How TikTok served as a platform for young people to share and cope with lived COVID-19 experiences

Klug, Daniel; Evans, M. G.; Kaufman, Geoff

doi:10.7146/mk.v38i73.128463

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Several studies have found that people turn to online communities to reduce anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness [29][30][31]. This was a common coping mechanism for youth during the COVID-19 pandemic when face-to-face interactions were not possible [32,33]. For instance, a qualitative study exploring youths' perspectives using online sources for health information [26] found that many youths benefited from seeing what others were doing to support their health, which was a source of motivation and inspiration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…TikTok experienced a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing youth with a platform to interact with each other and share their lived experiences and thoughts related to the pandemic, including social isolation, public health measures, and ways to cope with mental health challenges [9][10][11]. TikTok has also been used to incorporate humor when sharing experiences in the face of psychological distress, which can facilitate coping and social connection [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring How Youth Use TikTok for Mental Health Information in British Columbia: Semistructured Interview Study With Youth

Turuba,

Cormier,

Zimmerman

et al. 2024

JMIR Infodemiology

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Background: TikTok experienced a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way for people to interact with others, share experiences and thoughts related to the pandemic, and cope with ongoing mental health challenges. However, few studies have explored how youth use TikTok to learn about mental health.Objective: This study aims to understand how youth used TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic to learn about mental health and mental health support.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 youth (ages 12-24) living in British Columbia, Canada, who had accessed TikTok for mental health information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed using an inductive, data-driven approach.Results: Three overarching themes were identified describing youths' experiences. The first theme centred on how TikTok gave youth easy access to mental health information and support, which was particularly helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic to curb the effects of social isolation and the additional challenges of accessing mental health services. The second theme described how the platform provided youth with connection, as it gave youth a safe space to talk about mental health and allowed them to feel seen by others going through similar experiences. This helped normalize and de-stigmatize conversations about mental health and brought awareness to various mental health conditions. Finally, the last theme focused on how this information led to action, such as trying different coping strategies, discussing mental health with peers and family, accessing mental health services, and advocating for themselves during medical appointments. Across the three themes, youth expressed having to be mindful of bias and misinformation, highlighting the barriers to identifying and reporting misinformation and providing individualized advice on the platform.Conclusions: Findings suggest that TikTok can be a useful tool to increase mental health awareness, reduce stigma, and encourage youth to learn and address their mental health challenges while providing a source of peer connection and support. Simultaneously, TikTok can adversely impact mental health through repetitive exposure to mentally distressing content and misleading diagnosis and treatment information. Regulations against harmful content are needed to mitigate these risks and make

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring How Youth Use TikTok for Mental Health Information in British Columbia: Semistructured Interview Study With Youth

Turuba,

Cormier,

Zimmerman

et al. 2024

JMIR Infodemiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Moreover, the consumption of TikTok has also impacted women's emotionfocused coping consequent to its nature of hosting relatability among its users. Since the pandemic, TikTok has become a platform where many users may share similar backgrounds and experiences (Klug et al, 2023), hence, fostering a space for an individual to reflect on each other's personal experiences or opinions through short-formatted videos. Even though our participants do not actively express their thoughts and emotions online, they reported relief when they came across videos related to the said problems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women’s perspectives of social media for coping

Sharon Grace

2024

IJELHE

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This paper analyses women’s experience of consuming TikTok to cope with everyday stress. Our objectives are to examine the significant meanings of TikTok to women as a coping tool, to explore the motivations behind women’s engagement with the platform for stress and emotion management, including to investigate the relationship between women’s social and economic conditions and their consumption of TikTok for stress-coping. The investigation is carried out by conducting semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data. Six women were purposively sampled from a lower-income (B40) background who all use TikTok. Our results indicate several positive outcomes in women’s stress and emotion management, particularly in managing work and personal stressors when consuming TikTok. Moreover, the results revealed that TikTok does not necessarily gratifiy as a tool for social validation but rather as a tool to comprehend and cope with women’s stress. Additionally, TikTok positively affects women by encouraging them to seek self-betterment through its various media channels of entertainment, information, and distraction. The implications of this paper could be used to better understand the nature of stress that women face in this current era, and how social media is capable of becoming an effective tool for stress-coping

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“…It evaluated "yes" with three degrees, "sometimes" with two degrees, and "no" with one degree, in the positive expressions (1,2,7,10,11,16,22,24,25,27). The scores were reversed in the negative expressions (3,4,5,6,8,9,12,13,14,15,17,18,19,20,21,23,26).…”

Section: Data Collection Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some videos with adversely related content are detrimental to adolescents and impact their body image [ 4 ]. The problem is greater among adolescents because many of them are not yet mature enough to differentiate between unrealistic videos and reality [ 5 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Comparison and Body Image in Teenage Users of the TikTok App

Ibn Auf,

Alblowi,

Alkhaldi

et al. 2023

Cureus

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Background and aim: The TikTok app is one of the video-based social media platforms that is currently trending and commonly used by teenagers. The data about teenage users of the TikTok app are limited. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of TikTok app use among teenagers in Saudi Arabia and to investigate the association between TikTok app use and the social comparison and the body image of the study population. Further, to explore the potential associations between the social comparison and the body image of the TikTok app users and their different characteristics. Methods: This cross-sectional survey study was conducted all over Saudi Arabia. The study included male and female teenagers, aged 12-19 years. The researchers used a structured, self-administered questionnaire to collect data, and it was disseminated using different social media platforms. The social comparison was measured using the questionnaire of the Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure, and the body image was measured using the Measurement of the Body Image Scale. The data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 26 (Chicago, IL: SSPS Inc.). Continuous variables were compared using the Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, or Kruskal-Wallis tests, whereas categorical variables were compared using the Chi-square or Fisher's exact tests as appropriate. Spearman’s rank correlation was applied to investigate the association between body image and social comparison scores among TikTok app users and non-users. Results: This study included 384 Saudi teenagers. Females (n=260) outnumbered males (n=124) (67.7% and 32.3%, respectively), and the mean of their age was 16.3±2.0 years. The researchers found a high prevalence (343/384, 89.3%) of TikTok app use among the studied teenagers. There was a significantly high median of the social comparison score among the TikTok app users (33.0, IQR: 28.0-38.0) compared to the non-users (28.0, IQR: 26.0-34.0), p=0.005. TikTok app users also showed a significantly lower median body image score (64.0, IQR: 54.0-72.0) in comparison to the non-users (67.0, IQR: 58.0-73.0), p=0.037. The correlation between social comparison and body image among teenagers using TikTok showed a negative relationship, but it was not significant (p=0.110). However, a significant negative weak relationship was found between body image and comparison of abilities (r s coefficient=-0.113, p=0.037). Conclusions: The findings of the current study indicate a high prevalence of TikTok use among teenagers in Saudi Arabia. The use of TikTok was associated with a high social comparison and a negative body image, with more than half of the users expressing a negative body image. Comparison of abilities was associated with an increased level of body dissatisfaction. These findings emphasize the need for the development and implementation of public health policies and awareness programs to promote body acceptance, especially for young people across the country. Future...

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How TikTok served as a platform for young people to share and cope with lived COVID-19 experiences

Cited by 9 publications

References 48 publications

Exploring How Youth Use TikTok for Mental Health Information in British Columbia: Semistructured Interview Study With Youth

Exploring How Youth Use TikTok for Mental Health Information in British Columbia: Semistructured Interview Study With Youth

Women’s perspectives of social media for coping

Social Comparison and Body Image in Teenage Users of the TikTok App

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