Illinois A.G. Is Looking Into How TikTok Affects Your Kids’ Health
Two people in my life are avid TikTok consumers. One is my daughter, Molly, and the other is my on-air partner, Joe Dredge. Molly is 24 and Joe is 42...and frankly, I'm more worried about Joe's mental health (with or without TikTok).
Maybe the various Attorneys General across the country who are seeking to find out if TikTok is negatively affecting the mental health of kids across the country should widen their net a little bit.
Here Are A Couple Of Things About TikTok You May Not Have Known (yellowhead.com)
- The TikTok app has been downloaded over 3 billion times, and has over 1 billion active users.
- 70% of American teens use TikTok, the 20-29 age group comes next, followed by 30-39 year olds.
- 18% of all internet users use TikTok, with the average user opening the app 19 times per day, and spending 89 minutes per day on the app.
- TikTok is available in 154 countries in 75 different languages.
- 90% of people with a TikTok app use the app every single day.
So The TikTok App Is Wildly Popular, What's The Problem With That?
State Attorneys General from here in Illinois, along with California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Vermont are investigating practices and computer-driven promotion of content they say can endanger the physical and mental health of young users.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul:
Heavy social media usage has negative impacts on users’ mental health, for instance leading to low self-esteem and distorted body image. Those effects are amplified in those users who are children and teens. This investigation seeks to determine what methods TikTok is using to increase the time users spend on the platform, and how that increased time harms young users’ physical and mental health.
The same group is also leading an investigation into Facebook parent Meta for allegedly promoting Instagram to young users despite knowledge of its potential harms.