The Impact of TikTok on Students: A Literature Review

Abstract

This literature review aims to explore and summarize the existing research on the impact of TikTok on students. TikTok, a popular social media platform through the world, has gained immense popularity among students worldwide, and People use social media not merely for social purposes but also for business purposes and others. This review examines the effects of TikTok on various aspects of students' lives and life, including academic performance, mental health, social interactions and overall well-being. The findings from this review highlight both the positive and negative aspects of TikTok and provide insights into its risk full potential influence on students.

Atinafu Regasa1, Demelash Lemmi2,*
1 Department of veterinary medicine, Samara University
2 Department of statistics, Samara University

*Corresponding Author: nicemanyes@su.edu.et (Demelash Lemmi Ettisa)

Keywords: TikTok, Students, well-being.

1. Introduction

TikTok is a social network launched in the Chinese marketing 2016 (as Douyin) and internationally in 2017 (as TikTok). In 2018, it was the most widely downloaded mobile app in the United States and other countries, and is currently available in more than 150 countries and has more than 800 million monthly active users. [1]

TikTok is a platform that, in addition to entertaining videos, gives a young and global audience access to a new format of short educational videos created by expert authors. This perspective presents several opportunities for the dissemination of knowledge in various fields of science concisely and effectively. TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that is rapidly growing in popularity. It was the second most downloaded app in the app world in 2020. While the platform is known for having users post videos of themselves dancing, lip-syncing, or showing off other talents, videos of users sharing specific knowledge have increased because of initiatives such as learn on TikTok. [2]

Social media is an internet-based community created visually to build profiles individually and socially [3]. Social media platforms are created around the concept of personal profiles that resembles a homepage that serves to describe each site. It is also used to make communication easy between people through digital devices.[4] Over 80% of adolescents own one form of new media technology, including cell phones or computers, and use it frequently to text or message their friends or other people online. Most adults use these platforms, including instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In today’s society, the media plays an important role in guiding the values of young people. [5].

Social media has become an integral portion of society, with rising usage and prevalence since its creation and further expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The marked growth in social media was fueled by a large shift to all virtual platforms for human interactions. This is driven by increased public safety measures through widespread business and school closures, as well as lockdowns restricting public travel and large gatherings. These strict physical distancing measures caused people to be heavily reliant on virtual media, especially social media, for the latest pandemic news and to remain connected to each other.[6]

TikTok is one of the most popular music video social platforms through the world, which currently has 800 million active users in 155 countries. This video app was launched in 2017 by a Chinese company named Byte Dance and within one and half years, it has become the most popular short music video app in the world. Ranking as the most frequently downloaded app in the world, TikTok has shown over 2 billion times on the app store and Google play. The special feature of this app is that the users can create short videos up to 60 seconds adding background sound clips from the apps’ vast music library, and share the created videos with millions of TikTok users. As global web index reveals, only a small fraction of each platform’s user base is unique, and many of the platforms’ audiences overlap. As an example, 95% of Facebook users claim to utilize at least one more social media site. In Sri Lanka, an incredible development in the interne