TIK TOK: ARE YOU TOO OLD?

You walk into your room after a seemingly eternal class, peeved at whomever wouldn’t stop asking questions (that were already answered) and are immediately welcomed home by your roommate, who says nothing as they lifelessly stare into their phone, scrolling through TikTok, muttering the occasional chuckle or “I don’t get it.” This story may seem familiar to you, as you either had that roommate or were that roommate. Or perhaps the notion of hearing Doja Cat’s “Say So” on a loop for the entire first half of the semester is completely foreign to you. Allow me to fill you in.

TikTok is what happens when Jojo Siwa gets an iPod touch: it’s cute for a second, laughable for another, and then completely shocking. TikTok is also what happens when the Chinese AI internet entertainment company ByteDance revamps its App musical.ly, a similar time-warper that allows users to upload videos of themselves lip-syncing to various Top 40 hits. TikTok is a more expansive version of this app, allowing TikTokers (as they’re referred to by the youth) to upload their own audio bytes, apply special effects to their videos, and create side-by-side videos with others. TikTok also differs from musical.ly in its wide-reaching social platform. The app hosts over 80 million users worldwide and has produced celebrities with tens of millions of followers like Charli D’Amelio, Chase Hudson (her former lover who goes by the alias “Lil Huddy”), and Addison Rae, whose fame on the app prompted the song “Addison Rae,” which has over 10 million listens on Spotify. To say that TikTok has infiltrated our social media landscape is an understatement. It’s a game-changer, honestly. It can birth celebrities, make songs go viral, and show meme trends to millions overnight. TikTok is sensational. But why should you care? T ikTok has found a home on Hamilton

College’s campus and an even cozier one in quarantine. The more than 30 million active TikTokers in the United States average around 46 minutes a day on the app. One can imagine how these numbers have sky-rocketed in recent weeks, providing solace to the lonely and humor-deprived exiled students from colleges around the world. One first-year student reported spending 2 hours and 16 minutes daily on the app, saying it consumes most of her free time. While you may not be that student, there’s a strong likelihood you’ve met one like her on campus. According to this student, many college students download TikTok as a

While collegiate humor has a strong-hold on TikTok, especially videos of students longing for their former lives as independent students, dancing trends are the most popular uploads and what the app is most well-known for. TikTokers upload a video of themselves trying choreography that has gone viral on the app, most of which is not by professionals but rather teenagers in suburban basements. “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion takes the cake with 9.3 million videos made to the tune with choreography done by Keara Wilson. While these dances foster great camaraderie across state-lines and even continents, the ease at which one can access these videos on TikTok poses a danger to younger, more vulnerable users. One first-year student commented on how the app does not show the age of the users who upload videos. This creates an “age masking” effect that puts teenagers at risk for being harassed with inappropriate comments, like ones that sexualize minors. T his deep concern for younger users is not a new thing. Before TikTok emerged, its next of kin musical.ly paid a $5.7 million settlement to the Federal Trade Commission after facing allegations that musical.ly was actively violating internet child privacy rights. According to the New York Times, this was a “record fine for child privacy violation rights.” Children were asked to share the school they attend, their email address, and their personal phone number without requiring joke, to be witness to this super hype and cutting-edge web community, but then find themselves glued to their phones, half-heartedly attempting the woah and crip walk when they pass any mirror or reflective surface. According to a leaked ad pitch deck from June 2019, 69% of TikTok’s users are members of “Generation Z,” or between the ages of 16 and 24. This statistic may not seem surprising, as most of the celebrities that have been produced on the app are in their late teens. Seeing its popularity with this demographic, TikTok launched a college ambassador program, hiring over 100 students across the country to create relatable, entertaining content to “make their fellow classmates’ day.” These ambassadors have uploaded a range of videos, from clips of football games to mini sketches about dorm struggles. These videos, along with the millions of other comedy bits, dances, challenges, and embarrassing exposés, provide mindless entertainment for college students, especially ones who claim that their intention is completely ironic. consent from an adult. This disregard for parental permission is what caused the FTC to file the suit. TikTok has since paid the fine and attempted to evade future violations by enacting several policies to prevent children under the age of thirteen from downloading the app and children under the age of 16 from sending and receiving private direct messages. One first-year college student I interviewed pointed out the potential danger of children using the app because, similar to when we were young, many children can’t conceptualize the “foreverness” of the internet or the potential ramifications of resurfaced TikToks. Regardless of the settlement and these newly-implemented preventative measures, preteens and young teenagers alike are equally riveted by the app and continue to boost its number of users.

The question of whether the internet is age-appropriate for children under sixteen did not originate from the TikTok sphere. A 2019 study conducted by Common Sense Media reported that over half of American children over the age of eleven have a smartphone. In 2015, this age was fourteen. As internet demographics get younger and younger, the popularity of multimedia, social networking apps like TikTok will only continue to grow. It’s common to wonder whether someday Generation Z, the predominant demographic of internet users, will outgrow these apps. No more are the simple days of Doodle Jump and iFunny. As children learn to tweet, post, snapchat, and TikTok, should we find a new outlet for communication (and nosiness) that won’t put them at risk? Is the internet like Benjamin Button? Are we getting too old for this?