Millions of people have loved Tiktok, and especially teens have been influenced by it. There is a considerable effect created by tiktok over the teens. Results are positive as well as harmful.
What is tiktok all about?
Tiktok has gained a lot of popularity, especially over the teens of the U.S. Bytedance created it. This company was introduced in 2017 and has its headquarter in Beijing. Users use tiktok by making short videos of 15-45 seconds and can add several effects to it. There is a wide range of users that have found their influence in Tiktok. According to most of the Tiktok celebrities, it is considered one of the best ways to express yourself and influence others. There are almost 500 million users on tiktok.
Why do teens prefer it?
Tiktok helps teens create new and innovative content through which they spread their influence all around the world. With the increasing trend of tiktok, teens find unique and more exciting ways to extend their talent. With the increasingly hectic schedule life, people aren’t getting significant time to learn new things. This is where tiktok comes as a rescue. Tiktok creates short videos that carry immense value and knowledge. Teenagers prefer watching them instead of investing a considerable amount of time in book learning, which can be done in a preferably lesser amount of time.
Is there any app made in competition with Tiktok?
Yes! To surpass the popularity of tiktok, facebook’s Instagram has released reels back in august 2020 that was a duplicate version of tiktok and allowed its users to create short videos extending up to 30 seconds. This, however, wasn’t successful in surpassing the popularity of tiktok among the teens in the U.S. The recent news reports show that just a few months back, the former president of the U.S Donald Trump gave access to Oracle and Walmart to handle 20% of TikTok’s American data. Just like tiktok, Instagram reels allows its users to edit short videos containing lip-syncing, dancing, singing or showcasing other types of talents.
Who is the owner of tiktok?
TikTok’s original name was Douyin back in 2016 September and was created by Bytedance. It was found in china by a multinational Chinese company.
What are the positive effects of tiktok on teens?
Source of entertainment:
TikTok seems to provide a more robust connection network where most teens can create their preferred kind of short videos and easily interact with each other. Users can dance, sing, act, do lip-syncing, and can showcase any of their hidden talents to the world by using group interactions. Most of the teens find their regular source of entertainment in this app as it is very interactive. The users are allowed to participate in varieties of challenges. During this pandemic stress, tiktok helped the teenagers divert their minds from the negativity spread outside. This way, teenagers have found it as their source of entertainment, especially in this global pandemic.
Increasing their connectivity:
Teenage is an age that is repeatedly crushed by stress. It’s the need of every teenager to stay connected during this age. Tiktok has given them access to a larger friend circle made virtually on the app. This has provided them with a sense of connectivity that worked as a senior feature to love tiktok.
Becoming famous:
If you are the one having something unique, or you have the potential to provide the world with something unique, then you too can become one of the celebrities over tiktok. Who doesn’t want to become famous doing the thing they are passionate about? Everyone wants to be the one! TikTok’s compelling and straightforward premise helps showcase their talent to the world and gain publicity via their passion. The thing is to give the world something unique and valuable. Value comes with a result, and the product can be anything.
On Instagram, too, you can become famous as there are many ways to increase engagement over your posts, like buying Instagram likes, views, and followers. Be the result is a smile on somebody’s face, or anything else. If your content has created some value or impact over others, then soon, you’ll become famous.
Learning new things:
Many people have used Tiktok to make content that other people can utilize. Users create comedy, lifestyle, health and wellness, fitness, dance, singing, acting, and many different kinds of videos to help people in their daily lives. This app promotes the concept of learning beyond the age bar and hence, is loved by teenagers.
Promotes creativity:
TikTok encourages creativity and stimulates the enhancement of sharing and learning ideas that allows people to showcase their hidden talents efficiently and effectively. The younger generation is generally more creative and explorative, so is the content created by these teenagers. Teens have got a chance to show their creativity and increase their popularity with the help of tiktok.
Getting more opportunities:
During this pandemic, many students and graduates have found works like volunteering and internship opportunities directly through tiktok. Tiktok is a very engaging platform, and it helps the youth get started with many new opportunities. Famous brands like Linens N Love have provided massive opportunities to teenagers to work with them via internships.
Keeping them updated:
Tiktok is a social media app that features the latest content that helps teenagers keep them updated with the country’s current happenings. Users can easily update their knowledge while using it in a comfortable, effortless, and fun way.
Creating influence:
Creating influence is not easy, but since tiktok has become the most popular social media platform, making an impact has become an easier task than ever. May teenagers find that their art and talent have been appreciated, and people are getting influenced by their content. This makes another reason to tiktok for becoming famous among teens.
What are the harmful effects of tiktok on teens?
However, there are many benefits of tiktok; it has many severe adverse effects on teenagers. Some of them are mentioned below:
Teenagers are getting addicted:
It is straightforward to become a victim of addiction while using tiktok. The attractive 30 seconds videos on Tiktok make it hard to get bored. The app is designed to make it addictive. Users are connected to this app so that they don’t even blink their eyes for a second. Teenagers keep scrolling the tiktok the entire day. Tiktok serves the videos that are wholely designed according to one’s taste. This makes it way more addictive than using any other social media platform.
Bullying/mental health:
There are many examples where the app has been used to create positive content, but there are cases that have been found to make a negative impact. Many people and politicians use this app to criticize another person or party that causes a severe effect on teenagers’ budding minds. Sometimes, the influence of this kind of negativity is so much that it causes one to make life-threatening decisions. Teenagers being emotionally sensitive are more prone to fall into this negativity and take life-threatening severe actions.
Not safe for teenagers:
this app doesn’t have any restrictions on the users who are joining. This feature allows any strangers to enter tiktok, which can cause serious disaster to one’s privacy. Strangers usually message teenagers and make them the prey of their fraudsters as teenagers are likely to trust them. This causes serious concern for teenage users.
Creates nuisance:
This app has been designed to provide innocent fun to the users, but the high no. of usage has caused a lot of disturbance in society. It seems like tiktok has become the highest requirement of teens these days. Most teenagers are following the crowd that has to lead them to get dependent on tiktok. Parents are highly stressed and concerned about this. The constant use of this application has become a headache to the parents.
Unsocialized behavior:
The frequent use of tiktok by teenagers has developed a feeling of online family. Teenagers dependent on TikTok are likely to avoid social gatherings and family meetings that make them introverts. It is a known fact that communication skill is necessary to grow as a good human being. Still, since tiktok has come in the trends, teenagers avoid any gathering that hampers their personality. This has caused them to behave abnormally and unsocialized in society.
Lack of moral values:
TikTok being overly rated has made most teenagers use and follow its content. This has created a lack of moral value in society. For instance, an accident took place on the road. Instead of helping the victim, people are busy making videos of the incident on their mobile phones. This shows how uncivilized people have become these days due to the ongoing trend of these video-making apps like tiktok. If this continued, the world would not be more than an animal civilized society as there is a severe decrease in moral values.
Wastage of time:
Although the application has been made to create fun and entertainment. People are unnecessarily using it and spending a lot of precious time making music videos. The world is growing faster, and there is an increased need to develop and learn more new skills that can prove advantageous to their future. The time wasted on making unnecessary videos on Tiktok could have been invested in learning new things and skills that would have given them value in the longer term. Other apps like Instagram are selling likes, followers, and views to increase the audience’s engagement
Obesity and lifestyle disorders:
Time has gone, when people spent their time in the clear sky playing outdoor games. Due to the increasing trend of this app, the physical activity of teenagers has been considerably decreased. The decreased physical activity has resulted in generating severe many lifestyle disorders.
Used as a harassment tool:
This app has become a source of fun out of criticism. Many users are using the app to make fun of religion, community, sectors, and other groups. A recent example of this harmless fun is the video that has got viral, having inadequate portraying of hilarious dance on a religious song that made fun of Islamic religion. This was a completely wrong usage of the app. Most of these improper actions have been done by teenagers.
Inadequate content:
Unlike their innocent ages, many teenagers using this app are indulging in indecent sexual proposals. There is an intense need to modify the privacy settings of this app. Teenagers below 16 years of age should not be allowed to use the app or access the app’s mature content. Young girls are seen singing explicit and sexually provoking lyrics in society that cause significant harm to women’s feminine nature.
Many young girls have been exposed to nude, disturbing comments and messages that can cause a serious impact on their minds. Many girls using this app have been asked for their details, like contact info that can be used to post provoking pics. This has served as making girls pray for the hunters like gang rapists. Often, young boys are also forced to publish their nude pics which turns into defamy in society leading the teenagers to take life-threatening severe actions.
How can parents help their teenage children?
Even though the app is not safe and right for their teenage children, they can take some major steps to keep them away from strangers.
- Ask your younger children to keep their accounts private. This will help them keep their content accessed only to a few no. of the people whom they know. Thus, saving them from potential risk.
- Make sure that you use Tiktok’s family pairing feature. This feature allows you to access the significant activities of your child on the app. Through this, you can set screen time limits, completely turn off the D.M.s, and can restrict their account so that no stranger can have access to it.
- Follow your teen’s account on Tiktok so that you can know what they are posting and to whom their posts are visible.
- Make sure that you keep tabs on the content they have access to. This way, you can get to know what they are watching and liking.
- Remind your teens to stay kind with others and be positive. Feed your child with positive values and stay connected to their activities on the app.
- Make them feel that you believe in them, and in any critical circumstance, you will stand by their side.
Tiktok is a great app to make yourself entertained and popular. Meanwhile, this app can have severe impacts on the minds of teenagers as well. So, there is a high need to make your child aware of the effects of tik tok to help themselves keep safe from strangers.
