When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thing you do? You go on your phone and you open social media. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescents Psychiatry, ninety percent of teens ages 13-17 have used social media. Seventy-five percent report having one active social media platform, and fifty-one percent admit to opening that platform daily. 

 You tend to go on your phone while you are bored or to procrastinate. It becomes something you depend on. Social media becomes something addictive. 

Sarah Santiago, a former student of UACHS, has an on and off relationship with social media, especially TikTok. 

“It is very unhealthy,” said Santiago. “ I found myself tracking my time hourly so I would not waste the day away on TikTok.”

Her relationship with social media is a work in progress. Santiago has been Tik Tok free for two months, though for her it feels like two years. Now she tries to find an app that’s similar, but not so addicting, sort of like a twin platform. She wants to still get entertainment, but have control of how much. 

“From time to time I use what are called youtube reels,” said Santiago. 

Youtube reels have a look alike format and sometimes even show tiktoks. It is less addictive though because it will never be the original app.

The infamous “Tik Tok” has gotten lots of attention recently ever since its re-name in 2016. Before this it had a different name, “Musical.ly,” and had different content. It was more lip-syncing videos, than comedic skits which is what TikTok is known for now. Now there are too many trends to even count, including the ones that do not intend to impact people negatively, but they do.

Tik Tok can be very toxic to many teenagers who are frequent users of the app. The app has many trends that often can be seen as standards for what the body should look like. 

“I never seemed to focus on that kind of stuff, but now it is harder to look away and not compare,” said Santiago.

Some trends compel you to look in the mirror and make you reconsider if you are confident in your own skin. This can cause people to observe and pick apart their figure, only bringing harm to the image they have; teens are left to question their worth and not have enough love or confidence in themselves.

Teenagers generally have high expectations set for themselves already, Tik Tok is worsening that. We try so hard our whole life to reach and fulfill the “perfect” standard. In reality everyone has their own features that make them special in their own way. Stressing, comparing, and shutting down is what comes out of all of this. It usually does not stop and comes to what is called a “burnout.” 

There are two types of people on TikTok, the ones who post, and the ones that do not. The people who post have to be prepared to receive, not only the positive, but the negative replies and hate comments. The feeling you get afterwards, that feeling is what the people who do not post are scared of. Some of them even leave hate comments out of jealousy. Jealous that they cannot  handle and ignore the hate, but the people who post can… sometimes.