EssayArticle Review
TikTok has become a popular mobile application for social media users. The application’s popularity has allowed it to influence the behavior of its users which can have significant effects on society. For this reason, experts have begun to conduct studies to assess the positive and negative effects of TikTok on human psychology. However, since the application came out in 2016, there have been only a few studies regarding the psychology of TikTok. To contribute to the topic’s discussion, authors Christian Montag, Haibo Yang, and Jon Elhai wrote the narrative review “On the Psychology of TikTok Use: A First Glimpse From Empirical Findings”. Their article discussed some of the existing literature regarding the psychology of TikTok and provided recommendations for future research. The article is a great narrative review, however, it contained formatting issues that made the content undesirable to read.
The article “On the Psychology of TikTok Use: A First Glimpse From Empirical Findings” is a narrative review, meaning that the authors aim to describe the topic instead of providing new research data. The authors of the article, Montag, Yang, and Elhai, are members of universities and institutes related to psychology, guaranteeing that field professionals created the article. Since the article is a narrative review, most of its content included references to existing literature regarding social media use. The authors discussed the basic features and background of the TikTok application. Then, the rest of the article involved discussions regarding theories, such as The Gratification Theory and The Self-Determination Theory. To organize the article, the authors divided it into three separate paragraphs focusing on “Why”, “Who”, and “How” questions. In the article’s conclusion, the author summarized the article’s content and provided recommendations for future research.
One of the article’s strengths is the qualification of its authors, editors, and reviewers. The author Christian Montag has affiliations with the Department of Molecular Psychology, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany and The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Lab for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China; author Haibo Lang is a member of the Faculty of Psychology in Tianjin Normal University, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin, China; and author Jon Elhai is from the Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry in the University of Toledo (US-OH). These qualifications align with the article’s topic and ensure that the authors are knowledgeable in the field. Since the article is a narrative review, this also guarantees that the authors did not simply collect psychology literature from unreliable sources.
The authors stated in their article that discussing the psychological effects of TikTok is important because of the vulnerability of its young users. While not providing new data to the discussion, the author aimed to contribute to the topic through the collection of existing studies and discussing their relevance. Since the social impact of the Internet is undeniable in the modern age, these types of discussions are integral to better understanding society’s reaction to new technologies. TikTok is a highly popular application that has changed the behavior of many individuals and even provided careers for influencers and figures. Discussing the motivations and psychological effects of TikTok use is important not only to psychologists but to individuals that have dedicated their time to the application.
The article’s background section is another one of its strengths as it provided a comprehensive description of the TikTok application. While TikTok(or any other topic) is highly popular, an author should not assume that the readers are already knowledgeable about the topic. Some readers may view the article to learn more about the application’s features while some may be curious about social media psychology and not particularly on TikTok. The authors acknowledge this and provided a short three-paragraph long background section that described features, history, known effects, and issues
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