The Effect of TikTok Workouts on Teens during Quarantine
May 8, 2020
All over the United States, regular life has been put on hold as families self-quarantine and practice safe social distancing measures. As boredom sets in, many people have taken to social media for something to do and some form of entertainment. Apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and even Zoom allow people to communicate but the most popular app for youth has been TikTok. On TikTok, a Chinese video-sharing app, popular accounts create videos that feature comedy, people dancing, or lip-syncing, and people are finding various ways to entertain themselves.
TikTok has been labeled the app of quarantine because of its wide variety and to what lengths people will go to in attempts to go viral, which makes many people wonder about how much influence TikTok has on the world of social media. While TikTok is a fun way to occupy time in quarantine, there could possibly be some harmful effects from spending too much time on the app.
TikTok has been jokingly labeled as addictive because the app hides the time and battery life of the device it is being used on, leading users to spend hours scrolling through random videos. While TikTok has many fun uses, people around the world are growing concerned with its lasting effects. Recently, new challenges have arisen that encourage people on the app to snort nutmeg in attempts to hallucinate or to take photos of themselves to imitate mugshots.
However dangerous and stupid those parts of TikTok might be, quarantine has also inspired many people to begin working out, much more frequently than normal. Lately, 15 and 30 second and 1-minute videos describing different workouts have risen in popularity and motivated users to complete the workouts, with promised results given in the captions of these videos. The multitude of workouts are productive and give users something to do in their quarantine induced state of boredom. Most people would agree that exercise is a great way to spend time and do something productive, however, social media and body image factors come into play when users of the app are forced to see nothing but workout videos all the time.
The ForYou page of TikTok curates the page to types of videos that users have liked in the past, meaning that if you like one workout video, then many more workout videos will come up on the ForYou page. In the past, others have noticed that some popular videos include elements of eating disorders and romanticize them. While this is destructive normally, it becomes even scarier when teens are stuck in quarantine. This is dangerous during quarantine because these workout videos often contribute to the growing obsession of negative body image due to social media. Makenzie Porter, a junior at Mendham High School, says that social media during quarantine is both bad and good. Porter says that social media, and TikTok in general, has become a platform that allows “people to be inspired by others that are using this time to be active and decide that they want to participate themselves,” and also says that she “think[s] that when people see others working out they feel that they could be doing the same thing.” However, Porter recognizes the possible negative effects of TikTok workouts and says that TikTok can definitely be “harmful because it makes people constantly compare themselves to others,” due to the surplus of workout videos that are trending right now.
During this quarantine, it is important for teenagers to exercise and keep up with their nutritional levels. However, the common comments of “Step one: be skinny” and “Why can’t I look like that?” on workout videos lead many people to question how “healthy” it is to watch workout videos from girls who have been deemed perfect, constantly.
