Savannah Lake
TikTok's popularity has surged in recent years, spurring questions and concerns about its long-term impact.
Technology is different for every generation.
Color television was a striking innovation in the Mid-20th Century, followed by the world wide web and smartphones in the ensuing decades. As these technological innovations progress, it’s apparent that humans adapt to these materials easily.
TikTok affects young people more than one might think. The social media platform was founded in September of 2016, in China, by ByteDance company. It has over one billion users, according to Investopedia.
The app consists of short content videos that are between 30 seconds and a minute long. Though many have fallen in love with the app, it has also affected younger generations, and the possibility of TikTok’s presence being erased from the U.S. has been a prevalent topic in recent months.
Reliance on social media is commonly seen on college campuses. Students are constantly staring at their cell phones, droning out the rest of the world.
“I think it affects my performance mentally—not positively, but negatively—because it procrastinates me from my work and gives me a lack of motivation,” Sam Houston State University student Alexia Piché said.
Emotional and Psychological Effects
Kids and teenagers are given iPhones and iPads that provide them with access to social media, and the more time they spend on their screen, the more they’re exposed to comparison, doubt and mental disorders, according to Social Media Victims Law Center.
“People on TikTok are at this weird stage where they’re very aware of how easily things could influence them, and yet somehow still do,” SHSU psychology student Laura Julich said.
It’s easy to develop patterns at a young age. In 2024, when it comes to disciplining children and teaching them these habits, it seems as though an iPad is the easy way out when handling a screaming toddler.
The term “iPad kid” has become prominent on TikTok, referring to kids who have difficulty functioning without a device.
According to Bright Canary, a company that aims to “help parents guide, protect, and connect with their kids as they learn how to navigate the digital world,” this keeps children from gaining social skills, limits coping skills and causes minds to be less creative.
Going outside and making new friends has always been a staple of childhood, something today’s youth don’t seem to find much interest in. Scrolling on social media or having an aspiration to become an influencer is more their forte.
“I always loved to go outside,” TikTok influencer Abigail Hill said. “But a lot of the neighborhood kids, they—I never see any neighborhood kids.”
Watching a 20-minute YouTube video used to be an easy task. Now, people struggle to sit still for a five-minute video. The psychological factors that affect young audiences who use TikTok are more common than you think.
According to The Oxford Blue, Oxford University’s student newspaper, a TikTok survey showed that about 50% of its users were stressed by a video that was more than a minute long.
“Students are impatient when it comes to gaining information and knowledge,” said Dr. La’Toya Scott, a Professor of African American Literature at SHSU. “And that’s because now we’re being conditioned in getting a wealth of information that really should be a longer conversation in 30 seconds.”
Social Effects
The term “aesthetic” is defined as “concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty,” another common theme on TikTok. The clean girl aesthetic, the cottage core aesthetic, the Y2K aesthetic and many more influence young audiences in what physical appearance they aspire to obtain.
This notion of choosing your desired aesthetic could be detrimental to staying true to oneself, and results in a lack of authenticity.
“If you make it your whole personality then, like, who are you?” SHSU English and Education student Rachel Omotoso asked.
When young audiences latch onto these categories, they feel the need to fit the criteria exactly, which is a dangerous factor that can affect their mental state. TikTok also glamorizes certain “aesthetics” that shouldn’t be normalized, and can potentially lead to eating disorders and mental illnesses, according to A Magazine.
Literary Effects
TikTok has a variety of categories for users to connect with each other over content they have the same interest in. Some of the categories include FashionTok, ArtTok and BookTok, the latter of which can play an important role in the development of literary skills.
However, BookTok pushes out content that may be inappropriate for young audiences to digest. Books such as, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass, are examples of popular novels that have gone viral on TikTok for their “spice factor.”
Thirty-year-old Wade Wilson was charged with the murder of two women back in October 2019, according to Newsweek. Some BookTok communities have since glamorized his actions because he was deemed as “attractive” and similar to the fictional characters they read in books.
Dark romance literature is also popular on TikTok, such as Dark Malice by Rina Kent. The novel is about a character named Glydon King who finds herself being wrapped up in her love interest, Killian Carson’s, unusual games. Carson also has psychopathic tendencies.
“It kind of just got swallowed up by the BookTok community,” Julich noted.
BookTok raves over these dark romance novels, but it becomes alarming when comparing them to real-life scenarios and still admiring them.
The issue is not that authors’ books gain more popularity through TikTok, but the lack of awareness of what young readers are consuming. Adults can discern fiction from reality, but a 12-year-old might not have that same ability.
Educational Effects
Scott notes that TikTok “has made a lot of students impatient when it comes to gaining information and knowledge.”
Instead of searching a question on Google, it is now normal to search it on TikTok. Some users exclusively rely on TikTok for their information, but not everything on TikTok is reliable.
This notion of young society relying on gaining new information from TikTok could negatively affect their performance in the classroom. Kids’ attention spans are limited due to regularly scrolling through 30 second videos.
“We’re also in the age of misinformation,” Scott said. “If these students have access to go to TikTok and then that is the final say or answer, it may derail from the educational process of, ‘Let me go to a more reliable source.’”
Dr. Robyn Johnson, SHSU Assistant Professor in English, added that “when we have constant, purely entertainment with no educational value, it can hinder attention spans.”
What’s Next?
TikTok can be a fun app to share the same interest as others, promote businesses and make jokes. But it can also jeopardize a young one’s mental health. Whether it’s emotionally or socially, it is possible to get control of these conflicts now before they worsen.
“Generation Alpha is the generation that genuinely has not even had a taste of what life was like before the internet,” Julich noted.
However, the youngest generation did receive a brief glimpse at life without TikTok earlier this year.
A nationwide ban on TikTok took effect Jan. 19, and American users who were on the app no longer had access to their addicting videos. Additionally, users who’d already deleted the app or never had the app to begin with, were unable to access the platform through their app store.
There were conflicting views over the app’s possible departure. Because the app was soon to be gone, Americans could live freely without being addicted to trends or someone else’s life, but that also meant many known content creators would lose their jobs.
The ban lasted roughly 24 hours before the app was up and running again.
A programmed message appeared once American users opened the app stating that the ban has been delayed for 75 days. By mid-February, TikTok had returned to the Apple App Store and the Google Play store and was available for download in the U.S.
Is it a good thing that TikTok is back? Or, is it feeding into the addictions of social media?
TikTok is designed to keep users so engaged, that without it, they lose themselves.