It’s time to call out the tech giants exploiting kids on TikTok and other social media platforms
I’m often unable to find a single person without a phone in hand, staring at the glossy rectangle in their palm. And it doesn’t stop when people eat out together either. Instead of talking to each other, many people now sit adjacent to one another, in silence, staring at their phones.
If someone from 20 years ago were to time-travel to 2023, they would be puzzled.
Many things are exactly the same as they were in 2003, but one big difference is how much our attention has been hijacked by these shiny little devices. Our time traveller would be astonished to see how much time we spend using these devices, even when we’re crossing the road, or using the toilet.
They might be disturbed to see children in strollers clutching at them and screaming when they are taken away. And when they learn about this thing called “TikTok”, and trends such as the “blackout challenge”, they might wonder why all this has been allowed to happen.
Count yourself lucky if you do not know what the “blackout challenge” is. The algorithmically amplified social media challenge involved people asphyxiating themselves in front of their phone cameras, then posting the videos to TikTok. A Bloomberg investigation found it led to the deaths of at least 15 children under the age of 12 over a period of 18 months.
Bereaved parents have tried to sue TikTok over their children’s deaths but to date no parent has been successful.
The “blackout challenge” is just one of several social media trends that have lured children into harming themselves, sometimes fatally. Other trends include the Benadryl challenge, which involves self-administering an overdose of an antihistamine medication, then filming the hallucinations that follow; the crate challenge, which involves climbing makeshift structures made out of milkcrates; and the tidepod challenge, which involves the ingestion of dishwasher tablets.
Other disordered behaviour amplified by social media algorithms include cutting, disordered eating and, most controversially, rapid onset gender dysphoria.
Since the advent of social media, rates of hospitalisation for self-inflicted injuries among girls under the age of 14 have tripled in Australia. The number of children seeking treatment to change their bodies because they feel they are not the right gender have similarly skyrocketed.
One might argue that teenagers have always been idiotic, and teenagers hurting themselves through stunts or self-mutilation is nothing new. And if it were not for TikTok, these challenges would have spread through other platforms, so worrying about them is a fool’s errand.
But, while it is of course true that teenage boys have always engaged in risky stunts and that teenage girls have long battled with anxiety, it is worth considering just how much social media is regulated outside the West, and why.
Despite being owned by a Chinese company, TikTok does not operate in China the way it does here. Chinese children use Douyin, a sister app owned by the same company. And it does not promote “blackout challenges” or material encouraging children to hate their bodies.
What does it promote? According to Tristan Harris of the Centre for Humane Technology, Douyin promotes “science experiments that you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos, and educational videos”. And even then, Chinese children are only allowed to use Douyin “for 40 minutes a day”.
A recent survey of pre-teens in the US and China asked children to nominate their most aspirational career. In the US, children nominated “YouTuber” as their most ambitious career, while in China, children nominated “astronaut”. On these results Harris reflects: “You allow those two societies to play out over a few generations, and I can tell you what your world is going to look like.”
Earlier this week, the top health official of the US, Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy, released a report concluding that social media exposes American children and adolescents to a “profound risk of harm”.
The studies cited in the report are extensive, and any parent concerned about these issues should read the report and the studies cited. Evidence cited includes studies that show social media can become uncontrollable, and that heavy or compulsive use promotes body dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression, reduced life satisfaction, interrupted sleep and increased ADHD symptoms, as well as brain changes similar to what is observed in heroin addicts.
Parents have long raised concerns about the impact of social media on their children. But now the scientific data is in, and it is irrefutable.
Any politician or major political party that stakes a claim on protecting Australian children from these harms is likely to win popular support. None of the major social media companies are Australian, and there is no good reason why we let these foreign companies exploit our children for profit.
Given what we now know about the harms these platforms can cause, we might want to imagine what our world will look like 20 years from now if we decide to do nothing.
Claire Lehmann is founding editor of online magazine Quillette.
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Next time you are waiting for a train or a bus, or waiting to pick up food from your local takeaway shop, take a look around you and count how many people are staring at their phones. I’ve been doing this little exercise lately, and the results make me queasy.