The social media app TikTok has been a large part of the culture of young people over the past few years and has played a role in several key events such as the 2020 presidential election and the support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The app is often educational and entertaining, but it comes with similar issues brought by virtually all social media platforms.
Notably, the media has directed attention to challenges that users, especially high school students, are following through with. A recent editorial from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review explains that the controversy over TikTok stems from the “lack of supervision of [teens’] cyber activities.” Even though high-school students do not make up the majority of TikTok users, they are the group that follows through with the more damaging trends.
The trend that has damaged several schools around the country is called “devious licks,” which involves vandalism and other illegal activities that are posted online. It has led to thousands of dollars in damages to middle and high schools, and many blame TikTok for the destruction of property. The vandalism includes stolen soap dispensers, graffiti on walls and broken sinks and toilets. The more malevolent trend known as “slap a teacher” arose in October and led to some students being charged with battery.
While the app does not promote these behaviors, it does invite users to create trends that involve illegal and unacceptable activities, but a full ban of the app in schools would not truly benefit students, though stricter regulations on TikTok are warranted because of the harm being caused.
A school district in Fresno County in California reported to the Los Angeles Times in September that students caused more than $20,000 in damage, and superintendent Lori Villanueva described the situation as out of the ordinary for the district. The district even started paying bus drivers to monitor bathrooms in the schools.
Many young TikTok users do not understand the full extent of the damages they cause with these trends and often do not consider the impacts they have on those around them.
Senior Eliana Smerek said there should be steps taken to help without fully shutting down the app.
“A good first step could be setting guidelines to censor the most extreme and undoubtedly harmful content without crossing the line to potential creative censorship,” Smerek said.
Young people do not like to be monitored on the internet, but, in cases such as these, it may be the only option unless the app is shut down all together. While some may not agree that monitoring would work on such a large scale, it is a starting point.
The vandalism must be brought under control, and monitoring the app is working in some counties around the country. Tighter regulations of all social media would help not only with this trend, but also with other issues such as bullying and popularizing addiction that are seen across these platforms.
