With the 175 million downloads up to August 2020, TikTok is undoubtedly the hottest and trendiest app right now! TikTok has become the talk of the town for the past months and a year ago. Of course, even I couldn’t resist to hop on with the trend.
What is Tiktok?
Parents may wonder, what is TikTok? TikTok is a 15 to 60 seconds video creation app that allows users to edit and share their videos!
Usually, many people associate this app with only dance videos. However, do you know that TikTok’s videos have varieties and all kinds of videos? You name it, cooking, home renovation, cartoon, educational, health and many others!
Is Tiktok Safe For Your Kids?
For your information, TikTok is created for kids that are aged 12 and above. Yet, if your children are below that age, you must control and supervise their TikTok’s usage.
According to TikTok, ‘Family Safety Mode’ was released in February 2020 to help parents manage their children’s screen time, content and limiting messages.
TikTok surely is a safe app and it does not cause any harm. Nonetheless, here are some things you should know about the risk of TikTok for kids.
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Risk of Pedophiles or Child Predators
Some people can take advantage of any social media platform and TikTok is also one of them. TikTok is a platform where everyone can show their talent like dancing, acting and this could potentially allow predators to lure in with inappropriate compliments and flattery.
In any TikTok videos, there is a ‘Duet’ button where predators may send implicit sexual comments and videos. Thus, this is something to be careful of.
What Should You Do?
You should set your children’s account as private and this will not allow any stranger or predators to view your children’s account or videos.
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Inappropriate and Explicit Content
TikTok has a ‘For You’ page where it is identical as ‘Instagram Feed’. However, ‘For You’ page may contain some content that may not be suitable and inappropriate to your children.
From my experience, I don’t follow any inappropriate accounts. But, sometimes video content that may be sexual, explicit or violent do appear randomly at my ‘For You’ page.
What Should You Do?
You should supervise your children’s ‘For You’ page and if you happen to see any inappropriate content, you can report and block the account for your child’s safety.
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Exposed to Cyber-bullying
Sadly, cyber-bullying happens in every platform of social media regardless of age. TikTok can also be a platform for ‘keyboard warriors’ that hide behind their screen to send mean and hateful comments.
Your child could potentially post a video and get a lot of hate from it. From my experience on TikTok, people would easily throw awful comments without thinking of the creator’s feelings and this can lead to low self-esteem and depression.
What Should You Do?
TikTok allows you to limit the comment section or you can close it. Thus, people are not able to message or give comments. If it gets worse, report and blocks the user!
Positive Impacts of TikTok
- Allow children to be creative and express their talents
- Give self-confidence towards children
- Source of entertainment (it provides wholesome and variety of video content!)
- Great publicity
- Potentially be a source of income
Watch this video! This adorable kid is using TikTok as a platform to shine her talent in dancing!
I would advise you to supervise instead of taking the app away from your children. Remember, they are growing up with the development of social media and technology so this is their childhood. So, don’t take their apps and phone because it will not solve the problem!
Having said that, TikTok is definitely a great platform. However, you must always keep an eye towards your children’s usage of this app!
Motherhood is now on TikTok! Click here to follow us and stay tuned with the fun-filled TikTok content regarding parenting and babies!