On the Psychology of TikTok Use: A First Glimpse From Empirical Findings

Montag, Christian; Yang, Haibo; Elhai, Jon D.

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.641673

Cited by 200 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

128

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…TikTok has become one of the most popular applications in the world, boasting a young audience despite its Terms of Service stating users must be over the age of 13. TikTok is rampant among children and teenagers seeking to expand their social networks, seek fame, or express themselves creatively (Montag et al 2021). However, the application has a dark side, which puts its young users at risk.…”

Section: Tiktok: the Platform Audiences And Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

TikTok’s Spiral of Antisemitism

Weimann

Masri²

2021

Journalism and Media

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The growing presence of antisemitism on social media platforms has become more prominent in recent years. Yet, while most of the scholarly attention has been focused on leading platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the extremist immigration to other platforms like TikTok went unnoticed. TikTok is the fastest-growing application today, attracting a huge audience of 1.2 billion active users, mostly children and teenagers. This report is based on two studies, conducted in 2020 and 2021, applying a systematic content analysis of TikTok videos, comments, and even usernames. Data were collected twice, in two four-month periods, February–May 2020 and February–May 2021, to allow for comparisons of changes and trends over time. Our findings highlighted the alarming presence of extreme antisemitic messages in video clips, songs, comments, texts, pictures, and symbols presented in TikTok’s content. TikTok’s algorithm is even more disconcerting since it leads to a spiral of hate: it pushes users who unintentionally view disturbing content to view more. Considering TikTok’s young demographic, these findings are more than alarming; TikTok even fails to apply its own Terms of Service, which do not allow content “deliberately designed to provoke or antagonize people, or are intended to harass, harm, hurt, scare, distress, embarrass or upset people or include threats of physical violence”.

show abstract

Section: Tiktok: the Platform Audiences And Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

TikTok’s Spiral of Antisemitism

Weimann

Masri²

2021

Journalism and Media

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…According to a report at the end of 2020, the number of monthly active TikTok users worldwide was 800 million. About 81% of Chinese users were young people under 35 years old [15]. The gratification of entertainment is the main driver for TikTok users.…”

Section: Introduction 1internet Smartphone or Tiktok Use Disordermentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Adolescents Regarding the Indirect Effect of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress between TikTok Use Disorder and Memory Loss

Sha

Dong

2021

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research involved the participation of 3036 Chinese students in the first and second years of senior high school. The adolescents were active users of TikTok. The mediating effect of depression, anxiety, and stress between TikTok use disorder and memory loss was investigated. A forward and backward digit span test was applied to measure memory loss. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was established, and SPSS Amos was used for analysis. The results show a partial mediation effect of depression and anxiety between TikTok use disorder and forward digit span. A partial mediation effect of depression, anxiety, and stress between TikTok use disorder and backward digit span is also shown. These results also show gender differences. Attention should be given to male students, who have more depression, anxiety, and stress than female students; they also have more memory loss.

show abstract

“…Of the 124 participants, 123 (99.2%) used IM apps and 67 (54%) used image-based SN apps. In turn, we found that no participants used the TikTok app; however, it should be noted that at the time data collection started for the present study, the TikTok app was called “musical.ly” [ 31 ], and was later renamed TikTok starting on November 2017. Further, only 3 participants reported using the Twitter app.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Exploring the Associations Between Self-reported Tendencies Toward Smartphone Use Disorder and Objective Recordings of Smartphone, Instant Messaging, and Social Networking App Usage: Correlational Study

Marengo¹,

Sariyska²,

Schmitt³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Social communication via instant messaging (IM) and social networking (SN) apps makes up a large part of the time that smartphone users spend on their devices. Previous research has indicated that the excessive use of these apps is positively associated with problematic smartphone use behaviors. In particular, image-based SN apps, such as Instagram (Facebook Inc) and Snapchat (Snap Inc), have been shown to exert stronger detrimental effects than those exerted by traditional apps, such as Facebook (Facebook Inc) and Twitter (Twitter Inc). Objective In this study, we investigated the correlation between individuals’ tendencies toward smartphone use disorder (SmUD) and objective measures of the frequency of smartphone usage. Additionally, we put to test the hypothesis that the pathway linking the frequency of actual smartphone usage to self-reported tendencies toward SmUD was mediated by the increased frequency of IM and SN app usage. Methods We recruited a sample of 124 adult smartphone users (females: 78/124, 62.9%; age: mean 23.84 years, SD 8.29 years) and collected objective information about the frequency of smartphone and SN app usage over 1 week. Participants also filled in a self-report measure for assessing the multiple components of tendencies toward SmUD. Bivariate associations were investigated by using Spearman correlation analyses. A parallel mediation analysis was conducted via multiple regression analysis. Results The frequency of smartphone usage, as well as the use of IM apps (Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp [Facebook Inc]), Facebook, and image-based apps (Instagram and Snapchat), had significant positive associations with at least 1 component of SmUD, and the cyberspace-oriented relationships factor exhibited the strongest associations overall. We found support for an indirect effect that linked actual smartphone usage to SmUD tendencies via the frequency of the use of image-based SN apps. Conclusions Our novel results shed light on the factors that promote SmUD tendencies and essentially indicate that image-based SN apps seem to be more strongly associated with problematic smartphone behaviors compared to IM apps and traditional SN apps, such as Facebook.

show abstract

On the Psychology of TikTok Use: A First Glimpse From Empirical Findings

Cited by 200 publications

References 54 publications

TikTok’s Spiral of Antisemitism

TikTok’s Spiral of Antisemitism

Research on Adolescents Regarding the Indirect Effect of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress between TikTok Use Disorder and Memory Loss

Exploring the Associations Between Self-reported Tendencies Toward Smartphone Use Disorder and Objective Recordings of Smartphone, Instant Messaging, and Social Networking App Usage: Correlational Study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About