TikTok Launches A Feature To Help Its Users' Mental Health Due To The Impact Of Social Media

TikTok recognizes the impact of posting on their platform (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - Social media often has a negative impact on one's mental health. Various content that is presented or viewed can make other people feel anxious. TikTok is aware of this.

The company just announced they will be rolling out a feature to help users struggling with mental health issues and suicidal thoughts.

This includes a wellness guide, a support guide for those struggling with eating disorders and a search intervention feature that will direct users to support resources when they search for phrases such as suicide.

Developed in collaboration with the International Association for Suicide Prevention, Crisis Text Line, Live For Tomorrow, Samaritans of Singapore, and Samaritans (UK), this new wellbeing guide offers more targeted advice to people who use TikTok, users should also think twice about what they post and how it might affect others.

TikTok's announcement of the new features stems from a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that said Facebook had repeatedly found its Instagram app to be harmful to teens' mental health in certain situations.

A 19-year-old teenager is known to have been looking for exercise ideas on Instagram, but his web page was flooded with photos of how to lose weight, and this caused anxiety for the teenager. Instagram previously admitted that it was wrong with its search function that recommended users not what they wanted.

The director of the eating disorders program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Angela Guarda, told the WSJ that her patients often say they learned about dangerous weight loss tactics through social media.

Following the WSJ report, US lawmakers have strongly criticized Facebook for the impact of social media on youth mental health and the company's failure to address the issue.

The two apps are in fierce competition for the attention of teens. Since its launch in 2017, China's TikTok has been gaining popularity on Instagram. Last year, it surpassed Instagram as US teens' second favorite social media app after Snapchat, according to an October 2020 report by Piper Sandler.

TikTok's new features will direct users to support, such as the Crisis Text Line if they search for the term suicide. The revelations about the negative impact of social media on mental health weren't groundbreaking, but they did generate new pressure for this powerful platform to think about ways to support its users.