The Truth About TikTok
There seems to be another subject that has taken over the world recently.
TikTok.
I understand that this is a very controversial topic. You either love it or you hate it; there’s truly no in between. Don’t ask me where I stand on that; I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that something about this app catches my attention.
Some of you may be asking, “what the heck is TikTok?” If you don’t know about it, then either you're an adult, or you’ve been living under a rock. TikTok is a mobile social media app where you share 10-60 second videos about absolutely anything you want. It was originally created in China, and it went by the name Musically. Not until August 2nd, 2018 did its name change to Tik Tok.
I downloaded the app around August of last year. I instantly hated it: a strange reaction since I never truly used it. A couple months later, I finally decided to give the app a try. I was intrigued because at school I’d constantly see people bursting out into strange dance moves, flailing their arms around or hitting the woah. At the time, I thought they were just crazy, but I heard someone say it was a ‘TikTok Dance.’ This sparked my interest, so I decided to go back and give the app another try. I watched one video, then another, then realized I had begun going down an endless spiral of videos until it was almost 10pm. I was amazed at that, and I still am to this day.
Looking back at this experience, I realize that this isn’t just a ‘me’ problem. This is a plague that curses the majority of teenagers today. At sleepovers my friends and I can often be caught scrolling mindlessly through TikTok for hours on end.
An average teen (according to TikTok themselves) spends 52 minutes on TikTok per day. Do I spend that much time on it? After going into my phone and checking, I spend a bit less than 7 hours on TikTok per week, so yes, I guess I do. That got me thinking, I wonder if these statistics are true for other Galloway kids with the app. So I got to work. I sent an email out to 8th grade students asking them how many hours a day they spent on TikTok, and the results were about what I expected. About 52% of people in 8th grade use TikTok for an hour or more everyday.
It doesn’t just stop at teenagers, adults have been getting into the app more as well. I can’t go a day in quarantine without my mom showing me a Tik Tok that appeared in her Facebook feed.
Last but not least, this wouldn’t be a Tik Tok article if I didn’t include something about Charli D’amelio. The 15-year-old who quickly gained 30 million (52 million now) followers on the app in the blink of an eye. Who knows how? The TikTok algorithm is a mystery to us all. I think she is partially the reason why the app has skyrocketed in popularity. Teens are intrigued by the fact that you can get famous off of a couple of dancing videos, so they wanna try it themselves. Of course, it’s not that easy; luck plays some part.
From all the research conducted on TikTok, I can conclude that the app is currently the most popular social media platform. It’s definitely made an impact on 2020 so far, and it will continue to do so for the remainder of the year. So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cure my quarantine boredom by laughing at 10 second videos.