Tik Tok is one of the most popular apps worldwide. With more than 850 million users it’s easy for someone to become a target for bullying. The act of bullying can take place anywhere, but in these modern times it’s most likely to happen on social media.

Social media affects mental health in youth due to the fact some people are so caught up in what other people say and the growing use of social media for kids at a younger age affects them as well because since they’re so young they’ll take an opinion harder than most people do which can cause anxiety, depression, and maybe sometimes isolation.

StopBullying.gov Ed Board says, “Bullying may seriously affect the mental health and well-being of children and youth”.

Unfortunately, overtime bullying has become more common, especially online since users can remain anonymous. Bullying can affect one’s mental health and some may not know how badly it’s affecting them. Freshman Callie Rushing explains how she would feel if an anonymous person were to comment hateful things on her posts.

“Nine times out of ten it would sit on my mind heavily just because I don’t know who the person is. It would make me wonder if other people think this of me, like my friends and my family but choose not to say anything to not hurt my feelings. I’m also an over thinker and struggle with anxiety so with hateful comments coming from a person hiding behind a screen yeah it would make me over think, maybe even drive me insane just because I don’t know who it is, I know it shouldn’t, but bro words do hurt. And you would think since there has been all them suicides because of online bullying people would get the memo to just STOP.. like just stop to think about ‘oh maybe saying this is going to hurt someone’s feelings’ but no, they care about nobody’s feelings but their own,” Rushing said.

Social media sites like Tik Tok, play a big factor in a teen’s mental health. These apps have become some of the biggest and easiest ways for kids to get in contact with strangers. This can potentially put people in dangerous situations where they can be taken advantage of. These situations can kead to people targeted by hurtful words and images which can lead to depression and even suicide. Which leads me back to how tik tok plays a big factor in teens’ health, with social media being one if the biggest and easiest ways to get in contact with other people, some people take advantage of that and put out opinions of their own or just hurtful things in general which can lead to the person/people who are targeted to overthink, sometimes lead to depression, or suicide.

Tik Tok can come off as an “unsafe app” to many people due to various reasons with bullying being one of them. Senior Darius Booze talks about the lack of safety on Tik Tok.

“Don’t get me wrong, Tik Tok is a very fun and entertaining app, it gets me to laugh within a minute of scrolling whenever I’m having a day, but the lack of safety is very concerning. Like for instance, hackers, they can hack your account whenever they want and I think Tik Tok tries it’s best to avoid that happening but it still happens like your private videos can be leaked onto the app and there’s nothing you can do about it but like report it and even then it takes Tik Tok a while to get wind of it. And I know you’re doing a report on teens’ mental health and yeah I do think the lack of safety on Tik Tok plays a role in it because of all the cyber bullying, and stuff and my bad but like back to what I was saying, hacking is like, to me, one of the biggest roles because when you hack someones account and leak stuff or even if they don’t leak stuff, you just have a heavy chest because What if, what if they do post it you know. I don’t know but that would mess with my mental health because it’s MY private stuff.” Booze said.

Teens use social media to stay in touch with their friends and for entertainment, but we must find ways to be proactive in their mental and be willing to reach out when someone we think is in need. Some ways we can help a teens mental are
Being mindful of what you’re saying and commenting under posts
Teens who are getting bullied online could turn off their comments
Parents should limit their children’s usage of Tik Tok

Here are 5 signs of mental illness

https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_5_signs_of_mental_illness/article.htm