Why TikTok Is Bad For You And Your Mental Health

TikTok is the latest social media app that every teenager has become glued to and its popularity only grew more because of the pandemic. Back in my day it was Facebook and YouTube and before them it was the prehistoric Myspace. TikTok has exploded in terms of users in the last couple of years but is TikTok actually good for you and more importantly, is it bad for your mental wellbeing? I decided to create my own profile on TikTok to see what all the rage was about several weeks ago. I did this to see how TikTok differs from the other popular social medias of today but also to see how safe it would be for my son. After all, all his friends have the app but I was hesitant to let him have it at all after hearing several horror stories.

One of the most obvious horror stories that surrounded TikTok was the Story of Momo, the disturbing puppet avatar that would contact children on places like TikTok and WhatsApp and tell them they needed to complete dangerous challenges including self-harm or they would be killed. The news spread like wildfire and people all over Facebook took to warn their friends of the harm that the Momo puppet was doing to unsuspecting children. This was later debunked as a hoax and simply moral panic by parents but it marked a turning point in social media history where parents became more cautious of what their children were looking at online.

Momo isn’t the only worrying story that we have heard that surrounds social medias like TikTok though and more worryingly, many have been real.

From my research on TikTok and by using it for several weeks myself to get a better understanding of it, the below are the reasons why I think TikTok is bad for you. It is however worth pointing out that these dangers are mostly at the extreme end and it’s likely that most users will have an innocent experience with TikTok.

Still, I think it’s always worth educating yourself on platforms to see what kind of risk they pose to you and your children.

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First, what exactly is TikTok?

TikTok is a Chinese owned social media platform that allows users to post short clips to their feed and add pop music to their videos. It’s also capable of letting its users add many different filters and childish ‘stickers’ to videos. TikTok is a place where you can be truly creative. When you look under the hood however, it’s easy to see how this child-aimed app could be dangerous for children’s mental health.

Whilst TikTok doesn’t say that it’s app is directed at children, the vast majority of users are kids. This is why it’s important to be aware of the dangers of TikTok in my opinion because from what I have seen, it’s a wild west right now where children can be exposed to all kinds of things that can scar them or be influenced to copy stupid challenges.

Dangerous challenges

It’s fair to say that a lot of TikTok’s rise to popularity was due to its viral challenges. Every day a new viral challenge is created on TikTok and most of them are completely harmless. However, there have been several TikTik challenges that have been condemned for being stupid and dangerous to users. Because TikTok’s user base is predominantly made up of children, they’re obviously easily influenced into partaking in challenges that they think are cool and fun.

Take for example the ‘blackout challenge‘ which encourages users to choke each other until the point of being unconscious. Of course, most right-minded children wouldn’t do something as stupid as this but there’s always some that will think that this kind of ‘challenge’ is funny. Needless to say, this particular challenge on TikTok has lead to some users dying.

You’ve then got downright dangerous challenges like the ‘Benadryl challenge‘ which has users downing a dozen Benadryl pills in the hopes of becoming high and having hallucinations. Users then film themselves on this high and post it to TikTok in search of clout. Obviously, this is highly dangerous and can lead to things like seizures. Some users have died from taking part in this ‘challenge’ too.

Another dangerous TikTok challenge is called the ‘Kiki challenge‘ which is where users film themselves jogging next to moving cars before getting back in. Many users have been seriously injured by taking part in this challenge.

Automated feed

One of the main reasons that TikTok is bad for you is the very nature of it’s user interface. Unlike YouTube that requires users to click on videos to begin watching them, TikTok’s videos start automatically and you can be exposed to all kinds of things without wanting to. TikTok videos are short and they play through one after the other. Whilst this can make for a short burst of mostly harmless entertainment, it can also be harmful to the children that get sucked into the never-ending content being thrown at them. Like any other social platform, disturbing material can be uploaded with the sole intention of disturbing children. In many cases, it can take the social platform some time to identify and remove harmful content.

In 2020 a man live streamed his suicide on Facebook and this led to some sick people splicing the clip and uploading it to TikTok. It ended up on the homepage which meant that millions of children would have seen it and been left utterly traumatized. Of course, this isn’t entirely TikTok’s fault but they certainly struggled to remove the clips from the platform. Some of the clips were uploaded to covert profiles that looked innocent enough, only to show the clip once the user scrolled over them. Stopping this kind of conduct is difficult, especially when this type of content is hidden in the middle of videos but it’s something to be aware of as it’s likely to keep happening.

The automatic nature of TikTok’s videos means that any kind of content can be put in front of children and teens every time they open the app.

TikTok predators

Like any other social media platform, TikTok is full of child predators. There’s likely more than most too because the platform is full of children which makes it appealing for these adults to browse. A recent study found that children as young as eight were being groomed by predators and were also being bombarded with explicit messages from adults. It goes without saying this kind of conduct has always existed online but with TikTok’s lack of security measures, it makes it a hot bed for predatory behaviour. Even if you make your account private, predators can still see your profile picture and it doesn’t take much for them to create a fake profile to trick children into adding them as a ‘friend’.

TikTok makes it easy for predators to contact children privately and does a poor job of swatting them quickly. This is an obvious way TikTok is bad for you, especially yourfor young children.

TikTok is addictive

Another reason why TikTok is bad for you is because it’s incredibly addictive. Just like Instagram there’s a constant stream of content being pumped in your face. With all the flashing lights and music stimulation, you’re always left wanting more. If you’re a teenager or younger you can find yourself flicking through videos for hours on end. Needless to say this is a great way to waste away your time but if you’re the one posting the videos you can also become addicted to the social scoring aspect through likes and comments.

This is nothing new when it comes to social media but because the audience that uses TikTok is younger than Instagram or SnapChat, it’s easy to think that these young people will tie their sense of self-worth to the online feedback they get at a younger age then we’ve ever seen before. This obviously has very negative consequences on young people and can lead to not only things like anxiety and depression but also FOMO (fear of missing out).

Harassment

From what I can tell, this is one of the biggest problems with social media – relying on positive feedback to make yourself feel good about yourself. Impressionable children that use platforms like TikTok are exposing themselves to all kinds of judgement that they just can’t understand at such a young age. To many of adults us that get negative comments online, we can most of the time brush them off because we know that’s unfortunately how the online world works and that those people just exist. To a child that is still forming an identity, these types of comments can be devastating.

Of course, the extreme end of this is cyber bullying. Like platforms such as Twitter, TikTok makes it incredibly easy to make anonymous accounts. You can also direct message anyone you wish so it goes without saying that harassment is rife amongst teenagers on TikTok. To TikTok’s credit, they have recently released new features to combat harassment but only time will tell how effective they are.

Data privacy

Like any other social media platform, TikTok collects a lot of data from its users. When you sign up for a new TikTok account you have to give the app permissions to access to you camera, location, contacts and more. TikTok was recently fined for flaws in it’s security system which led to concerns over data privacy. Because the app is Chinese owned, there’s more mystery surrounding how the data it collects is used than any of the other popular social media platforms.

Why TikTok is bad for you – conclusion

On the surface, TikTok is just a fun and casual place to post funny videos for others to enjoy. However, it’s important to be aware of the dangers of TikTok, especially as it’s popularity is so new. Only time will tell how the app evolves and protects its user base but for now there are many reasons why you should avoid TikTok and protect yourself and your children.

Whilst this post may sound a lot like scaremongering, I know it’s very easy to be unaware of what your children are looking at online. Kids are smart and they are very good at hiding their online activity. My biggest concern with TikTok though is the exposure to harmful content embedded within innocent looking videos. Many children have been traumatized by what they have seen by users trying to specifically target children. Whilst this may not affect older teenagers as much, this is obviously very harmful to young children who are attracted to the flashy app.

The takeaway is always the same when it comes to the internet and platforms on it – try and educate yourself on how these platforms work and what security measures you need to implement. You kind find out more information about protecting your children online here.