If I asked TikTok users to raise their hand, would you raise yours? If you would, you’re not the only one—far from it. According to some sources, the platform currently boasts over a billion monthly active users worldwide.
One of them, social media expert Kate Winick, is—or at least was—a TikTok user, too, but for her, it became way more than just a source of entertainment. In her own words, “TikTok saved my life. Literally.” Scroll down to find her story that she shared on her LinkedIn profile below.
People use social media for different purposes, from entertainment to work and beyond
Image credits: Andrej Lišakov/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
For this woman, one social media platform became a way to a better life
Kate believed she’d be a lot worse off today if it wasn’t for TikTok
Image credits: Kate Winick
Many people, especially among Gen Z, get their information from TikTok
Image credits: Luke Porter/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
As mentioned before, TikTok reportedly has more than a billion monthly active users globally. Home to viral dances that are impossible to imitate by those over 40 and all sorts of trends, among other things, TikTok has climbed to impressive heights during the pandemic, having become the most downloaded app in the world by 2022, The Guardian reports.
But, as Kate’s story shows, it’s not just dancing and tradwife videos that can be found on TikTok. Many TikTokers use the platform as a way to spread information on serious topics, too, such as physical health, parenting, or mental well-being, to name a few, that can significantly influence the lives of their followers, hopefully for the better.
The New York Times suggests that for some people, Gen Z in particular, TikTok has also become a search engine, with some netizens turning to it more frequently than they do to Google. While the latter is still considered the dominant search engine, young social media users increasingly rely on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat to find information or opinions on certain things, such as restaurants or businesses.
According to The New York Times, searching for information on TikTok is considered more interactive than typing a query into a more conventional search engine. Representatives of Gen Z tend to browse videos of people sharing their views or spreading information regarding something they’re interested in, then head to the comments section to assess the credibility of the content based on other people’s opinions.
Research on health information on TikTok found that nearly half of the TikTok videos analyzed contained non-factual information
Image credits: Nik/Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Needless to say, it’s not only Gen Z that gets their information from TikTok. Many people of all ages can’t imagine their lives without the platform and the intake of content—however big—they find there regularly. But with so much content uploaded on TikTok day after day, one has to wonder—how much of it can be trusted?
Researchers from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine delved deeper into health-related information on TikTok, trying to figure out how much of it was true or false. After systematically analyzing health information on the platform (seeking to learn how much misinformation is out there and whether or not it comes from specific types of content creators), the researchers found that close to half of the TikTok videos they analyzed “contained non-factual information, with a large proportion of misleading videos coming from nonmedical influencers.”
That being said, some videos, especially uploaded by professionals in certain fields, can provide important—sometimes even crucial—information; Kate’s story is just one example. People in the comments thanked her for sharing her story, some adding that they’ve learned information about their own conditions or illnesses via social media, too.
People replied with their thoughts in the comments, some have seemingly gone through similar situations themselves
