Raising Digitally Responsible Youth

TikTok Formerly known as Musical.ly, TikTok is currently one of the world’s most popular video - sharing social networking applica�ons and is centered around short videos with popular songs or sounds added. TikTok reigned as the most downloaded app globally in 2022 with 672 million downloads 30 that year a�er 9 quarters of holding the same �tle 31 and over 3.5 billion downloads since the app’s incep�on 32 . Despite several incidents of data breach allega�ons 33 and being banned in several countries 34 , TikTok is not going away any�me soon. TikTok has strategically marketed to younger audiences, and although users must be 13 years of age to sign up, the content isn’t being filtered. However, TikTok does offer some form of parental control under their Family Pairing feature 35 . Age - inappropriate content is inevitably reaching 37.3% of its es�mated audience that is under the age of 18 36 , as well as audiences who are poten�ally younger than the required 13 years of age, as it is quite easy for younger app users to lie about their age. The average �me a user spends on TikTok is 95 minutes per day 37 ; this is an increase of 43 minutes per day from 2022’s sta�s�c of 52 minutes 38 . This �me is spent either crea�ng and sharing short videos or watching the exis�ng plethora of TikTok videos uploaded to the pla�orm already. Either way, it’s being done for nearly 100 minutes every day. This �me is similar to but exceeds the amount of �me spent on other social media pla�orms such as YouTube (47.5 minutes), Snapchat (30.8 minutes), and Instagram (30.6 minutes) 39 .

Video by YouTube user Simple Alpaca.

30 Most Popular Apps (2023) - Business of Apps 31 TikTok Remains the Most Downloaded App in Q1 2021, According to New Data | Social Media Today 32 How Many Downloads Does TikTok Have in 2023? (App Stats) - EarthWeb 33 TikTok sued for billions over use of children's data - BBC News 34 Which countries have banned TikTok? | Mashable 35 How to Use TikTok’s Parental Controls (howtogeek.com) 36 TikTok User Sta�s�cs (2023) (backlinko.com) 37 9 Stats About Average Time Spent on Tiktok 2023 [New Data] (businessdit.com)

38 10 TikTok Sta�s�cs You Need to Know in 2022 [New data] (oberlo.com) 39 Average Time Spent On Social Media in 2023 (by Pla�orm) (oberlo.com)

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