CS 371 - Blog Post 2 - Carpino

A study conducted by Pew Research Centre found that TikTok usage has increased exponentially since 2014-15 compared to other social media platforms. TikTok's popularity points to the article For gen Z, TikTok is the new search engine, which argues that TikTok has morphed into a discovery tool. Instead of sifting through information on Google, TikTok brings users to a plethora of videos showing real people — even self-proclaimed experts and professionals — who share information about one’s topic of interest. Rather than using a “faceless website”, people trust the information from TikTok due to the videos being interactive and personable. For example, the article references a TikTok user “who uses the app to look for restaurants”, as “you see how the person actually felt about where they ate” (Huang, 2022). Here, it is evident that social cues are an affordance power of TikTok. The platform is a rich media source, meaning it can “provide a full range of [social] cues” that “communicate beyond the message or content of the communication itself” (Baym, 2015). In other words, TikTok videos display the creators' nonverbal communication — facial expressions, body language, paralanguage, etc. — which makes their message more meaningful to users. I do not believe it is harmful to use TikTok as a search engine for topics such as restaurants, recipes, workout videos, or decor inspiration. However, TikTok's contribution to the spread of misinformation is a concern, as “the platform has struggled with moderating misleading content about elections, the war in Ukraine and abortion” — examples of serious, controversial subjects that require factual, peer-reviewed research (Huang, 2022). TikTok content is based on creators’ ideology and can often only provide their opinion, yet many users consider the information to be reliable without fact-checking. If you are a TikTok user, do you use the app as a search engine? If so, what kind of information are you looking for, and why did you use TikTok instead of Google?

References

Huang, K. (2022). For gen Z, TikTok is the new search engine. The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/gen-z-tiktok-search-engine.html?searchResultPosition=3 

Baym, N. (2015). Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Polity. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://mylearningspace.wlu.ca/d2l/le/content/450821/Home


Comments

  1. Sarah HumphreysOctober 7, 2022 at 9:54 AM

    Great post Avery! I use TikTok as a search engine quite often. In particular, I use TikTok to search for new restaurants that my friends and I can go to, product review videos (such as skin care, hair care, etc.), and clothing review videos so I can see various users opinions on specific clothing items and sizing guides so I have a rough idea of what to order online. I find TikTok as a convenient search engine because I am able to scroll through an abundance of videos all answering the question I typed in the search bar.

    However, there is definitely a lot of misinformation on TikTok, I think you made a really important point in your post this week... "TikTok content is based on creators’ ideology and can often only provide their opinion, yet many users consider the information to be reliable without fact-checking."
    Although I use TikTok as a search engine, I know it is important to fact check outside of the app, as I am really just scrolling through users opinions rather than factual information.

    ReplyDelete

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