Tiktok, originally known as Musical.ly, has been entertaining children and young teens since 2014. With over 1.2 billion monthly active users, it is one of the biggest online platforms, offering videos ranging from lip-syncing videos, to storytime clips. However, not only did Tiktok catch the interest of the youth, but also from teachers and professors, and therefore, a rising number of educational videos are being posted on a daily basis.
A recent “Space“s article from September 1, 2021 states that “teachers are transforming the ever-popular mobile video platform, TikTok, from a nuisance to the ultimate learning tool“. With Covid-19, teachers had to come up with ideas on how to continue online schooling while keeping it interesting. As the App is known for its entertaining purpose, teachers use it in multiple ways. For instance, they upload summary videos on the topics discussed during class, with the aim of being able to refer back to it in case a student was not able to attend. In addition to that, they have the opportunity to ask questions in the comment section. Secondly, teachers can use Tiktok as an assignment tool. They can ask questions, which the students can only answer if they duet it.
Now, it might sound all fun and students might be more inclined to participate in assignments given that they associate Tiktok with being “cool“ and “funny“, however, the question rises whether there are any downsides to using this social media app for educational purposes. According to the Technical University of Denmark, the continual barrage of information has the potential to shorten our collective attention span. Given that Tiktok offers an endless number of videos, lasting up to 3 minutes, and its users can switch from one video to the next whenever wanted, the attention and interest shortens. In other words, the research scientist Philipp Lorenz-Spreen expressed that Tiktok users have a constant desire for new videos, which makes them change between video-clips more rapidly. In accordance with a questionnaire from the article “Has TikTok Made Our Attention Spans Shorter?“ and “Is TikTok shrinking students’ attention spans?“ many interviewees pointed out that their attention span changed in multiple ways. For example, respondents prefer not to watch long videos (10-15 minutes) anymore, because they lose focus already after a few minutes. Furthermore, Steve Kelman from The Business of Federal Technology states that this decrease in concentration commitment results in weaker performance at school, difficulties in carrying out tasks, forgetting information and much more.
My final thoughts regarding this issue are that I do believe that Tiktok is a good tool to keep a student interested, especially in times of Covid where education takes (mostly) place online. It is a fun platform especially for young people, however, given that according to interviewees, Tiktok does contribute to a decreased potential to focus. And even though it is not scientifically proven, I believe that there should be limits to the usage. Teachers and professors might use it from time to time but not continuously, because from personal experiences I agree that it decreases my attention and even contributes to the Tiktok “addiction“.
References:
Gudenau, S. (2021, November 17). Is TikTok shrinking students’ attention spans? The Oakland Post. https://oaklandpostonline.com/38875/features/is-tiktok-shrinking-students-attention-spans/
Iqbal, M. (2022, February 24). TikTok Revenue and Usage Statistics (2022). Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/
Jaeger, G. (2021, September 1). From Nuisance to Learning Platform – How Teachers are Transforming TikTok into an Edtech Tool. Spaces. https://spacesedu.com/en/tiktok-as-a-teaching-tool/
Schwab, K. (2021, April 12). TikTok is a thriving learning community—and may be the future of education. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90624117/tiktok-future-of-education-learning
Wikipedia contributors. (2022, March 19). TikTok. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
I didn’t realize it until I read this article, but I think it’s true that this kind of social media platforms can affect people’s attention span. I don’t use TikTok, but similarly, when I use Instagram, for example, I find myself having trouble focusing more than a few seconds when watching friends’ stories. Likewise, when watching a video on youtube, unless it has something fun, I found it hard to pay attention. So when it comes to using these platforms for students, we have to be cautious.
It for sure does pose the threat but so does everything that is entertaining, and TikTok has endless entertainment. Awareness must be raised and people need to limit watching it.
The idea of using Tik Tok for school purposes is interesting and totally revisits the way of teaching. But I think that as soon as a person enters this platform, he is directly incited to stay there, which is not productive in my opinion. On the other hand, the idea of a platform dedicated to education in the format of tik tok could be innovative and more useful.
Imho that’s an innovative idea to embed modern social media platforms such as TikTok into the education process. I think this is truly useful and not only for the purposes of teachers posting studying materials in an entertaining way that really encourages and excites students but also in a way of a platform where students could use a creative approach to show off their knowledge and share it with peers. I totally agree that tiktok poses some sort of threat to the attention span but what if it is a natural part of human development? Maybe in future people will be able to absorb and comprehend a=enormous amounts of information in mere seconds. Maybe it is not as bad as it might seem at first glance. People tend to oppose change and think it is bad. Let’s remember the industrial revolution. But now when we live in a world so comfortable we can’t even imagine what people back then thought of those machines… It is indeed important for educational institutions to be future-oriented and keep an eye on modern trends, it can and does help improve the quility of education.