Report: TikTok's Popularity Among Children Grows in Britain

Facts

• Britain's media regulator Ofcom has published its annual survey on children's and parents' online attitudes, showing that TikTok's use among UK children increased to 53% of those aged between 3 to 17 in 2022 — three points higher than in the prior year.¹
• The Children's Media Lives report further revealed that one-quarter of five to seven-year-olds and nearly one-fifth of three to four-year-olds are using TikTok, with children aged eight or above increasingly preferring "split-screen" viewing to watch two, often unrelated, videos at once.²
• The authors stressed that most children turn to social media for information, generally believing that what they see, read, or hear is true without questioning it.³
• The Chinese app, which is used regularly by 17 of the survey's 21 respondents for an average of two hours a day, continues to be the platform where children spend the most time.⁴
• The report comes as ByteDance-owned TikTok earlier this month announced a new 60-minute screen time limit per day for every account held by a user under 18. The efficacy of this measure, however, has been questioned as it can be bypassed by entering a password.⁵
• Meanwhile, across the pond, Utah passed two bills restricting children's access to alleged addictive platforms, with similar proposals being discussed in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²The Telegraph, ³Independent, ⁴Ofcom, ⁵New York Times, and ⁶FOX News.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Newsweek. It has been widely known that TikTok's data-harvesting practices in favor of the Chinese government represent a national security threat, but this platform has an even darker side. While promoting educational clips to children in its Chinese version, TikTok purposely exposes Western children to inappropriate sexual and substance-related content. It's about time that this weaponized app is banned once and for all.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Wired. Concerns about the experience of children using TikTok are entirely justifiable, but it's outrageous that the platform has been criticized as if such issues are not common to every other major social media platform. Politicians have been exploiting the most striking fears of parents while failing to address basic, urgent challenges, such as providing food to all school children, in a blatant show of hypocrisy.

Predictions