The Misuse of Tik Tok is Hurting Our Schools
Tik Tok is a video-focused social networking app that relies on short 60 second videos. Tik Tok is one of the top 5 most used social media apps worldwide and rapidly increasing in popularity. During the corona-virus outbreak, many students’ classes were converted to fully remote and students relied on Tik Tok for their entertainment. Unfortunately in the past year, certain “challenges” posted on Tik Tok have been promoting vandalism at schools and disrespect towards teachers, and even recently threatening schools with school shootings. The devious lick trend promoted students to vandalize their schools and post them on Tik Tok. Students would vandalize their classrooms and school bathrooms by tearing down mirrors, destroying stalls, and throwing books all over the place. The trend also promoted disrespectful behavior towards their teachers by being blatantly rude to them or even vandalizing their cars. Another challenge that hasn’t been named stated that mass shootings of schools would occur on Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. This trend caused many schools to go on high alert by either closing down their schools or increasing the amount of security at schools. Both of these challenges are examples of how Tik Tok has been misused and its effects on schools. The devious lick trend costs many schools a lot of money on repairs and the shooting threats caused panic for the safety of children’s lives.
In response, Tik Tok has done a good job in trying to reduce and prevent these horrible challenges from happening again. Tik Tok has removed any hashtags corresponding with the devious licks trend, if someone is to search up devious lick trends it will automatically send the user to Tik Tok’s community guidelines in order to “discourage criminal behavior.” Tik Tok also responded to the threats to schools by tweeting out that they will now be working with law enforcement to look into warnings of potential violence at schools or communities. Many people like Andrew Kozlowsky, a teacher at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg argue that Tik Tok can be beneficial to our schools and classrooms. That it “gives students a chance to be creative” however, Tik Tok like other social media platforms is created for entertainment and media and is not best suited for education. The app may lead to more of a distraction in classrooms rather than an educational tool. Teachers have also been posting lessons on Tik Tok to improve their students learning outside of school. The short lesson gives students a quick lesson that they can rewatch without issue. However like said before a funny clip is one swipe away from that educational video which can completely ruin the educational experience.
Sources:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tiktok-school-threat-december-17-b1978035.html
Edgar Alejandro Pena-Acosta, Grade 12. Interests/hobbies include working, going out with friends, playing video games, and hiking. Edgar plans to attend...
