Opinion: How TikTok is Affecting the Gen Z Generation

By Zoe G., Grade 9

Have you even wondered why the U.S temporarily banned TikTok?

This event happened on the 19^th of January 2025 and the same day 12 hours after this restriction it was unbanned. The real reason behind this course of action was the potential threat of Chinas being owner of this application and the fear of national security being at risk.

But today I will not be addressing the rumours but rather express my opinion on why I think it should have been restricted anyways. The following video addresses the Gen Z TikTok dilemma and gave me some thought on this concerning problem among the young generation.

The investigation into this popular platform among the Gen Z generation has always been going on. The potential risks this app grants can be very damaging to the mental and physical health of the youth. The dangerous addiction comes from a strategical way of showing content based on your most watched and liked videos. This is very dangerous if a lot of abusive and unhealthy content is the most watched, as it would then appear more frequently on your ‘For You’ Page. Thus, you would see it so often, it would start sinking in and engaging in this type of things more often, not only affecting your mental health but physical state as well. Let me give you an example, let’s say all you like watching is people doing vlogs of what they eat, except all they eat is unhealthy food. Not only do you watch them every day, but you start eating what they eat, or maybe even doing what they are doing as you see they are getting a lot of views. Next thing you know, you have no idea when the last time was you ate a healthy diet, especially depending on the viral trends going on, for example ‘Only TikTok food for 24 hours’. TikTok is influencing users to do everything viral, sometimes even engaging in dangerous activities that could harm your health. An example of this resulted in the death of a twelve-year-old girl engaging in a TikTok trend called the “blackout challenge”, which consisted in holding your breath to the point of fainting. This trend resulted in several more cases of kids between the age of 12 -14 being harmed even to the point of being brought to the hospital.

As a person who’s had TikTok at a young age, I forced myself to delete it, as it influenced me to have the constant need to watch it, resulting in a complete exhaustion of 4+ hours on this application every day. This would not only physically and mentally consume me, but this also took away all my days, as all I would do after coming home from school would be scrolling restlessly, adding to the fact that from that all those hours I would not even learn as much as compared to the time spent.

The determination it took to delete this app was harder to overcome than I would have preferred. As for now, I have installed TikTok once more, but for a diverse purpose. A marketing benefit, where I post videos for followers.

As restricted, I do not mean banned, because personally I agree with Daragh Comerford, banning it in certain environments can be beneficial to everyone, but banning it worldwide wouldn’t do any good. I just think that due to its advanced and precise algorithms, “designed to keep you there” stated by Cari Freer, maybe it should be restricted for certain ages. My idea would be a 14+ law depending on the country, but I think that this amount of content with accurate algorithms would be damaging to too young generations due to its addictive effect and whether you are able to independently deal with it yourself or not. Although as we have heard from our interviewers, it can be a great marketing platform, and creative/fun one as well, so the age of allowance would be younger than a real job one, as an application that shares a broad amount of content, it’s not only used for marketing purposes.

This app allows anyone to have a job anywhere depending on personal interests; this can be seen as influencing, dancing, acting, product making and many more. This application offers a variety of opportunities for anyone with a phone.

Sources

Redacción El Litoral. ““Blackout Challenge”: La Muerte de La Nena Santafesina Fue En Una Videollamada Y La Familia Cree Que La Incentivaron.” Translate.goog, Diario El Litoral, 16 Jan. 2023, www-ellitoral-com.translate.goog/sucesos/reto-viral-tiktok-nena-santafesina-videollamada-incitacion-investigacion-milagros-soto-blackout-challenge_0_EnNKSWhLVM.html?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc&_x_tr_hist=true. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.