Tick-tock… time is passing!

What is TikTok?

TikTok is a digital platform founded in 2016, where users upload videos that are up to 60 seconds long.

The more engagement a video gets in the form of views, likes, and shares, the more likely it is to go viral.

With one billion active users spread across 154 countries, TikTok is undoubtedly one of the most popular social media platforms as of 2022.

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7+1 reasons why young people choose TikTok.

In the digital era, people can choose from a variety of multi-sensory social media to engage with. Why do young people specifically prefer TikTok?

• It is highly immersive.
• It provides positive reinforcement.
• It results in the gratification of its users’ needs.
• It motivates them to expand their creativity.
• It allows users to position themselves in their peer group.
• It helps form their identity.
• It can be influencing.
• It provides access to communities.

TikTok… all day long.

A new research published in the Addictive Behaviors journal states that “some individuals can develop a pathological dependence on the platform”. In fact, higher scores on the TikTok addiction scale were associated with more intense usage of the platform. In the same study, “at-risk” TikTok users tended to score higher on measures of loneliness.

This leads to the following concern: does TikTok affect its users’ self-esteem and identity? At the same time, the platform has been criticized for promoting unhealthy beauty standards. If we consider the fragile period of childhood and adolescence, where youngsters haven’t quite figured out their identity and they are still in the process of forming their self-esteem, these unhealthy, “perfect” ideals may impact their perception of self-worth.

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But there is always a bright side.

Let’s take into consideration that only 54% of Generation Z think their education has prepared them for future success and, at the same time, 75% of students wish to continue virtual education, with TikTok being a promising potential educational platform.

TikTok can indeed be used for educational purposes. In fact, the hashtag #LearnonTikTok has over 372.9 billion views as of now.

Microlearning is 17% more efficient than traditional, longer-duration courses, while educators themselves are voting in favor of bite-sized learning, as Gen Z strongly prefers it.

Yet who said education must take only one form?

What if we combine the successful parts of traditional education while adding some… spice? No one is suggesting to let the books go dusty, the teachers go obsolete and the classrooms turn into… museums! However, TikTok, as well as other digital platforms, are not scary places where we all get addicted.

It is up to us to define the way technology is used and not the technology itself.

Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash