To ban or not to ban: TikTok has become one of the hottest topics in today’s consumerist culture, dominating conversations about the modern reliance on digital technology. Is hyper-connectivity vital to the survival of our relationships? Do comments on friends’ content facilitate communication or social obligation? The answer to these questions requires introspectivity to a level unlike any other. In questioning our daily habits, our social media presence is put in jeopardy. The central question remains: has the influence of social media platforms turned into social manipulation?
It’s been over a year since TikTok Sparks Good, a politically driven campaign for kindness, entered the global scene. Spotlighting small businesses and snippets of human kindness, TikTok hoped to use this campaign to divert negative media attention from the app. However, heartwarming stories of small businesses and do-gooders are irrelevant to the average teen logging onto TikTok for a break from everyday monotony, making the company’s effort a fruitless pursuit.
Evidently, few can focus on good-sparking amid the large-scale attention TikTok has received for its detrimental role in modern culture. So, community members have been asked to comment on the app, detailing both their personal experience (or avoidance thereof) and the social implications they attribute to it.

In a May 2024 Bark survey, 69 percent of students revealed they spend more than 30 minutes per day scrolling through the lives of peers and influencers. This craving to connect on TikTok has become apparent through the amount of time that teens consistently spend absorbing the app’s content. On average, only 10 percent of adolescent users go on the app for less than 30 minutes. Senior Victoria Nikfar often finds herself reliant on “the scroll” to quiet her mind. Recently, she has been questioning content creators’ credibility.
“Even though TikTok can [sometimes be] mindless, I think that TikTok can also be [a place] where you can learn,” Nikfar said. “I will [often] look things up on TikTok instead of Google because I [learn from] a real person.”
Using TikTok as a search engine revolutionizes the app’s capability. Gaining knowledge of worldly events via social media networks has permitted the growth of widely accepted falsehoods in digital exchange networks.
In a September 2022 investigation by NewsGuard, a team of researchers took a sample of search results on prominent news topics and found that nearly 20 percent of them contained misinformation. Along with this prevalence of “fake news” in the news media has produced a loss of trust in social media credibility. According to a 2023 Pew Research study, 40 percent of adults felt that getting news from social media was destructive due to the inaccuracy of biased sources. This percentage exhibits a rise from 2018 when only 31 percent of the same group felt that TikTok popularized false information.
With this level of distrust of the app’s information, the influx of digital interaction across the globe has produced an increased amount of unhealthy, uncredible and unethical idea exchanges. This being said, TikTok can also serve as a stage for meaningful stories and newfound knowledge between otherwise disconnected individuals.
This interconnective use of the platform is visible in TikTok’s good-sparking movement, however it seems to often shrink to the shadows of the app. Social media is widely used as a means of social connectivity, and students often are looking for no more than a brain break when they open these apps. With both large and small-scale influencers creating content on social media, good-sparking can look different depending on the account and followings. UC Santa Cruz freshman Abby Lee, a graduate of Redwood in June 2024, joined the influencer side of TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic when she gained a following from her comedic take on student life as an LGBTQ+ influencer.
“I would meet people who told me how they came out to their parents because of my videos. It was such a bizarre feeling to have that kind of interaction with somebody—having somebody know so much about your life even though you don’t know anything about them,” Lee said. “I appreciated [these connections] more than the attention of it all.”
As Lee shared her influence being part of the LGBTQ+ community, many of her followers sought comfort in her humorous take on teen relationships. She quickly became a hit among those who may have felt lost in the social scope of high school, which helped Lee create a positive mindset toward her role on the app. This feeling helped her feel inspired by the TikTok community until the numbers started to gain control of her.
“It’s definitely addictive… you get stuck in the loop of it all,” Lee said. “When you’re posting consistently, you want to get just as many views or more views as the previous video… [and] I was sick of [making content for views].”

The exhaustion expressed in Lee’s experience details the mutually dysfunctional relationship between creators and viewers: there’s consistent pressure to go into the app and maintain relevance in social culture. Interestingly, this relationship extends beyond adolescent competition.
Kimya Shafaie attended Redwood High School from 2017 to 2020 before graduating from an out-of-state high school in 2021. When the COVID-19 pandemic changed how people could exercise, Shafaie wanted to find a way to hold herself accountable for her workouts. She came to the influencer side of TikTok to document her fitness journey, feeling empowered to exercise through the support of her followers. Using the platform to spread motivation for healthy fitness, Shafaie encouraged people to take control of their health on their own terms.
“When I have all these people supporting me, it just makes me feel like I am on the right path,” Shafaie said.
Currently amassing more than 46,000 followers on the platform, Shafaie has grown popular in the fitness community, cultivating mutually profitable relationships with brands like Breathe Divinity and Legion Athletics. This growth of economic benefit has furthered Shafaie’s gratitude for the app.
“The following that I’ve built on TikTok is a really big privilege for me because I never really thought I would even get 1000 followers. Every time someone follows me, I have one more person supporting me, [who] has my back, and I have theirs too,” Shafaie said.
Although Shafaie’s following began on TikTok, she made her Instagram account as an extension of her brand over the last six months and now has amassed over 73,000 followers. She has made this change in hopes of continuing her social media impact in the case of TikTok’s shutdown. Shafaie noted that this was the reason behind her switch of platforms, yet she still keeps both accounts updated with her progress. This worry of a closing TikTok community may negatively impact Shafaie, but with the backup of her Instagram account, she hopes to continue her influence in the athletic community.
For some, decreasing our social reliance on TikTok can be alarming, especially with the perspective of social connectivity. However, for English teacher Kendall DeAndreis, this shutdown could potentially cultivate healthier, deeper connections in the student population.
DeAndreis frequently deals with teens experiencing withdrawal from constant social media usage. With the implementation of the phone jail policy at the beginning of 2024, DeAndreis appreciated the mandated support of teens detaching from their phones in the classroom.
“Everything online is sort of premeditated and edited in some way; I think when you’re just face-to-face you don’t have time to edit and filter everything you say or do, [which allows you to] practice being more authentic,” DeAndreis said.
Highlighting the difference between edited versus in-the-moment communication, DeAndreis has noticed teens’ reliance on technology to interact. While observing students during her teaching years, DeAndreis has also noticed an uptick in stress levels, which she associates with the prevalence of social media usage.
“I definitely think students seem burnt out and stressed — I think students are more stressed than ever,” DeAndreis said.
This rapid increase in adolescent anxiety can be attributed to many sources of the modern world. However, with the constant pull to increase one’s influence, it has become almost impossible to be a teen and feel confident in the digital world.
TikTok has provided the platform for people to create realities as they see fit. Not only can any video be heavily edited, but entire accounts can be completely controlled by micromanagers.
In a 2024 Netflix docuseries, Robert Shinn was highlighted as a direct manipulator of the TikTok community. The series, “Dancing for the Devil,” has been challenged with the task of unveiling the complex life of individuals trapped in a cult-like TikTok-driven money machine. Connecting the lives of budding American dancers with an exclusive church located in Southern California, Shinn used the power of TikTok’s influence during the COVID-19 pandemic to create a brand of fulfilled, joyous dancers.
Although TikTok cults may seem far-fetched, the local and global community may be blindfolded to the harm of digital capability. Whether or not TikTok comes off the shelves of app stores, people must know what they’re getting into when they sign up for a free account to endless digital identities.