, a predetermined search strategy covering representative public and mental health terminology was applied to six databases – PSYCINFO, Google Scholar, PUBMED, Wiley, Journal of Medical Internet Research, ACM – within the period 2016 to 2021. Included studies were limited to English-speaking publications of any design where TikTok was the primary focus of the study. The quality appraisal tool by Dunne et al., (2018) was applied to all included studies. For study 2, we replicated our search strategy from study 1, and converted this terminology to TikTok hashtags to search within TikTok in combination with Irish-specific hashtags. As quantified by the app, the top two “most liked” videos were selected for inclusion across the following three targeted groups: official public health accounts; registered Irish charities; and personal TikTok creators. A full descriptive analysis was applied in both studies. Study 1 found 24 studies that covered a range of public and mental health issues: COVID-19 ( n = 10), dermatology ( n = 7), eating disorders ( n = 1), cancer ( n = 1), tics ( n = 1), radiology ( n = 1), sexual health ( n = 1), DNA ( n = 1), and public health promotion ( n = 1). Studies were predominately from the USA, applied a content analysis design, and were of acceptable quality overall. In study 2, 29 Irish TikTok accounts were analysed, including the accounts of public health authorities ( n = 2), charity or non-profit ( n = 5), and personal TikTok creators ( n = 22). The overall engagement data from these accounts represented a significant outreach to younger populations: total likes n = 2,588,181; total comments n = 13,775; and total shares n = 21,254. TikTok has been utilised for a range of public health purposes, but remains poorly engaged by institutional accounts. The various mechanisms for connecting with younger audiences presents a unique opportunity for youth mental health practitioners to consider, yet there were distinct differences in how TikTok accounts used platform features to interact. Overall, there is an absence of high quality mixed methodological evaluations of TikTok content for public and mental health, despite it being the most used platform for children and young people.

Introduction

The pervasive use of social media worldwide has generated an ideal platform for promoting public and mental health information to children and young people (CYP). Amidst the ongoing global pandemic, coupled with evidence of increasing youth psychological difficulties, public health officials and clinicians are increasingly recognising the need to understand and engage social media including TikTok for public communications ( Eghtesadi & Florea, 2020 ).

Recent reviews have found that popular social networking sites are the most important digital health resources for CYP ( Lupton, 2021 ; Montag et al., 2021 ). Where supply exceeds demand for in-person mental health services, digital solutions can provide stakeholders with the opportunity to engage with large portions of the youth population with informative content ( Liu et al., 2020 ). However, there is a limited understanding of the functionality of TikTok among mental health professionals. Based on receptiveness to other dominant social media platforms, this lack of understanding may be attributable to: the speed of the cultural embeddedness of TikTok; generational differences in uptake, digital literacy and competencies; and a traditional scepticism of new technologies amongst professionals.

What is TikTok?

TikTok allows users to consume and create short videos between 15–60 s in length; using various filters, music and lip-syncing templates. TikTok’s unique selling point is that the content presented to an individual is algorithm-driven, and tailored to their indicated preferences and previously liked content ( Anderson, 2020 ). It is particularly popular with the traditionally hard-to-reach 13–29 age cohort – data from the United States show that 32.5% of users are aged 10–19, and 29.5% aged 20–29 ( Clement, 2020 ). Globally, it is assumed that the majority of TikTok users are of pre-teen age.

TikTok has been conceptualised as a highly unique video-based social media app with distinct technical structures and unparalleled user adoption unlike any other platform, thereby making it a specific online network wherein imitation and memetic features further accelerate its diverse user interactivity ( Zulli & Zulli, 2020 ). As a result, there have been waves of viral TikTok videos among CYP, with accompanying hashtags relating to topical issues, including COVID-19, mental health, eating disorders, developmental issues, and health ( Montag et al., 2021 ). Indeed, despite the notable lack of psychology professionals effectively utilising TikTok, there have been interesting exceptions. For example, Dr. Julie Smith is considered to be one of the first accredited psychologists to successfully use TikTok to disseminate mental health information on a range of topics from anxiety to suicidality. At present, her TikTok profile has garnered 33.4 million likes and amassed over 2.9 million followers, from presenting bite-sized psychoeducational content from her professional background ( Smith, 2022 ).

Critically appraising the role of TikTok

Across the social media landscape, there has been heated debate about the potentially harmful effects of popular platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. More broadly, the overall effect of screentime itself on CYP has been under extensive investigation. Several high profile media exposes have prompted clinicians and parents to re-evaluate the relationship between social media and the CYP. For example, a recent article in The Wall Street Journal leaked internal research by Facebook (who also own Instagram) purporting to show that the platform holds evidence demonstrating the harms caused to the mental health of approximately 20% of its users. However, upon closer inspection, the referenced research reflects much of the characteristics in the broader literature on the clinical effects of social media consumption on CYP (insert Ritchie). That is, the overall studies are largely correlational, overly reliant on self-reported and thus unreliable measures, lacking in construct validity, and of significantly varying quality to draw any definitive conclusions.

Although there is no specific clinical literature on TikTok use, similar concerns exist given its significant pre-teen userbase ( Bucknell Bossen & Kottasz, 2020 ). Expectedly, the same challenges regarding the online safety, content moderation, data regulation and the ethics of targeted advertising of CYP are applicable to TikTok ( De Leyn et al., 2021 ). For example, a recent content analysis found that alcohol-related content on TikTok showed a propensity to promote rapid consumption of multiple drinks and to align alcohol consumption with positive associations (i.e., humour), while rarely communicating the known negative outcomes ( Russell et al., 2021 ).

From a theoretical standpoint, the unique mimicry and imitation in-built into TikTok creates a new form of interaction between users and video content – the perceived realism of which could lead to behavioural change in CYP, in line with the principles of social learning theory (insert REF). Of the scant research available, data suggests that user motivations – archiving, self-expression, social interaction and peeking – were significant predictors of TikTok behaviours more so than personality traits ( Omar & Dequan, 2020 ). Relatedly, a frequently applied theoretical framework to TikTok research is that of the uses and gratifications approach ( Montag et al., 2021 ) which states that individuals use media in particular ways to satisfy their own needs, and thus feel satisfied and engaged ( Katz et al., 1974 ). In applying this theory, recent survey research from China ( n = 1051) found that novelty was the distinct gratification point for TikTok use across all users ( Scherr & Wang, 2021 ) – that is, TikTok’s algorithm continually produced novel yet relevant content outside of the user’s immediate social network.

As a platform, TikTok has acknowledged the positive and negative uses of their technology; and has recently issued advice about overusing the app at night, in addition to providing resources to users searching for suicide-related content ( TikTok, 2020 , 2021 ).

The present study

To address the gap in the psychology and psychiatry literature on TikTok, this study set the following two aims:

• 1) Conduct a systematic review on the use of TikTok for any public and mental health purpose
• 2) Contextualise and supplement the review findings with a content analysis, using an Irish specific case study.

Search strategy

A predetermined search strategy covering representative public and mental health terminology and blended with the word TikTok was applied to six databases – PSYCINFO, PUBMED, Wiley, Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR),– within the period 2016 to 2021. This is fully detailed in our supplementary materials. The search was conducted between June and July 2021, with 275 studies initially screened. The flow diagram for the identification of studies is provided in our PRISMA in Figure 1 ( Page et al., 2021 ).

PRISMA flow chart for study 1.

Selection criteria and quality appraisal

Included studies were limited to English-speaking publications of any design where TikTok was the primary focus of the study. The quality appraisal tool by Dunne et al. was applied to all quantitative studies ( Dunne et al., 2018 ); and the CASP (2018) checklist was applied to all qualitative studies. The second author (CM) conducted full title and abstract screening, with both authors then deliberating until consensus regarding any articles with unclear eligibility.

Search strategy and data collection

We sought to replicate our search strategy from study 1, and thus converted this terminology to TikTok hashtags to search within TikTok in combination with Irish-specific hashtags. As quantified by the app, the top two “most liked” videos were selected for inclusion across the following three targeted groups: official public health accounts; registered Irish charities; and personal TikTok creators. This was conducted on a self-made research-only TikTok account during July 2021. The full strategy is provided in our supplementary materials. Table 1 provides a summary of the overall TikTok accounts and features from this search strategy.

Summary table of overall TikTok features from the search strategy.

Coding approach

A full descriptive table was built a priori to centralise all useful information across our findings. This included engagement data, such as number of likes, followers, comments; in addition to video characteristics, summaries, and length. Similar to other comparable studies, the presence of dialogic loop was deemed important and relevant to TikTok in particular – this refers to the posing and answering of questions to promote further engagement ( Chen et al., 2021 ; Wang & Yang, 2020 ). As such, a frequency count was performed across all included content. The second author manually performed all data extraction and synthesis using Microsoft Excel.

A total of 24 studies were included in the final review. These studies were predominantly from the USA ( n = 20), with the remaining studies from China, Ireland, Australia, and Canada. The majority of studies adopted a form of content analysis as their primary research methodology ( n = 20), with other studies utilising cross-sectional design ( n = 1), thematic analysis ( n = 2), or cases series ( n = 1). A broad range of topics were found across the TikTok research landscape, including COVID-19 ( n = 10), dermatology ( n = 7), eating disorders ( n = 1), cancer ( n = 1), tics ( n = 1), radiology ( n = 1), sexual health ( n = 1), DNA ( n = 1), and public health promotion ( n = 1). The overall quality of studies was variable – with the majority of studies being of either low ( n = 11) or acceptable ( n = 7) quality, leaving 6 studies appraised as good quality. A full breakdown of all study characteristics and quality appraisal outcome is provided in Table 2 .

Table of study characteristics (Study 1).

Spanning a range of account types that are popular in Ireland – public health accounts ( n = 2), charity accounts ( n = 5) and personal creator accounts ( n = 22) – the overall data analysis covered TikTok content that totalled the following key engagement metrics: likes n = 2,588,181; comments n = 13,775; and shares n = 21,254. The summary characteristics illustrate differences between official public health accounts, TikTok personal accounts (i.e., creators), and charity accounts. Across the dialogic loop measure, in addition to TikTok’s suite of audio visual features, TikTok creators were the most engaging and interactive – this also accords with their higher followers. A full breakdown of each of these characteristics across each video and account is provided in Table 3 , broken down by account types.

Content analysis output table.

Overall discussion

This two-part study aimed to provide what we think is the first systematic review of TikTok and its use within mental and public health for young people, in addition to contextualising this with a content analysis. Study 1 collated 24 studies across a range youth mental and public health issues, demonstrating the versatility of TikTok in the current ecosystem. Study 2 provided a follow-up example of how TikTok is being used within an Irish context, and found high engagement rates across public health, charity and personal creator TikTok accounts ( n  = 29); but with personal creator accounts significantly utilising the full range of features of the platform more so than other account-types. Taken together, and in light of the young user-base of TikTok, these results tentatively indicate the creative and novel opportunities for leveraging the platform for positive mental and public health outcomes. Nonetheless, given the ubiquitous nature of TikTok amidst the scant evidence for its effects on CYP, caution must still be reserved for its potentially negative outcomes. Indeed, many of the included studies in the review found that TikTok was being used by both professionals and creators alike to communicate short-form audio-visual content relating to key issues for young people, including acne, pandemic information, and eating disorders. However, professionally accredited information was often in the minority. This presents a dilemma to the wider TikTok audience – to what extent can a pre-teen userbase distinguish between reputable mental and public health professional information versus non-professional equivalents? Our follow-up content analysis using Irish hashtags elicited a highly diverse sample of accounts that addressed a range of mental and public health issues. TikTok is clearly seen as an outlet to interact about many serious issues, but often using humour as the means of delivery. Personal TikTok creators significantly used the full range of features to execute their message, whereas charity and public health accounts only engaged a limited amount of features. Consequently, their engagement metrics were demonstrably lower. For example, dialogic loop was consistently higher across all personal TikTok accounts thereby encouraging the respective audience to maintain engagement. Creative integration of information, titles, text, graphics, dance, sound syncing, lighting, and acting allowed personal creators to elevate their message; whereas other accounts typically relied on more traditional social media formats. This underscores a key difference between uptake and novelty of effective TikTok use – until mental and public health stakeholders critically understand the vast functionalities of TikTok, they will likely continue to miss the opportunity to use it as an efficient means of communicating with CYP.

Limitations

Compared to the broader literature concerning other dominant social media platforms, this study found relatively fewer papers from which to offer generalisable points. Additionally, the highly variable quality of studies in the systematic review and the disproportionate reliance on certain methodologies from predominately North American researchers should also be critically considered when interpreting our overall findings. With respect to Study 2, there are clear drawbacks from conducting an analysis on a limited set of hashtags blended with our search terminology. This method of discovering TikTok content may not be reflective of the complex ways in which CYP encounter mental and public health information on the platform. Larger automated means of distilling a wider corpus of data related to such topics would likely achieve more representative results.

Future research

Unquestionably, future research should seek to apply a wider range of methodological approaches to understanding the mental and public effects of TikTok on CYP. Controlled studies examining relationships between behavioural change and TikTok engagement across different topics will advance our understanding of the precise factors influencing either positive or negative outcomes. More multidisciplinary in-depth studies that blend data science approaches to collecting qualitative data, alongside clinical interpretation, will assist in building best practice guidance for professionals who would like to use TikTok to convey important and likely impactful information to CYP.

Recommendations for mental health professionals

Due to the absence of any established evidence base for mental health professionals interested in using TikTok, the following ethically-minded best practice recommendations are provided based on the available literature and current observations of how TikTok functions:1) Establish a clear a prior content policy as to the purpose of engaging TikTok for communication purposes – why, and for whom, is the proposed content appropriate? A clear disclaimer about content being for educational and not directive purposes should be communicated. All content should be aligned with the respective professionals’ governing body, and any relevant social media policy therein. 2) To optimise the engagement, professionals should ensure that the full range of TikTok features are utilised such that content is not merely a replication of multimedia used on other platforms. 3) Ongoing critical analysis should be applied to engagement data – are the analytics reflective of in-depth user engagement that may lead to positive outcomes, such as increased help-seeking behaviours, higher uptake of services, or application of material to real-world scenarios. On the other hand, what are the consequences of providing TikTok content given the difficulty of knowing how the content is specifically used?

Author biographies

Darragh McCashin , School of Psychology, Dublin City University (DCU).

Colette M Murphy , School of Psychology, Dublin City University (DCU).

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Darragh McCashin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2686-2111

TikTok: Educational Platform

Is TikTok an educational or entertainment platform? In the past years, TikTok has become one of the mainstream social apps. This platform is famous among the young generation and adults who enjoy short-form content. TikTok users can employ its popularity to implement educational content. So, you might wonder how to use this social media giant as an effective educational tool to enhance online learning? Experts from the write my essay service are going to try and answer this question.

What Is TikTok?

Today, TikTok is an extremely popular app not only in America but also all over the world. It’s a video-sharing platform where people can upload videos about anything up to 60 seconds in length. Formerly, this social app with short videos had the name musical.ly. For the users, TikTok opens a variety of opportunities. You can dance, sing, perform different experiments, hear about a new scholarship , explore stories, or lip-synch a hit. Now, the app has entered the educational market. So just remember about balanced social media consumption!

The vast popularity of the TikTok app has a lot to do with freedom for creating video content. If the users have too little interest in sharing videos with others, they can watch TikTok videos and like or comment on the clips. In addition, the individuals who can legally use the application should be at the age of 13, and anyone under 18 requires parental consent. Finally, TikTok presents some privacy features, which help set restrictions for those who can watch or leave comments under your videos.  

Why Do Short-Form Videos Work for Education?

TikTok allows spreading small chunks of educational content via the app. Any educational activity is effective when it’s short and engaging. Students like to utilize writing services to simplify the studying process, and social apps have the same impact on learning by creating a welcoming environment for everyone. 

Generally, children and young adults prefer watching interesting clips on the Internet instead of listening to their teachers for hours, so educators employ TikTok to grab the college students’ attention. That’s why this tool is a successful platform in terms of spreading knowledge. Besides, TikTok has already announced a huge creator fund for educational content.

Is TikTok Only About Entertainment?

In case you want to try something other than regular films or books, TikTok is a great solution. While many believe that this platform only offers a funny trend or a catchy song, there is much more to it. True Gen Z representatives know that your feed changes according to your likes and comments. Hence, the more you interact with scientific content, the more it shows up on your “For You Page”.

A short video has the same teaching ability as a blog post or a lecture on the same topic. Furthermore, the unusual delivery with fascinating graphics makes it even easier to assimilate new information. A viewer is less likely to sleep if the video lasts a maximum of a minute. What makes TikTok even more user-friendly is freedom of choice. The creators discuss all possible subjects here. So, you follow your favorite accounts depending on your interests. What a great way to combine entertainment with use!

TikTok as an Educational Platform

Starting from its creation, more than two billion iOS and Android users have uploaded the TikTok app. The app’s simplicity allows everyone to make and share short video clips with the background music. With the huge popularity among the young generation, the company aims to diversify the content with professionally produced learning materials.

TikTok is working on involving hundreds of institutions and experts in producing educational content for the social app. Thus, educational institutions and charity organizations will pay the social media giant to create educational videos for college students and spread this content. Some experts predict that TikTok can become a new and quite successful trend in education known as microlearning. 

TikTok Educational Hashtags

Here you can find some TikTok hashtags for education content and useful information for effective learning:

• #education;
• #tiktokeducation;
• #learnontiktok;
• #AlwaysLearning;
• #StudyingTips.

Following these hashtags on the learning platform opens a new world of knowledge and beneficial tips.

Best TikTok Educational Accounts

Luckily for Gen Z and other generations, TikTok is full of exciting and handy accounts with educational content. For instance, the user-generated content includes educational space videos or clips that improve basic skills. It makes the TikTok application a perfect place to study.

Such platforms allow grasping something new in various fields as education influencers share their expertise in science, maths, languages, medicine, history, and so on. In addition, every student can follow a TikTok tutor and search for educational content on women’s history, access a custom essay service , hear LGBTQ stories, etc. Here are some illustrations of the top educational accounts on TikTok:

@EncyclopediaBritannica

This unique account is an homage to the eponymous book that appeared in the late 1700s. Similar to the encyclopedia, the creator explains scientific facts simply and entertainingly. Over two hundred thousand followers enjoy the history edits and biology songs.

@OnlineKyne

Are you keen on exact sciences, especially maths? Then, the account by Kyne Santos is waiting for you. Her videos include both eccentric drag queen looks and mindblowing mathematical facts. Here, the one-million audience learns how to create the Mobius strip or build a tesseract!

@AstroSamantha

Those who take pleasure in watching space movies in cinema might like Samantha Cristoforetti’s account as well. Surprisingly, this woman is the first astronaut influencer with over half a million loyal viewers. Furthermore, she consistently posts about the specifics of life on the space station.

@howtobasic

These simple videos tell some secrets and life hacks on how to do something really fast and without additional effort. Follow this creator if you want to know how to fix something or cook a perfect meal. 

The account owner is an expert in psychology who shares interesting and informative content in this field. This account fits you perfectly if you want to learn more about your inner world and avoid common misconceptions in sociology and psychology.

Why Teachers Should Use TikTok?

The enthusiastic tutors have an opportunity to employ TikTok as one of the teaching platforms to spread educational content among the young generation. This video-sharing app is a safe space that opens new horizons for teachers and students. Moreover, TikTok exists not only for uploading videos with academic tips but also to help with:

• Staying tuned with young people: If teachers understand all trends, they easily find common ground with students.
• Broadening the TikTok audience’s outlook: many people discover something new thanks to access to the teaching videos.
• Being part of a community: it is a pleasure to create content that attracts your target audience, whether you aim for Gen Z or millennials. For instance, the “how to” videos are a trend in TikTok, so your students are going to search for such content created for them.
• Having fun: knowing how to spend free time is important to learn. The TikTok app allows you to shift your focus, relax for a minute, and continue to teach with a fresh mind.

TikTok is an excellent platform in the education market for sharing engaging and practical content with students. Gen Z is the first generation that grew up with the Internet, so they prefer to buy an essay paper online or learn useful tips from educational videos on TikTok.

Frequently asked questions

She was flawless! first time using a website like this, I've ordered article review and i totally adored it! grammar punctuation, content - everything was on point

This writer is my go to, because whenever I need someone who I can trust my task to - I hire Joy. She wrote almost every paper for me for the last 2 years

Term paper done up to a highest standard, no revisions, perfect communication. 10s across the board!!!!!!!

I send him instructions and that's it. my paper was done 10 hours later, no stupid questions, he nailed it.

Sometimes I wonder if Michael is secretly a professor because he literally knows everything. HE DID SO WELL THAT MY PROF SHOWED MY PAPER AS AN EXAMPLE. unbelievable, many thanks

You Might Also Like

New Posts to Your Inbox!

Stay in touch

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — TikTok — The Influence of TikTok on Child Development

The Influence of Tiktok on Child Development

• Categories: Effects of Social Media TikTok

About this sample

Words: 479 |

Published: Sep 6, 2023

Words: 479 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Entertainment and creativity, social interaction and communication, educational content and awareness, potential concerns, conclusion: a balancing act.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: Sociology

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1368 words

3 pages / 1434 words

1 pages / 507 words

2 pages / 1056 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on TikTok

TikTok has emerged as a cultural phenomenon, reshaping the way we consume and create content in the digital age. This essay explores the multifaceted impact of TikTok on society and culture, shedding light on the ways in which [...]

In recent years, the social media platform TikTok has taken the world by storm, garnering millions of users and reshaping the landscape of online content creation. However, it has also faced its fair share of controversies and [...]

In conclusion, the impact of social media on mental health is multifaceted, encompassing both positive and negative aspects. It is essential for individuals to approach social media with critical awareness and conscious [...]

Since its launch in 2016, TikTok has rapidly gained widespread popularity, particularly among younger demographics. With its unique format and engaging content, TikTok has significantly influenced the social media landscape, [...]

Social media creates a dopamine-driven feedback loop to condition young adults to stay online, stripping them of important social skills and further keeping them on social media, leading them to feel socially isolated. Annotated [...]

Today, we are in the 21st century and people do not find time to come & interact with each other. Social media helps in connecting themselves with social networking sites through which now people can stay far and yet remain [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

[QA] No “Zero-Shot” Without Exponential Data: Pretraining Concept Frequency Determines Multimodal Model Performance Arxiv Papers

Multimodal models' "zero-shot" performance relies on pretraining data; exponential data increase is needed for linear improvements, challenging true "zero-shot" generalization. https://arxiv.org/abs//2404.04125 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ArxivPapers TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@arxiv_papers Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/arxiv-papers/id1692476016 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arxiv-papers --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arxiv-papers/support

• Episode Website
• More Episodes
• Igor Melnyk

Top Podcasts In Science

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• Backchannel
• Newsletters
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

Amanda Hoover

Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI

Students have submitted more than 22 million papers that may have used generative AI in the past year, new data released by plagiarism detection company Turnitin shows.

A year ago, Turnitin rolled out an AI writing detection tool that was trained on its trove of papers written by students as well as other AI-generated texts. Since then, more than 200 million papers have been reviewed by the detector, predominantly written by high school and college students. Turnitin found that 11 percent may contain AI-written language in 20 percent of its content, with 3 percent of the total papers reviewed getting flagged for having 80 percent or more AI writing. (Turnitin is owned by Advance, which also owns Condé Nast, publisher of WIRED.) Turnitin says its detector has a false positive rate of less than 1 percent when analyzing full documents.

ChatGPT’s launch was met with knee-jerk fears that the English class essay would die . The chatbot can synthesize information and distill it near-instantly—but that doesn’t mean it always gets it right. Generative AI has been known to hallucinate , creating its own facts and citing academic references that don’t actually exist. Generative AI chatbots have also been caught spitting out biased text on gender and race . Despite those flaws, students have used chatbots for research, organizing ideas, and as a ghostwriter . Traces of chatbots have even been found in peer-reviewed, published academic writing .

Teachers understandably want to hold students accountable for using generative AI without permission or disclosure. But that requires a reliable way to prove AI was used in a given assignment. Instructors have tried at times to find their own solutions to detecting AI in writing, using messy, untested methods to enforce rules , and distressing students. Further complicating the issue, some teachers are even using generative AI in their grading processes.

Detecting the use of gen AI is tricky. It’s not as easy as flagging plagiarism, because generated text is still original text. Plus, there’s nuance to how students use gen AI; some may ask chatbots to write their papers for them in large chunks or in full, while others may use the tools as an aid or a brainstorm partner.

Students also aren't tempted by only ChatGPT and similar large language models. So-called word spinners are another type of AI software that rewrites text, and may make it less obvious to a teacher that work was plagiarized or generated by AI. Turnitin’s AI detector has also been updated to detect word spinners, says Annie Chechitelli, the company’s chief product officer. It can also flag work that was rewritten by services like spell checker Grammarly, which now has its own generative AI tool . As familiar software increasingly adds generative AI components, what students can and can’t use becomes more muddled.

Detection tools themselves have a risk of bias. English language learners may be more likely to set them off; a 2023 study found a 61.3 percent false positive rate when evaluating Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exams with seven different AI detectors. The study did not examine Turnitin’s version. The company says it has trained its detector on writing from English language learners as well as native English speakers. A study published in October found that Turnitin was among the most accurate of 16 AI language detectors in a test that had the tool examine undergraduate papers and AI-generated papers.

Dell Cameron

Andy Greenberg

Rhett Allain

Ryan Waniata

Schools that use Turnitin had access to the AI detection software for a free pilot period, which ended at the start of this year. Chechitelli says a majority of the service’s clients have opted to purchase the AI detection. But the risks of false positives and bias against English learners have led some universities to ditch the tools for now. Montclair State University in New Jersey announced in November that it would pause use of Turnitin’s AI detector. Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University did the same last summer.

“This is hard. I understand why people want a tool,” says Emily Isaacs, executive director of the Office of Faculty Excellence at Montclair State. But Isaacs says the university is concerned about potentially biased results from AI detectors, as well as the fact that the tools can’t provide confirmation the way they can with plagiarism. Plus, Montclair State doesn’t want to put a blanket ban on AI, which will have some place in academia. With time and more trust in the tools, the policies could change. “It’s not a forever decision, it’s a now decision,” Isaacs says.

Chechitelli says the Turnitin tool shouldn’t be the only consideration in passing or failing a student. Instead, it’s a chance for teachers to start conversations with students that touch on all of the nuance in using generative AI. “People don’t really know where that line should be,” she says.

You Might Also Like …

In your inbox: The best and weirdest stories from WIRED’s archive

Jeffrey Epstein’s island visitors exposed by data broker

8 Google employees invented modern AI. Here’s the inside story

The crypto fraud kingpin who almost got away

It's shadow time! How to view the solar eclipse, online and in person

Steven Levy

Will Knight

Lauren Goode

Matt Burgess

Benj Edwards, Ars Technica

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Watches and Wonders 2024 Day 1 Wrap-Up

By Cam Wolf

Yesterday was the first day of Watches & Wonders, the industry’s largest trade show that brings an avalanche of new releases. I got to touch and feel plenty of them over my six appointments—including the Rolex novelties , a Cartier that tells time in reverse , and an IWC that will stay accurate for the next 45 million years . Here’s my full rundown of the day, including my favorite pieces from each maker and the best free souvenirs I got to bring home with me.

11:15 a.m. – Rolex

The booth: A full-blown Rolex boutique dropped into the fairgrounds. There was a massive Pepsi bezel insert arcing just below the first floor ceiling. All the folks working the booth were wearing denim outfits for some reason.

The main attraction: The new Rolex GMT with a black-and-gray dial ( Nick Gould suggested to me on IG that it be dubbed the Spurs; apparently Victor Wembanyama has some fans in Switzerland). The biggest Rolex news of the day might have been about a watch they’re no longer making, though. The Palexpo was buzzing with news the Crown discontinued the Le Mans Daytona that debuted just last summer.

My favorite piece : The 1908 really won me over. The “rice-grain” guilloche dial looks like the vibrating sand in Dune right before a big worm appears. I also loved the mother-of-pearl dial on the Day-Date, even if its cloudy appearance is giving me Grand Seiko Snowflake vibes. Also the Daytona with the white mother-of-pearl dial is undeniable.

Swag report: A box of chocolates arranged like piano keys, running from milk to dark chocolate, along with a denim pouch that’s just the right size for an iPad mini. The real prize, though, might be the tote bag with colorful butterflies on it (which I’d like to see on a watch, to be honest!) that the chocolates and iPad pouch came in.

SEE THE FULL ROLEX COLLECTION HERE

1:30 p.m. – A. Lange & Söhne

The booth: Routinely one of the best at the event. Beyond the Godzilla-sized model of its new watch, there’s a bar where the German brand serves pretzels and beer.

By Monica Mendal

By The Editors of GQ

By Vince Mancini

The main attraction: The new glow-in-the-dark Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen.” The watch is so precious that we weren’t even allowed to hold it, but the guy showing it off intermittently blasted it with a UV light to make it glow like the Green Goblin.

My favorite piece: The Lumen, undoubtedly! But the Datograph Up/Down is classic Lange.

2:30 p.m. – TAG Heuer

The booth: Features a massive, floor-to-ceiling digital display that starts off disguised as a regular wall. But then the magic starts, and the wall slides away to reveal TAG’s new Monaco Split Seconds.

The main attraction: The aforementioned Monaco Split Seconds, named for its chronograph feature with multiple seconds hands. Think of it like a stopwatch’s “lap” function. In my tour of the TAG factory on Sunday, the brand’s heritage director Nicholas Biebuyck talked about the immense time and effort that went into conceptualizing this watch. The team there listed out virtually every conceivable complication and worked out how they are connected to TAG. The split seconds, or rattrapante, makes a huge amount of sense for a brand with such deep ties in racing. This historic connection is the only connection to the past. The sharp-edged square Monaco already seems like a thing of the future, and the skeletonized dial only enforces the idea you’ll need a time machine—and about $15,000,000!—to get your hands on one.

For what it’s worth, I was in my meeting with legendary TAG Heuer collector Jeff Stein , who runs a website dedicated to the brand called On the Dash , and he was very enthusiastic.

My favorite piece: While the new Monaco delivers all the flash, I really loved the new Carrera SN—signaling the s ilver and n oir (black) dial—with speedy red accents. A chronograph with red detailing is a classic combination for a reason. It just works.

SEE THE FULL TAG HEUER COLLECTION HERE

3:30 p.m. – IWC

The booth: Elaborate as always. This year, the butt of the moon jutted out of the ceiling and rotated over a pool of water in which the premier watches floated. Gisele Bündchen was also in attendance doing interviews, which is funny when you remember that at one time both her and Tom Brady were IWC ambassadors . I joked that IWC kept Gisele in the divorce.

The main attraction: Well, making a watch and saying that its moonphase is going to be accurate for the next 45 million years is certainly one way to make headlines. “ To make something that is completely unnecessary but gives us joy satisfies a very important human need,” IWC’s CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr told my colleague Mike Christensen . “Because if we just made the functional, the bland and the useful, the world would be a hell of a boring place.” I like that thinking, even if the claim is so bananas that there’s no way to verify it. The watch features one gear that will only turn once every 400 years. If I were around then, I would create a special event around it, the way everybody on the East Coast stopped what they were doing to watch the eclipse earlier this week.

My favorite piece: The new Portugieser Perpetual Calendar, with a black dial covered in 15 layers of lacquer, was a stunner. It wasn’t the piece I expected to love going in, but it won me over immediately.

READ MORE ABOUT THE NEW ETERNAL CALENDAR HERE

4:30 p.m. – Tudor

The booth: Themed around the brand’s partnership with the Alinghi Red Bull sailing team. One side of a replica boat crashed through the wall and could be seen from outside Tudor’s base. Inside, the boat allowed adventurous attendees to wear a VR set and take the vessel out for a virtual spin. I didn’t get a chance to do that, but I did come in last at an arcade game recreating a regatta. So!

The main attraction : Hard to say, honestly. Tudor put out a small-but-mighty collection of three men’s pieces . The one that made the biggest splash is probably the new Black Bay 58 GMT with a “Coke” dial. I really appreciated the GMT hand, with its unique snowflake shape, and the bronze accents that give the watch a vintage vibe.

My favorite piece: Honestly, it’s the GMT, but the all-gold Black Bay with a mossy green dial is a big step up for Tudor. I think they nailed the landing there.

Swag report : A hat and a belt both featuring the Alinghi Red Bull sailing team logo.

SEE THE FULL TUDOR COLLECTION HERE

5:15 p.m. – Cartier

The booth: Like the nicest Fifth Avenue jewelry store you’ve ever been inside. The moon was a big theme this year. On a digital screen at the back of the booth was a clip of the moon glimmering over a body of water.

The main attraction: Cartier really delivered this year with a massive amount of novelties. The new Baignoire Bangles and mini versions of the Americaine and Tank Louis are sure to be massive crowd pleasers. But if I have to pick just one, it’s probably the Santos-Dumont Rewind . Cartier literally reversed the movement and flipped all the numerals on the watch so it tells time backwards. The Cartier representatives in the booth said that there’s no historical precedent for it, but it’s meant to be a statement about the fluidity of time. They did mention one special order of an automaton that also went backwards but said it hardly functioned in the same way.

Favorite piece: Wooooo! The new burgundy Cartier Tortue had me doing math in my head: How many decades of Affirm payments would I need to make to buy this $35,600 watch? It might actually be worth it. The original Tortue came out over a century ago, in 1912, and the Parisian brand last reissued it in the 2000s. Now, thanks to Cartier’s Privé collection—which revives a beloved vintage model every year—the Tortue is back in limited numbers. The burgundy carries an opaline dial that gives it a beautiful aged effect. I felt like Louis Cartier himself had preserved this watch for over 100 years just so I could wear it on my wrist for a brief moment today.

Swag report: Enclosed in a box and bag in Cartier’s signature burgundy were two small hard-cover notebooks.

READ MORE ABOUT THE NEW SANTOS HERE

20% off $250 spend w/ Wayfair coupon code

Military Members save 15% Off - Michaels coupon

Enjoy 30% Off w/ ASOS Promo Code

eBay coupon for +$5 Off sitewide

Enjoy Peacock Premium for Only $1.99/Month Instead of $5.99

$100 discount on your next Samsung purchase* in 2024