THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEENS, MENTAL HEALTH, AND TIKTOK AND WHY IT CAN BE BENEFICIAL

If you have a teen in your household or have been around a teen, you know TikTok is probably their most used app. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, you could not escape TikTok. Aside from the dances, tutorials, and story times, mental health content is a huge factor as to why some teens love TikTok. We have heard why TikTok can be bad, and it certainly has its faults but understanding your teen(s) requires you to look at it through their perspective. Imagine you’re a teen struggling through something that you can’t properly articulate, maybe because you don’t have the words for it, or are embarrassed, scared, or not comfortable sharing it. Maybe you feel like the only one with it because no one else around you seems to be struggling the same way you are. So, you open up TikTok to take your mind off of it and a few scrolls in, you stumble across someone who is talking about everything you’ve been feeling. On top of that, when you open up the comment section, there are several others who share they have been going through the same as well. Suddenly, you don’t feel as alone and you’re excited to keep exploring. 

Connection and community are vital to teenagers especially as they are coming to terms with who they are and with all these new experiences in their life. Mental health can be seen as a taboo topic whether with family or friends and it encourages people to suffer in silence. Mental health concerns can often go unchecked because of shame, because people don’t have access or permission to go get it treated. In these cases, teens might try to find another accessible route to understand, give a name, and validate their feelings and their struggles. On TikTok, there are many licensed and credentialed therapists and doctors who provide education on certain mental health topics. TikTok can also help raise awareness and provide different perspectives on mental illness that might have been stigmatized or sensationalized in the media.  For example, there is a popular TikToker who shares visually/auditorily what it is like to have schizophrenia and how he lives with it. Accounts like these can humanize people and teach teenagers to be empathic of different struggles. Lastly, TikTok itself can be used for stress reduction. For many teens who do not have proper coping skills, in the moment, TikTok can help de-stress, relax nerves, and bring people off the edge.