TikTok tears: How certain TikTok trends are damaging teenage emotional well-being

It’s 2 a.m.. Sleep is being too darn elusive so you’re scrolling through social media. But nobody’s posting on Instagram this late, so you move to TikTok, where the content is always fresh. The first video on your For You page is a cute, talkative husky puppy. You like it and move on.

After 20 minutes of mindless swiping and watching and swiping and watching and swiping and watching, you find a video that includes a popular cover of Miley Cyrus’s “When I Look at You”. The video shows a dark-haired boy, lying in an empty room, sobbing. He’s captioned his raw video “Delete feelings”. When you click on videos with this audio, you find hundreds of other teenagers feeling broken by their parents’ divorce, captive to eating disorders or stuck in a depressive hole.

But it’s not just this audio--songs by artists like Frank Ocean, Natalie Taylor, and Sleeping at Last have become popular on TikTok and are frequently used as a template to express hurtful, traumatic experiences and feelings.

Is this healthy? Is TikTok a safe place for teenagers to feel closure and validation? While social media platforms are helping teenagers express their struggles, creating videos that mimic these trends or watching negative, trending TikTok videos about painful feelings is not emotionally successful. Ultimately, the effects of excessive social media usage are mentally counterproductive because they increase symptoms of depression and distract teenagers from having gratifying and healing in-person discussions.

TikTok is a new platform and there isn’t much research on its effects. However, social media research has been conducted for over a decade and can be applied in this situation. In particular, it’s important to examine current research on social media addiction and its ability to enhance depressive moods.

Social media addiction is “characterized as...devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas.” This lack of control was reaffirmed by a 2018 survey where over 50% of teenagers agreed that social media often distracted them from important pursuits, like homework or interacting with people around them. Procrastinating homework doesn’t constitute addiction but watching hours-worth of TikToks when you have an assignment due at midnight or being glued to your phone instead of chatting with friends at a social event is concerning.

While it’s difficult to quantify addiction, researchers generally agree that spending over 30 minutes on social media is unhealthy. Unfortunately, the average TikTok user spends 52 minutes a day on TikTok. While the growing 27% of TikTok’s teenage users might not be addicted, they are spending almost two times the recommended amount of time on social media--and that’s just on one platform!

Despite this data’s demonstrations of high amounts of time spent on social media, I’d like to tread lightly in the next few paragraphs. Words like “addiction” and “depression” are frequently and exaggeratedly thrown into discussions on social media usage; there are lots of online articles that demonize social media and create a causal link between its usage and depression. However, social media usage does not exclusively determine whether a teenager will experience depression. After all, media effects are complicated and the individuals’ exact experience is impossible to predict. But, there is research that reveals a correlation between increased depression and high social media usage. (What constitutes “high” social media usage varies but in that research study, the respondents’ time spent on social media was higher than experts’ recommended time and therefore could be indicative of addiction.)

Even more concerning is data which suggests that teenagers who use social media can experience symptoms of depression. Again, while depression is often incorrectly cited in social media conversations and used as a blanket term to (inadequately) address the plethora of negative effects experienced through excessive social media usage, that does not diminish the proven existence of its symptoms among frequent social media users.

Furthermore, depression is one of the most notable negative effects of social media because it involves and causes many concerning consequences, like thoughts or feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, suicide; insomnia, fatigue and more. While TikTok trends with songs like Miley Cyrus’s can help teenagers express their pain, the overuse of any social media platform can unhealthily perpetuate, deepen or expand feelings into dangerous mental struggles.

But what about that cute husky puppy? The Voros Twins? Or the hilarious green screen videos people use to comment on pop culture tendencies or other relatable moments? Are those playful videos really going to make teenagers depressed? Of course not. I’ve laughed (and learned!) from many TikToks. People are even using TikTok to create videos about their struggles with OCD and other stigmatized mental illnesses. Anxiety-clinic director Thea Gallagher reaffirms this, stating that TikTok is “highlighting mental health conditions and bringing awareness to these issues.” However, she also warns that TikTok videos, no matter the creators’ background, do not constitute therapy or individualized mental health advice.

Furthermore, the value of in-person communication with a loved one cannot be replaced by TikTok videos, comments or consumption. As Dr. Gallagher stated, social media can help raise awareness of emotional struggles but it does not alleviate or solve them. While a stranger on TikTok can offer superficial support to a struggling teenager, it’s often the people around us that help the most.

A 2020 Turkish study illustrated the importance of in-person communication by studying the influence of social media on family communication habits. Its data discovered that high social media usage decreases good intra-family communication processes. Furthermore, researchers noted that most respondents wanted to increase their communication with family but often settled for using social media to relieve their stress.

Cal Newport, social media expert also noted this human tendency to settle for online activities that require less energy. However, he points out that this “low-bandwidth chatter…leaves...our high-performance social processing networks underused--reducing these tools’ ability to satisfy our intense sociality.” When we engage in face-to-face dialogue, our brains employ different facilities to interpret body language and complex emotions. Thus, an in-person conversation will always be more gratifying than any TikTok interaction.

Unfortunately, in-person communication is not possible for many teenagers. Domestic abuse, parental illness or incompetencies, economic disadvantages and stresses, and other issues make communication, vulnerability and validation within the home difficult--if not impossible--for some teenagers. However, while some teens can’t rely on their family to listen to, understand and validate their emotions, it’s vital for them to have some form of an emotional support system.

The need for a support system is apparent in the Turkish research, which operates under the assumption that parents are the most likely individuals to care for, nurture and teach their children prosocial behaviors. Thus, these researchers felt that their data was worrying because if household members (who tend to have the most experience, care and responsibility for each other) decrease their communication, then they will have to rely on weaker outside relationships for emotional support.

While seeking emotional support from peers may be the only option for some teenagers, creating, liking and constantly consuming emotionally triggering TikToks won’t help them create a genuine support system. This idea is supported by two media theories. The first, activity displacement effect, asserts that time spent online displaces time for other activities. Therefore, when the average teen spends 52 minutes a day on TikTok (and potentially several more hours on other platforms), they are wasting time to exercise, talk with a therapist or close friend; journal, or practice other good mental health habits. Furthermore, social information processing theory shows that online relationships progress slowly, taking more time (than in-person relationships) to develop emotional intimacy. While teens can work to develop meaningful relationships with their peers on TikTok, it would be more emotionally productive for them to fulfill their emotional needs through in-person relationships.

So determine your role on TikTok. Are you a TikTok influencer, an occasional viewer or a concerned parent? Regardless of whether you use TikTok, you play a crucial role in encouraging or lessening its negative mental effects. Teenagers are often considered the most at-risk population because they are known to use social media frequently and high media consumption can affect their ability to develop a grounded identity and healthy social habits. However, anyone can experience negative effects from social media usage. So, support good TikTok content that appears on your For You page and other platforms. (TikToks are frequently reposted on Twitter and through Instagram Reels!) Decrease your social media usage and use that extra time to notice and validate people. Create a For You page--or better yet, a world--where people are uplifted and cared for, not left alone and hopeless!