TikTok is a newer application that is aimed at Publishing short-form content (under a minute) to its users and has become increasingly popular driving it to the top of many app stores in its peak in popularity.

However, over its time in mainstream media, it has shown to be a platform that many people believe is a very bad influence on the young generation, who take up the vast majority of its audience. The site has very little moderation and has become a place riddled with all types of harmful subgroups which often groom young children into ideas and echo chambers as well as toxic popularity farms where people both young and old are filming themselves doing anywhere from stupid to borderline dangerous acts all for the sake of getting into the limelight with good or bad intentions.

Challenge content

Numerous of these so-called challenges have had a myriad of news articles written about them such as the infamous 'tide pod challenge' where children were seen placing and biting down on detergent pods which hospitalized many or the 'milk crate' challenge where people would run up and down unstable milk crates and try not to fall off once again leaving many young children in the emergency room.

Extreme politics and radicalization 

on TikTok, there are multiple spaces full of far left and far right echo chambers where young people are endoctinateded into these cult-like mindsets whether it be far left such as the many radical feminists (anti-men), LGBTQ+ (anti-(straight), Anti-capitalist - or far-right Andrew Tate, fascism, anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ+ - the amount of very serious and very radical politics weaved unnoticeably in with all the nonradical beliefs and generic content creates a slippery slope for impressionable minds of a young children

Disorder and disorder faking content

Amongst other things, there have become countless amounts of children between the ages of 9 to 18 displaying, promoting, and safekeeping blatantly fake disorders for either attention or the genuine belief they have something purely from watching other disorder content and making themselves believe they are in some way neurodivergent - Common faked disorders include but aren't limited to:

• •Autism 
• •ADHD
• •DID 
• •Biopolar 
• •Torrets 

Many of the young people who claim to have these disorders in no way have them however it has become enough of an issue that articles are being written about this sickening trend  

New York Post
https://nypost.com › 2022/03/12 › t...
How TikTok has become a dangerous breeding ground for mental disorders 

The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › oct
What TikTok does to your mental health: 'It's embarrassing we know so little 

Everyday Health
www.everydayhealth.com
TikTok Trend Alert: Is Self-Diagnosing a Mental Disorder Safe?

Preditors and scams

TikTok has had its fair share of child predators and scammers notable alleged predators include the likes of 'TheBudday' as well as many recorded live streams where young viewers are encouraged to donate to make the person do something however cause the stream is not truly live nothing happens and the person streaming makes money 

Short-form content on the mind 

It is believed that with the new rise of short for content many people have struggled with lowered attention spans especially due to covid and being locked in with only the internet 

This also comes with the amount of information we get from rapidly scrolling through all sorts of topics- in as little as ten minutes you can go through 20 different videos ranging from gaming to politics to sad puppies or memes - this is SO MUCH for any brain to process let alone someone in the TikTok demographic -this leads to emotional and psychological issues caused by these rapid changes in emotion and collected information leading to depressive moods and even an addiction to the app

 

If we wish to keep the minds of our future safe we must stop the use of TikTok, and short-form content and enforce stronger age restrictions on social media they are dangerous to the brain and it's not even gotten to the point of long-term effects