As states target TikTok, Gen Z teaches itself to navigate social media | San Francisco Chronicle | May 24, 2023
The content seen below is a San Francisco Chronicle article, written by Olivia Cruz Mayeda
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Every morning since their mom let them have a phone three years ago, Jay Wilson has awakened in their seafoam green bedspread and rolled over to scroll through social media.
In April, the bubbly high school senior from Alameda decided to change their habits, charging their phone in the opposite corner of the room so it’s harder to reach from bed.
“There was a point where I didn’t like my body and didn’t like myself, period, and TikTok continued that narrative,” said Wilson, 18, one of 67% of American teens using the incredibly popular video hosting platform launched seven years ago by a Chinese technology company. “Now I don’t even check my messages until I get to school.”
For Gen Zers like Wilson, social media is a complicated landscape that sometimes delivers on its promise of connection and education and sometimes doesn’t, often to devastating effects.
The U.S. Surgeon General warned Tuesday that social media may pose a “profound risk” to youth mental health, which suffered a sharp decline in 2021 that correlated with pandemic isolation and rising social media use, according to separate reports from Common Sense Media and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As politicians and parents debate the consequences of social media and to what extent platforms should be regulated or, in the case of TikTok, even banned, young people are already navigating those spaces and developing their own rules of engagement.
Born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, older Gen Zers were approaching puberty when Facebook debuted in 2006.
Miya Lohmeier, 24, of Orinda argues that her generation has advantages when it comes to navigating social media over prior generations.
“There are lots of children on TikTok — that’s true,” Lohmeier said. “But we grew up in an age where we were kind of raised to be suspicious of a lot of the things we read and hear, which is just not the case for a lot of the older Facebook users.”
Miya Lohmeier, 24, has found social media “can be really wholesome, if you find the right niches.” But Lohmeier, who felt pressured to get a TikTok account in 2020, also says it requires vigilance, which she uses to block content that triggers body dysmorphia.
Facebook has fallen out of favor among adolescents and teens, who jet across expanding galaxies of online platforms, from dominant YouTube (used by 95% of teens, according to Pew Research Center survey data) to momentum-gaining Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%).
And while these platforms have all faced congressional scrutiny about whether their algorithms spread disinformation, promote risky behavior, and exacerbate eating disorders and suicidal thoughts, TikTok has catapulted to the top of the political watch list due to its popularity and foreign ownership.
Since April, at least 34 mostly Republican states have enacted bans of the app on government devices, while Montana became the first state this month to ban TikTok across all devices, which the ACLU says violates the First Amendment.
That the company’s Chinese ownership — and its perceived threat to national security — is an animating factor in calls for state and federal bans has prompted some politicians, such as Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, to call the efforts xenophobic.
While there is an open debate about whether a generation raised on social media is better equipped to avoid pitfalls than the ones who came before, a 2018 Pew study found that younger adults are better at differentiating facts from opinions online than people over 50.
Lohmeier’s tactics for protecting her brain from a would-be toxic TikTok feed include blocking workout and dieting videos in favor of content that she finds useful like recipes, travel destinations and financial literacy tips.
Naila Jones, 11, who likes to scroll through TikTok on her iPad while nestled on the couch in her family’s El Cerrito living room, has two main strategies for looking after her mental health: deleting the app when she feels she’s been spending too much time on it and keeping a full schedule.
“I just can’t spend a lot of time on TikTok during the week because I’m busy doing stuff,” she said.
Naila Jones, 11, says watching TikTok on her iPad — she isn’t allowed to have a phone yet — makes it easier to limit time on social media, because her iPad is less mobile.
In addition to working as a DJ — her paid gigs have included a 5-year-old’s birthday party — Naila has regular sports practices and music lessons.
Naila also says having an iPad — she isn’t allowed to have a phone yet — makes it easier to limit time on social media, since her iPad is harder to bring along with her.
“I don’t want a phone for that reason,” she said. “So I think it’s a good thing.”
At their middle school, Naila and her friend Paige R., whose parents asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons, say students don’t have access to their personal devices during the school day. They agree with the restriction, they said. Some of their peers who spend excessive amounts of time on TikTok seem emboldened to “say things they shouldn’t,” like making racist and homophobic jokes.
But a complete ban of TikTok isn’t a good idea, Naila said. Nor likely an effective one, her friend suggested.
“A good quarter of our school doesn’t have social media, but they can still be racist or misogynistic,” Paige said. “It was already there before the internet.”
Naila nodded.
“I think that another app is just gonna come,” Paige continued. “Because it was Snapchat and now it’s TikTok and then it’ll be the next one.”
According to Pew, which surveyed more than 1,300 teens last year, 55% of teens feel they spend an appropriate amount of time on social media, while 36% acknowledge using it too much.
Most social media companies require users to be at least 13 years old, though age restrictions are generally easy to circumvent, demonstrated by a growing number of 8- to 12-year-olds on social media.
In California, social media companies have to monitor the spread of false information, and one law, effective in 2024, aims to protect child privacy online. A bill introduced in February could also target how apps promote social media addiction and disordered eating among adolescents and teens.
Emma Mayerson, executive director at Alliance for Girls, an Oakland-based nonprofit that advocates for girls and nonbinary youth, believes more adults and school officials should be better equipped to help young people navigate social media safely.
“There’s a lot of reasons for young people to be stressed and anxious that have to do with disparities in this country,” Mayerson said. “What we do know is that if you already have a predisposition for a mental health crisis, social media acts as an amplifier.”
For Wilson, whose mom didn’t let them have a phone until they were 15, boundaries and parental oversight are important. Today, they still communicate with friends over the apps and watch cosplay and beauty videos on TikTok, but otherwise spend less time on their phone.
“I’m trying to be comfortable with being bored,” said Wilson, who has traded screen time for a self-help book called “Deep Kindness.” “I’m working on being kinder to myself.”
