CS 371 Blog post #2 - Kim Browne

 As we know Tik Tok is one of the most popular social media platforms that many people in our generation use, so it is no surprise it has become our source of everyday information. Many people use TikTok to seek advice and inspiration. Some even use it as a form of education. In the article, “For Gen Z - Tiktok is the new search engine,” one of the interviewees from the article said that when searching or a place to eat she relies on TikTok because “you see how the person actually felt about where they ate” and that the videos “don’t seem as biased.” Using TikTok as a search engine is not simply what we search for; it is a space made up of articulations and assemblages. The physical articulations, including scrolling through different videos, reading comments and sending these videos to friends are much of like what we saw with Kayla in the movie Eighth Grade. Yet to understand the culture of technology, we must also look at the non-material articulations like the inspiration behind our searches, the comfort of seeing our favourite influencers review products and the reasons behind Gen Z using TikTok instead of Google search. I haven’t had TikTok for a couple of months now, but when I did have it, I even found myself using it instead of Google because it seemed personalized and I felt like the creators saying which products to invest in were being honest (even though most of them were paid promotions and ads).

Below is a study done in 2021 of the different ways people are influenced to buy products. Tiktok being in the top three, shows how Gen Z is heavily influenced through short, interactive videos. Let me know how long you think it will take for TikTok videos to come #1!