TikTok's promotion of eating disorders: an algorithmic design review
Read the full review paper here.
Read the full review paper here.
The TikTok algorithm pushes highly personalized videos depending on their data collection of users' interest, identity, and behavior charactersitics. This includes gender, age, location, occupation, and habits collected from using the app. All these are updated in real time (Zhao, 2020).
TikTok rabbit holes users into more extreme, niche content quickly to keep them on the app. Oftentimes, this content is filtered and edited, promoting unrealistic standards of beauty (Harringer et al., 2022). Additionally, since users are shown only content they are identified to like, they may believe certain behaviors are more prevelant than they really are (Turner & Lefevre, 2017).
Social media use and TikTok addiction are positively correlated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and stress (Maguire & Pellosmaa, 2022).
Social media companies overall must take more responsibility for the impact they have on users. They should be more transparent about how their algorithms work, and limit micro-targeting ads that are likely to cause harm. Users can decrease their use of social media and educate themselves, so that they have more social media literacy. Lastly, influencers can choose to not represent companies that promote unhealthy weight loss, post more unfiltered/unedited pictures, and speak out against these filters (Harriger et al., 2022).