The Effect of TikTok on 18 to 25-Year-Old University Students

This report discusses the impact of TikTok on university students, including its emergence, positive and negative impacts, addiction, and comparison. It also covers the positive impact of TikTok on students, such as increasing morale and gathering relevant information.

THE EFFECT OF TIKTOK ON 18 TO 25-YEAR-OLD
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Social media is an online platform that allow people to share their information on various
digital website. It is one of the most common technology that has been used by firm an
individual in order to promote their content, product and services. Moreover, it is mainly use by
young adults for sharing the information. Along with this present report was based on TikTok
which is digital application that allow user to make short duration video and with option of
sharing globally. The study will discuss about the impact of TikTok on university students.
MAIN BODY
Literature Review
Due to pandemic the use of social media has been increased and people are more active
on these sites n in order to share as well as gather information. The scope of the report was wide
so for narrowing down the concept one social media application has been adopted in order to
make research accurate (Li and et.al.,2021). Along with this, TikTok application has been
adopted as it is one of the most used social site of pandemic. Moreover, the reason for selecting
this topic was to analyses its positive and negative impact on universities students.
Theme 1: Emergence of Tiktok
As per the view of Basch and et.al., (2021) it has defined Tiktok as an application that is
popular for sharing short video and it is one of the fasted growing social media platform on the
internet. This application has given tough competition to companies like Instagram, Facebook,
Snapchat. Although it has 2 million download in more than 200 countries in last four years. The
app had success in large market area and it has challenged principle government globally. In year
2018 the legal authority of Indonesian has imposed restriction on the app due to allegation of
inappropriate content.
Moreover, the government of India has also banned the application on year of 2020 on
the issue of geopolitics with china (Brougham,2021). US has banned the application on the
ground of national security concerns. Even after all this allegation Tituli popularity is still in
diverse market and influence community of international market as well as domestic internet
company’s s overseas. Along with this, the evolution of Tiktok has taken place in Beijing tech
company and it is one of the most successful brand that has made use of re branding strategies.
The application was first launch in year 2014 in China by Alex Zhu and Luau Yang. In year of

2017 Chinese based brand that have introduce Tiktok has launched their new product Musical.
Ly with same features. Along with this, it was not very much successful as compare to Tattoo.
According to Azman and et.al. (2021), define that Tiktok is powered by Artificial
Intelligence that means it can identify user taste and preferences to create more personalized feed
that result in attracting more customer. Along with this, it makes the application personalized and
it allows user to depend less on the people it is following for the content. The application has for
you page just like Instagram and Facebook that focuses on sharing the content with the user it
rarely interacts with.
As per the view of Morales, Fahrion and Watkins (2022), during the time of pandemic
Tiktok has helped citizen in engaging with each other. Although this app has helped in giving
relevant information to public regarding vaccination. Moreover, Prime Minister of various
countries like New Zealand has taken benefit of Tic Took in interacting with young people and
asked youth to stop the spreading of COVID – 19 misinformation.
Furthermore, Tiktok for business has partnership with Dubai Chamber of commerce in
order to support medium and small business with digital growth strategies. In addition to this,
educational program has also taken advantage in promoting knowledge (Chen and Zhang,2020).
Moreover, with Tiktok wants to expand in e – commerce platform that may have the marketing
potential to enter the payment industry. The impact of social media platforms in global
development space is evident as it relates to political advocacy.
Theme2: Positive impact of Tiktok on university students
Yang (2022), states that Tiktok is a Chinese sharing social media network app by Byte
Dance. The social media platform is used to make variety of short form of video like comedy,
drama, education and dance. The duration of video is from 15 second to 1 minute that can be
made by user with various editing features. Along with this, in year of 2019 the app has grown
ever since and it is very addictive for user. Moreover, Tiktok have both positive and negative
side effects. Sha and Dong (2021), has depicted about the positive side of this application such
as it is helpful in gaining knowledge as well as people share information related to DIY
activities, music creation, art and cooking. Along with this, many of knowledge unique
knowledge can be applied in real life as well as for better understanding. Furthermore, Tiktok is
spread of positivity and awareness about important topics like self-love. This application major
advantage is that it serves as great source of entertainment. Although with help of it user can

dance, act and expand the social circle. It is very interactive with creative challenges that
contributes in developing the moral of students and it is one of the best ways of dealing with
stress in pandemic.
As per the view of Araujo and et.al. (2022), it has argued that some of the negative aspect
of Tiktok is addiction that has reduce the concentration power of students and made them
addicted in watching the videos for hours at a time. Along with this, it also helps in creating
publicity as it is a great app for the people that wants to get famous with their unique talents.
Thus, it allows students to increase their brand image by creating short video as well as it has
permission to viral legal things and which is in interest of public.
Furthermore, another positive impact is that it helps in learning new things such as Tiktok
is consisting of various type videos like dancing and educational video with great opportunities
of improving life and to deal with stress. Thus, Tiktok is like a teacher that helps in utilizing
platforms to teach new things. In addition to this, it helps in providing new opportunities such as
with going pandemic young students and adults have an opportunity to find internship from the
remote are with help of TikTok. Thus, it has help in connecting youth with volunteer for non-
profit like Linen N Love or intern for companies (Sodani and Mendenhall, 2021).
Along with this, Tiktok has helped young adult in showing their talent and to increase
their moral. This platform advantage is that it is not very expensive and allows to cover large
area of market. It is none of the best application to be used to show case talent as well as get vital
information of current trend going on in world.
Theme 3. Negative impact of Tiktok on students
As per the view of Guo (2022), one of the major negative aspects that are associated with
the usage of Tiktok include its addictive nature. Youth is unable to control the increased usage of
this app due to its engaging content which provides them amusement. Also, the short duration of
the videos forces its user to keep scrolling where hours pass by unnoticed. This often impacts
their other professional and personal life commitments making them compromise in other areas.
further, the lack of any control or monitoring on the kind of content that is being prepared and
shared is another added disadvantage. Often videos with negative messages influences or gives
ideas to youth and they are found to be imitating those actions taking extreme measures (What’s
TikTok doing to our kids? Concerns from a clinical psychologist, 2021). There have been many
instances when such students and youth have lost their lives.

Another major negative concern is related to the fact that mental health gets affected largely
in a negative manner. Literat (2021), have stated that bullying is part and parcel of using such
apps where negative comments of people often influence people heavily. They doubt their self-
worth and there have been many instances where young lives have been lost due to suicides and
such instances. Since the majority of the crowd belongs to the same age group, people are very
conscious of what other people have to say about them. Using offensive language, making
inappropriate comments at wrong places and no liability of actions gives freedom to its users to
say anything. Such degradation of each other makes TikTok a vulnerable platform.
Further elaborating on the negative aspects, Collins (2021), have stated that regular usage of
Tiktok forces its users to watch certain content which might get toxic, abusive or anxiety
producing at certain times. The engaging content on this app instigates prolonged usage and this
changes the behaviour pattern of users heavily forcing them to think or behave in a certain
manner. Due to its addiction, students are often found discussing about the content posted by so
called ‘influencers’ and they often try to imitate ongoing ‘trends’ and habits.
Peer pressure and the desire to feel belonged again forces a student to engage in the usage of
apps like Tiktok so they don’t feel left out. According to Fernandes and et.al. (2020), the basic
need of belongingness needs to be fulfilled amongst the users and while interacting with each
other they often use the commonly used terms, slangs etc. To know about such slangs, they have
to be updated with the trends on the app regularly thus increasing their engagement. More often
than not, this leads to severe impact on their emotional and cognitive abilities which influences
their overall growth and development (Rutherford and et.al., 2022). The adults that are growing
today are more insecure, unsure and easily influenced by their surroundings as compared to
earlier scenario.
Therefore, it can be said that it is strictly necessary for the makers of TikTok and other such
apps to increase the monitoring levels and also control the usage. What such youth is seeing, the
time that they are spending etc. must be regulated and adults should also be well aware of what
their offspring’s are watching.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that social media is one of the best platform
to share information as well as to increase the awareness. Along with this, study has concluded
on TikTok application and the way it has evolved in the market area. It has also summarized

about the positive impact such as increasing moral as well as gathering relevant information.
Lastly, it has depicted about negative impact on students such as addiction and comparison.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Araujo, C. J. and et.al., 2022. Influence of TikTok Video Advertisements on Generation Z’s
Behavior and Purchase Intention. International Journal of Social and Management
Studies.3(2). pp.140-152.
Azman, A. N. and et.al., 2021. Acceptance of TikTok on the Youth towards Education
Development. Borneo International Journal eISSN 2636-9826.4(3). pp.19-25.
Basch, C. H. and et.al., 2021. A global pandemic in the time of viral memes: COVID-19 vaccine
misinformation and disinformation on TikTok. Human Vaccines &
Immunotherapeutics. 17(8). pp.2373-2377.
Brougham, J. K., 2021. The Impact of Social Media on the Mental Health of Student-Athletes
across NCAA Divisions. Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics.14. pp.717-739.
Chen, P. and Zhang, X., 2020. Evaluation and Empirical Study on the Information Service
Quality of TikTok Government Accounts. Eurasian Journal of Social Sciences. 8(2).
pp.53-69.
Collins, T., 2021. Protecting Our Youth in an Online World.
Fernandes, B., and et.al., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on internet use and escapism
in adolescents. Revista de psicología clínica con niños y adolescentes, 7(3), pp.59-65.
Guo, J., 2022, January. Research on the Influence of TikTok on Teenagers. In 2021 International
Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2021) (pp.
1390-1393). Atlantis Press.
Li, Y., Guan, M., Hammond, P. and Berrey, L.E., 2021. Communicating COVID-19 information
on TikTok: a content analysis of TikTok videos from official accounts featured in the
COVID-19 information hub. Health education research. 36(3). pp.261-271.
Literat, I., 2021. “Teachers act like we’re robots”: TikTok as a window into youth experiences of
online learning during COVID-19. AERA open, 7, p.2332858421995537.
Morales, M., Fahrion, A. and Watkins, S. L., 2022. # NicotineAddictionCheck: Puff Bar Culture,
Addiction Apathy, and Promotion of E-Cigarettes on TikTok. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health.19(3). p.1820.
Rutherford, B.N., and et.al., 2022. Getting high for likes: Exploring cannabis‐related content on
TikTok. Drug and Alcohol Review.
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Sha, P. and Dong, X., 2021. Research on adolescents regarding the indirect effect of depression,
anxiety, and stress between TikTok use disorder and memory loss. International journal
of environmental research and public health.18(16). p.8820.
Sodani, T. and Mendenhall, S., 2021. Binge-Swiping Through Politics: TikTok’s Emerging Role
in American Government. Journal of Student Research.10(2).
Yang, P., 2022. Tik Tok and Microcelebrities: An Analysis of the Impact of Short Video Apps
on Chinese Culture and Communication. China Media Research.18(1).
Online
What’s TikTok doing to our kids? Concerns from a clinical psychologist. 2021. [Online].
Available through <https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-whats-tiktok-doing-
to-our-kids-20211118-32kx365w2ja6rhnoe2aoorkbpi-story.html>
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