Abstract 

TikTok’s innovative technological advancements, as a leading social media platform, pave the way for enhanced communication and heightened content productivity. The threat that TikTok possesses becomes often disguised through the creative and original methods its users can share and create content. For teenagers, the platform is irresistible to have as it has been built into a social network where having the platform is essential to keep up to date with content and news. Conversely, this paper’s purpose is to examine the dangers of TikTok that it poses to teenagers hindering their ability for socially progress. Through case studies and research, the discussion around habitual use, privacy concerns, and the output of misinformation are analysed in this paper to highlight the harmful effects that TikTok imposes on Teenagers constricting the progression of social change.

Introduction

The social media platform TikTok’s mission “is to inspire creativity and bring joy” (TikTok, 2023) however, this narrow perspective fails to adequately address its harmful effects, a viewpoint I aim to challenge. While TikTok, the “platform” provides teenagers with a networked community, the portrayal of potentially harmful content restricts avenues for positive social change, thereby limiting the platform’s overall impact on societal progression. The platform enables its users to have access to create, share, and collaborate content that can be uploaded to a public network, creating an easy and accessible communication domain. While the majority view TikTok’s expansive and creative network as a way to broaden horizons for change, it fails to address the extensive social issues being 41% of their total users, teenagers (Mohsin, 2023). The inhibition of social change for teenagers using the platform is attributed to habitual use, privacy concerns, and an environment that is fuelled by misinformation. For many Teenagers, the addiction to social media stems from the ability to establish social connections with one another, which becomes a basic part of being a human being (Yang, 2023, p.2).  Therefore, the platform must be held accountable for exploiting its teenage users’ desire for communication mediums.

Section 1, Habitual use TikTok Influences on Teenagers

The advancement of new technology continues to grow, providing people with a convenient way to communicate through an online environment accessed through smartphones, applications, and social media platforms. For teenagers, the convenience of online communication has led to the risk of habitual use due to the constant streaming features on the platform, thereby impeding the potential for social change.

The concept, a “third place” proposed by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, where it provides users with a home away from home. Evidently, TikTok is recognised as a “third place” as it can largely affect the ability of teenagers to network for social change if they cannot disengage with the platform. The heavy exposure of content that younger generations are exposed to daily, largely impacts their attention span and their mental health. Furthermore, being strategically designed to engage people with content for extensive periods. TikTok has achieved this through the “For You” page feature, which is a “highly personalised and infinitely scrollable page of algorithmically recommended content” (International, 2021) foremostly, collecting data from the user’s interests. The allure of the ‘For You’ page for teenagers stems from their limited ability to distinguish between reality and online engagement, thus hindering their capacity to disengage from the platform (Yang, 2023). While this distinctive feature allows the platform to deliver personalised content, such as dance videos, the emergence of negative addiction is a direct result of teenager’s extensive usage of the platform. This is supported by a young participant’s user experience, “I want to spend 5 minutes, but the videos are so interesting I end up watching for at least six hours” (International, 2021, p. 30). This compelling evidence highlights the strong grasp that TikTok has over younger generations, illustrating how easy it is for the platform to prolong teenagers’ engagement. As described by another participant the behaviour entails “mindless scrolling” (International, 2021, p. 32), highlighting the passive and compulsive nature that the platform utilizes in teenagers’ online consumption.  

Evidently, social media’s substantial impact on teenagers’ mental health poses a threat to their communication and interaction patterns, potentially leading to feelings of isolation.  This negative social change is supported by the US Surgeon General’s learning explains that “TikTok risks potentially exposes children and young people to sleep and attention problems and may contribute to changes in brain structure similar to those observed in people experiencing drug addiction” (International, 2021, p. 34). Further research supports the addictive nature of the platform placing teenager’s mental health at risk and highly effecting their brain development. The platform features segregate a sense of reality away from its users and is developing a network where social change for teenagers is placing lasting harm on their mental health. The cost that limits social change for teenagers is outlined by their susceptibility to engagement with streaming content placing strains on their brain and social development. When using social media platforms teenagers should have the ability to communicate, share, and collaborate without paying the costs of the existing faults in the system. Overall, TikTok’s mental health and engagement concerns hinder the ability of social change to occur, putting teenagers at risk.

Section 2, Privacy concerns for Teenagers  

The popularity of social media platforms continues to gain momentum and the risk of privacy concerns for users. “Technology has become intermeshed with everyday life and with life projects; it has become socialized” (Delanty, 2018, p. 203). Due to the socialisation of technology, TikTok can stem from the necessity of communication in everyday life. The threat posed for the progression of social change for teenagers lies in the implications created by TikTok including, cyberbullying and private data exposure. The social norms expected of a teenager in a social environment can be dangerous. The influence of these environments has to ability to control what they share about their personal information online. Ebert et al. (2023) discuss that “peers may increase the social influence of others on adolescents’ privacy behaviour” (p.9). This reiterates consequences such as the breach of online privacy without awareness and the potential foundations for cyberbullying. These consequences stem from teenagers limited understanding of online privacy on the platform and the encouragement of sharing private information online. The claim further an “analysis of the app revealed extensive aggressive user tracking (e.g., including techniques such as fingerprinting) and data sharing with other websites (e.g., sharing searches with Facebook).” (Ebert et al., 2023, p.2). This highlights the instability the platform provides teenagers and without adequate mechanisms in place to protect and foster secure communication, all teenagers are vulnerable to the social issue of information exposure on a worldwide domain.

While collecting data is important for the platform to accelerate communication features and understand its most prominent users, the social issue surrounding teenagers’ privacy continues to become a concern. An Amnesty International news (2023) article states that TikTok practices invasive data collecting that takes advantage of children in countries where their privacy protection is weakened by government restrictions. Furthermore, this highlights how TikTok values there most vulnerable users and how the exploitation of this age group’s privacy is a necessity for the platform regardless of laws and regulations of privacy. The concerns for teenagers’ privacy on TikTok are endless, with the platform’s unpredictable environment continuing to expand and develop and this hinders teenagers’ ability to securely use the platform, resulting in negative social change.

 With the leakage of privacy protection online, the issue of cyberbullying is adhered to as a contributing factor to the cost of TikTok’s societal progression for teenagers. Cyberbullying is becoming a social norm on platforms like TikTok due to the unlimited access users are given in the online sphere. The result of cyberbullying creates an abrupt and unsafe online environment for teenagers where the manipulation of their mental health is at risk. TikTok has been one of the most dangerous platforms for young teenagers to develop when research shows that teenagers using TikTok “have a 64% chance of experiencing cyberbullying” (Leach, 2020). This highlights the prominence of cyberbullying occurring on TikTok placing teenagers at high risk when using the platform. Furthermore, TikTok can keep users connected on the internet, but it also enhances the social issue of cyberbullying and adolescent privacy online, largely impacting the opportunity for social change to occur on this platform.

Section 3, Teenagers susceptibility to misinformation.

TikTok’s accessibility has empowered users to manage their online information flow effortlessly, granting them control over both their information input and output. The vast array of information available online and social influences creates avenues for education and the consolidation of knowledge, thereby contributing to the development of the human experience. In contrast to this, TikTok is recognised as one of the leading online platforms for misleading information output, creating a vulnerable environment for teenagers to develop knowledge and comprehend content, impeding the progression of social change. It has been found that “almost one in five videos on the popular social media platform contained misinformation” (Singh, 2022). This research exposes the recurrence of misinformation on TikTok, demonstrating the ability of any teenager to be a victim of misinformation without their knowledge. The significant impact that the overexposure of information and redirection has on teenagers, resonates with their ability to process the authenticity of topics and news.

Teenagers are at risk of feeling overwhelmed with information sharing on social media, due to their limited understanding of the information and the damaging effect social media has on them (Tamez- Robledo, 2022). In addition, the insecure features of TikTok enhances teenagers’ susceptibility to be exposed to harmful information and misinformation as this is not being detected and removed. Echo chambers feed into the ability for networked communities to interact and share information. According to Cinelli et al., (2021) “Social media may limit the exposure to diverse perspectives and Favour the information of groups of like-minded users framing and reinforcing a shared narrative, that is, echo chambers”. TikTok’s use of echo chambers is a way to isolate content produced to relate content to their users’ interests. Due to the gravity of TikTok’s user algorithm and the extent of mainstream media platforms, the information produced is not filtered, posing threats to the users exposed to the content.

Social media Influencers hold significant authority over teenagers’ behaviour and perceptions while using the platform. Their position on the platform can promote, provide, and influence the behaviour of information consumption to their targeted audience. The popularity of social media Influencers stems from the connection of identity between a user and the person that creates influence, creating avenues for community and education (John, 2021). Although Influencers provide guidance and stability for teenagers, they also can persuade and share false information with their network. The notion of Influences being a key figure for teenagers coincides with the ability for similar values a major influence in their produced content. In accordance with Lin (2023), “It is very easy for some miscommunicated values to lead young people who have not yet formed correct values to form wrong values”. Moreover, the communication of information and values teenagers can depict from influences on social media poses a significant risk to their development and their ability to shape their own opinions around topics. In an accelerating media sphere, TikTok continues to contribute to the way information is communicated and persuaded to networks. Contributing to the deceleration of social change for teenagers, fermented by the threat of misinformation the issues of social media influences advocacy and the recurrence of misinformation need to be addressed. For the platform to provide safety and reassurance for teenager’s education development.

Conclusion

Through this paper I have discussed the detrimental effects of TikTok on teenagers, highlighting how these effects constrain avenues for the progression of positive social change. While TikTok’s mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy, through the discussion of the platform’s detrimental effects placed on teenagers, it has illuminated the negative implications of the platform’s foundations. Ultimately the issues discussed including, habitual use, privacy concerns, and the exploitation of misinformation underscores the importance is addressing the impact the platform is having on this network. The platform must acknowledge its inconsistencies for positive social change to occur. The solutions I offer in order for TikTok to harness the ability for positive social change include, the implementation of stricter guidelines and opportunities for users to report outputted content that may cause distress, to be immediately removed from all platforms. Thus, while social change for teenagers is possible for the platform, without restrictive guidelines and guaranteed data protection, the cost of the platform’s inconsistencies will continue to affect the progression of social change for teenagers.

References

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