A TikTok report published this week warns of the dangerousness of certain challenges published on social networks. The survey points to the lack of knowledge among adolescents, who are not always aware of the effects that these challenges can have on their mental health.
- 31% of respondents explain having been confronted with content related to death, self-harm or suicide.
- 46% of teens surveyed feel sufficiently well informed about the risks of these different challenges.
On Tiktok, the favorite social network for teenagers, video challenges are legion. If some like the #Berrieandcream invite us to dress up, others are downright dangerous, like the “Skull Breaker Challenge– which consists of dropping a person head first – and have even resulted in several hospitalizations.
Others are also harmful to mental health, points out the TikTok platform, which publishes a report aimed at alerting its users to the dangerous nature of certain challenges. The survey was carried out among 10,000 teenagers, parents and teachers from nine countries (including Germany, Brazil, the United States and Italy). The challenges and consequences for adolescents were then analyzed by child psychiatrists and adolescent safety specialists.
63% of teenagers mention a “negative impact” on their mental health
The report shows that 48% of teenagers surveyed find the content broadcast on TikTok “fun”, although 32% of them recognize that some of them carry “moderate risks”. On the other hand, 31% of them explain having been confronted with content related to death, self-harm or suicide.
The report explains in particular that false alarms circulated, suggesting that children were encouraged to participate in “games” which led them to self-harm. According to the study, 31% of teenagers exposed to these pranks had experienced negative consequences. Of these, 63% said the negative impact was on their mental health due to the nature of the content.
As for the challenges deemed “very dangerous”, only 0.3% of teenagers would have rubbed shoulders with them. But the ignorance of the risks remains significant, since only 46% of the teenagers questioned consider themselves sufficiently well informed about the risks of these different challenges.
To ensure better prevention, the TikTok teams have announced that they will update the information in their Security Center, in particular to add a section entirely dedicated to challenges. Warnings associated with research on topics such as suicide or self-harm will be deployed more widely and in several languages to allow better accessibility.
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