May 16, 2025
Do TikTok and social media in general have more positive or negative effects? Now, that’s a perplexing question. There are certainly benefits to using this platform, but there is also a long list of drawbacks that makes us question whether or not it is actually useful.
Coming to the bad things about TikTok, negative comparison, dangerous viral trends, addiction, and a shorter attention span are just a few of the many drawbacks of TikTok.
Let’s go into depth on each of these issues:
Social media platforms allow users to see how creators spend their time and live their lives, which can be highly detrimental to one’s mental health.
Videos on TikTok are only a 15-second snapshot into someone’s life, where they glam up and uplevel their lifestyle, portraying an unreal picture of an ideal life. This leads to other users comparing their lifestyles and feeling self-conscious.
One of the darkest aspects of TikTok has to be comparing oneself to others, whether it be in terms of beauty standards, affluence, income, or anything else!
There have been a lot of dangerous TikTok trends in the past, and some of them have even ended up taking people’s lives or bringing them to the emergency rooms of nearby hospitals.
The Cha Cha Slide, Penny Challenge, and Orbeez Challenge, among many others, are currently banned on the platform, but when these trends first came out, numerous adults and teenagers risked their lives by performing these challenges in order to gain views on their videos.
“What I eat in a day” videos, which highlight what influencers on the platform consume for meals throughout the day, are extremely popular on the network and have a profound psychological effect on other users.
There are a number of videos that encourage viewers to consume an absurdly small amount of food while setting unrealistic standards for their physical appearance. Teens’ brains are impacted by this, leading them to eat less or strive to “look better.”
It’s easy to get sucked into the seemingly endless loop of TikTok videos and find yourself watching more and more without even realizing it.
This is the essence of a TikTok addiction. With over a billion users, the platform’s infinite supply of videos can keep people watching for hours on end without them even noticing it.
Such addiction to social media is harmful to both one’s mental and physical health, as well as taking up all of one’s time.
Especially for this issue, TikTok has come up with digital wellbeing which is an in-app solution developed to help users keep their screen time and TikTok usage in check— you can closely monitor this and make sure you are not spending too much time on the platform!
Are you having trouble focusing on a task because you keep looking at your phone? Or do you simply pick up your phone at odd times and browse TikTok? Or is a TikTok sound playing in your brain making it difficult for you to focus? — Low attention span is the cause of all of these.
According to numerous surveys, the ever-increasing addiction to social media is, in fact, a big reason why people’s attention spans have been steadily declining over the past few years.
Gen-Z is so engrossed in TikTok that they frequently lose sight of the threats and dangers that exist in their immediate surroundings.
TikTokers make videos showing off their homes, and expensive possessions, and vlogging about literally everything they do in a day. By doing this, people unintentionally reveal more about their private lives to the public.
These details might undoubtedly be used by predators and thieves to commit some nefarious crimes and threaten the life of a young person.
People create videos and express their opinions without actually determining what is true, contributing to the spread of false information.
People create phony videos and disseminate fake hacks, and other things just to get more views on the site, which reduces the platform’s credibility.
Therefore, to avoid being duped, double-check anything you see on this short video platform before you believe it.
Although adult content, inappropriate content, sexual content, and nudity are expressly forbidden on the TikTok website, some users continue to publish videos there that can be destructive to the minds of young users in particular.
Source: TikTok
Given that the majority of TikTok viewers are between the ages of 10 and 19, these kinds of videos rob children of their innocence and instead poison their minds from a young age.
You must be aware of all the news coverage around the delivery of user data from TikTok to the Chinese government by ByteDance. Even if it hasn’t been proven, the claim nonetheless raises suspicion.
In light of the app’s extensive list of required permissions, including access to camera, microphone, gallery, etc., users reasonably wonder whether or not their personal information is being tracked.
TikTok is a free speech zone where users are encouraged to express themselves honestly and openly — which can have both positive and negative consequences
It is harmful to a person’s feelings and can have a negative effect on their self-esteem when a user receives a large number of hateful or disparaging comments or sexual abuse via their video comments section or through direct messages.
Some users purposely create fake TikTok accounts in order to harass and troll other content creators and TikTok influencers on the platform. This behavior can have a deep impact on a user’s mental health in the long run.
If you’re wondering whether TikTok addiction exists, you’re right. It isn’t just a hypothetical presumption; experiments have already been conducted on this subject.
According to a recent major study that examined TikTok user behavior and was published in the medical journal Addictive Behaviors, the platform is undoubtedly addictive, with as many as 30% or more of TikTok users being recognized as being at some risk for developing a problematic dependency on the app.
Despite the platform’s ban on sexual and nudist content, users continue to share such video content on the platform.
They are able to get their point across to their target audience by using obscene language such as “p3n1$,” “d!ck,” and “seggs.”
In addition, the platform’s constantly rising “hotness quotient” compels users of all ages to post more photos and videos of themselves in provocative clothing, engage in seductive dancing moves, and work out in an attempt to capture the attention of other users.
Simply put, the answer is “NO.” Parents should use extreme caution in supervising their children’s online activities and social platform usage because of the potential impact they can have on their children’s developing brains.
Although the TikTok app has parental controls, they are pretty easy to bypass. Therefore, parents must keep a close check on what their children post, watch, and do on social media apps.
