socialmedia – Language💬, New Media📲 and Esme's Experience👩🏼‍🎓

TikTok Teens

Similar to past phenomenons such as Dubsmash and Vine (rip), TikTok has recently blown up as the must-have app, especially within the younger community.

Users create and watch a wide-range of short videos made solely for entertainment, whether it be lip-syncing, trending dance routines, viral challenges or lifestyle tutorials.

Here’s Gordon Ramsay and his daughter for example, doing one of the dance challenges 😂

@tillyramsay
Getting better by the day @gordonramsayofficial #fyp 🤣🤣
♬ Say So – Doja Cat

Over 1.5 billion people have downloaded this app and it’s available in 154 countries, making it an another app that people can connect on from all over the world.

I’d say the main users are around 12-17, and as a 19 year old I have to admit it does feel weird to use an app and feel slightly lost. I still haven’t worked out how to use it properly. When you think about it, my generation has always been in the thick of it, no matter what the new technology or media is at the time. But with TikTok it’s just not the same. It’s not second nature to me like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat were when I was younger… maybe I’m getting old. Is this what it feels like to be my mum who still uses one finger to type and is amazed by checking in on Facebook?

Although I do find some TikToks pretty funny and it’s alright to scroll through them in bed when I’m bored, I can’t imagine using TikTok more than other platforms like Insta or Snapchat. I’m not really sure I see the appeal of being TikTok famous either, but each to their own!

Maybe, if I was still in school, I’d feel more of a connection to the app as more of my friends would be constantly talking about it and sharing videos. Then I’d probs feel the need to be more involved and like the app more. Saying that, in some ways I’m actually glad that I don’t have any real TikTok commitments, it looks like a lot of effort to me🤣

A 15 sec dance video can take hours to learn, trust me, I’ve tried! That might just be my problem having 2 left feet though, even Gordon did better than I could. For now, I’ll take a backseat in making any myself, but that doesn’t mean I won’t watch them every time one pops up on my Twitter feed. Here’s some relevant ones that popped up yesterday:

https://www.tiktok.com/@sonytamushyoo/video/6804005413160340742

@dralexgeorge
Coronavirus: When do you need to wash your hands? #coronavirus #covid19 #foryou #PlayWithLife #healthtips #dralex #fyp #edutok #edutokhealth #ad
♬ Say So – Doja Cat

Carry on the discussion below whether or not you feel the same way, is TikTok a generation thing? Do you use it yourself? Or what is your fav TikTok? 😎

**EDIT** 06/04/20

Hey guys,

With everything going on in the world and us now being in ‘lockdown’ compared to when I wrote this, I’ve actually had a change of heart so I thought I’d do you an update. I can’t stop TikToking!!! I’ve had all the time in the world to try and entertain myself and found myself using the app way more than before. Everyone I know seems to be doing the same too. Whenever I go onto Instagram or Snapchat, one of my friends seems to have posted a new TikTok video, usually a dancing one. I actually understand how to use it now too which is a bonus. I guess maybe it wasn’t an age thing after all, maybe it was a not having enough free time thing? Or maybe I’ve just started using it as a last resort… who knows, but it’s been quite fun and I wonder how many of you reading this have been using TikTok way more now too? P.s Gordon is still a better dancer than me but I’m trying! Hope everyone is well and staying safe 😊

Smart Phones and Stupid Kids

This week we learnt about another interesting topic: all about digital media and the processing of information.

Nowadays, our phones process a lot of info for us that in the past would have been processed by our brains. Pretty clever right, but is this just making us lazy and stupid? Some people think the constant use of mobile phones instead of actually using our brains could be impacting young peoples’ futures (including mine and yours!).

One of the main ideas we focused on was how long term memory may be becoming less important as time goes on. This is because we have all our important memories, passwords and phone numbers with us at all times, all jammed into a small handheld device in our pockets. And if you wanted to be even more 21st century… you don’t even need to keep this stuff stored on your phone, you can shove it on iCloud or Dropbox.

This is the sort of stuff that really confuses my Nana and Grandad, who of course have a phone number and address book kept safely in the dining room cupboard, and would probably keel over at the idea of a ‘shared online data centre’ that we can’t see or touch, or just the cloud to me and you.

I searched around for some more info on how our phones process information for us, using my phone of course, and stumbled across an article by nbcnews.com:

One of the opinions, by Turkle, was that “we need to reclaim face-to-face conversation” as he claimed that having less of a relationship with technology allows us to focus on real life communication. This was following a study that showed children who went to an outdoor camp, and were banished from phones or laptops (is this 1950?🥴), were more able to read people’s emotions and expressions afterwards than kids who did not attend the camp…

This made me reflect on my own experiences and wonder how different I would be if I used my phone less and my brain more, would I be more observant? More caring? More clever? Maybe. Not that anyone would notice as they would be looking down at their phones anyway…

Why use my brain when my phone can do it for me anyway? Surely that allows more space in my brain to think about the important things in life, like Wednesday Union or last night’s Love Island 😋

The article also explored other more optimistic views, like Dr. Hampton who thinks processing and accessing information via our phones may actually be expanding our world views and helping us to maintain relationships. As a teenager, I, of course, side with Hampton over Turkle as I don’t personally think the youth of today are any less intelligent than our older generations, despite our different ways of processing information.

Although it’s still early days in being able to see any real effects of excessive mobile phone use and processing of info on young people, it sure will be interesting to see whether our generation lack any skills in later life because of this.

Is there anything you think we might miss out on in later life because we let our phones do things for us? Let me know in the discussion below