Hooked on Tiktok

• Published date: 11 May 2024
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

“All the academics and policymakers are playing catch-up,” Richard Layte says, professor of sociology in TCD. “We didn’t really have the types of social media platforms and access to them in our hands until about 2006.” He also says: “I think [the writer and psychologist] Jonathan Haidt is essentially correct: this is an experiment on young people.”

Ultimately, we interviewed some brave young people about their real feeds. We also sat with a group of teenagers to hear about their experiences. We spoke to 12 students of diverse backgrounds but spoke to several more from schools and youth clubs in two counties. Going on our sample, young people are savvy about how they are being manipulated on social media sites like TikTok, but are nonetheless susceptible to manipulation.

This makes sense, says psychotherapist Colman Noctor, because teenagers are not cognitively developed enough to self-regulate. “Knowing what’s good for you and doing what’s good for you are two different things. A child could give you an internet safety talk [but] it won’t impact on his behaviour ... You tell teenage girls, ‘this is filtered, this is Photoshopped’ [but] they’ll still see that video and think ‘that’s where I need to be’.”

The kids we spoke to all think they spend too much time on TikTok. They admit to difficulty studying or watching films and sometimes avoid meeting friends in favour of phone time. Many stay up all night scrolling. Layte, who is involved with the Growing Up in Ireland study, says though engaging with social media can be positive for young people there is increasing evidence it is displacing face-to-face contact and this “impacts their sense of belonging. There’s another displacement, too: sleep”. He references a paper he co-authored that examined “the association of higher digital engagement with depression risk. Displacement of sleep was a big, big factor”.

Our teenage interviewees experience an online world where lots of people try to trick them into giving them their attention. Consequently, they have low trust in information. They assume many things to be fake, but don’t have reliable mechanisms for checking what’s real. Being online is often emotional for them. They have fun but adult influencers talk about their problems and they frequently encounter sad or frightening stories. Social media figures tell their audiences they are being lied to by parents, teachers and media.

Teens regularly encounter messaging that says: don’t go to college, become an influencer, join this pyramid scheme, look a certain way. “The persuasion of the influencer far outweighs the persuasiveness of that industrious teacher who’s trying to teach them to critique the material,” Noctor says. “Popularity seems to be the thing that drives the authenticity of something rather than its truth.”

There are also bad actors spreading antifeminist and racist messages (a recent DCU study found that TikTok and YouTube Shorts actively amplify such content for boys).

The toxicity is consistent with what Noctor sees when working with teenage boys. “You’ll see hyper reckless and risky behaviours around that 16-19 age bracket. [More toxic influencers] know how to hijack that.”

All the teenagers we spoke to have had upsetting experiences online but the bad stuff comes camouflaged in reams of more innocuous material. They see hundreds of videos every day. “What social media does is it exposes you to many more people’s interactions and thoughts [than in the past], which means it sort of overtaxes you,” Layte says.

“I think it has a big impact on concentration spans. I think it also contributes to some of the symptoms that we see of anxiety ... I see a lot of students and I have to look after their welfare and I have definitely observed a worsening of that over the last 15 years. I think that is partly because of the way that social media fragments our experience of the world.”

Gendered roles

In a classroom sit six 14-year-olds, Claire, Amelie, Tara, Ronan, Mark and Billy. Most of them first used TikTok in sixth class. Claire has been on the app since she was nine.

The worst thing, they all agree, is how much time they lose.

“It’s kind of a waste. You’re just sitting there,” Mark says.

“It’s really addicting. It’s hard to stop scrolling,” Claire says.

Those allowed phones in their rooms admit to staying up late scrolling, sometimes all night.

So, what’s keeping their attention?

“Funny stuff. Sports that I play and like watching. Working out videos,” Ronan says. The boys all agree. Mark enjoys “storytelling” too.

“Get Ready with me” make-up tutorials are popular with the girls. They’re often matched with “storytimes”, where people talk about their lives. “They’ll do ‘part one’ ‘part two’ so you keep on watching,” Claire says. “They’re really fun.”

Some of the content they’re viewing encourages defined, traditional gender roles. Claire sees videos “that tell you interests girls should have, and interests boys should have and then there are lots of arguments”. She gives the example of “a dad saying he lets his son play with dolls. In the comments people say: ‘This is disgraceful. Men should be...