Imagine Google, one of the world’s most superior search engines, slowly losing its users due to an application made for viral dance videos and pop music.
You heard me. For those who don’t know, Tiktok is basically an alternative to the youtube media platform that allows users to create videos, stories, and comments with many other features creators can utilize. According to DemandSage.com, Tiktok is well on its track to advance past 1.8 billion active users worldwide at the end of 2022. Almost a 700million-user increase since the start of the year (Ruby, 2022). With that being said, one of the main reasons why the media platform is at its peak is the online communities that are built around it. Generation Z (people who are born between 1997-2012) has been an era where communication and overall communities are closer than they ever have been before. I personally believe that Tiktok unveiled its use of technology to create such a close community of young adults, synthesizing information with one another.
Let me explain in further detail. Tiktok, most of its users being young adults, prefer to look for something and hope to find a result that isn’t a whole essay to read or a 30-minute video. Tiktok is just the place for this, as videos last under 60 seconds with full detail by recent users. As a TikTok user, I agree that sometimes looking for an answer on Tiktok just might be more effective than searching through google in terms of speed. Technology-wise, Tiktok has been using high-tech artificial intelligence technology to find similar videos users view on a daily basis. According to ankursnewsletter, there is built-in AI like computer vision, natural processing language, and metadata to detect the kind of content the video is. Based on the user’s page, the application recommends them similar videos (Patel, 2022).
Based on the statistics provided and looking at where TikTok will be headed in the next couple of years, I believe that the community will only grow in size, which means that the use of the media platform as a “search engine” will continuously increase. However, I also believe that there is a general line between TikTok information and google information. As mentioned before, Tiktok’s community consists of young adults 18-24, according to Sensor Tower, while Google’s community is used by a wide range of ages. When you use the search engine on any platform, have you ever wondered while reading, “Is the information displayed on this website legitimate?”. Fact-checking your information is tough enough through google, but what about Tiktok? How would you know it’s true? Wouldn’t it be a hassle to fact-check AGAIN from another search engine to see if what you read was actually true? A part of me also believes that Tiktok should stay as it is now because of the community that has structured it; a media platform to entertain users and a simple search engine for common knowledge questions.
Sometimes searching for something a quicker time would do the job for people who don’t want to go through 30-minute videos or 3000-word essays just to look for a one-sentence answer. However, people should consider what makes information from a quick TikTok video legitimate, or if all of it is just a lie. This is why I believe that there are balanced opinions between the pros and the cons of Tiktok as an alternative search engine.
Sources:
Huang, Kelly. “For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine.” The New York Times, 17 Sept. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/gen-z-tiktok-search-engine.html. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022.
Patel, Ankur A. “How TikTok Uses AI to Engineer User Addiction.” Ankurs Newsletter, 13 May 2022, www.ankursnewsletter.com/p/how-tiktok-uses-ai-to-engineer-user. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022.
Ruby, Daniel. “TikTok User Statistics (2022): How many TikTok Users Are There?” Demand Sage, 19 Aug. 2022, https://www.demandsage.com/tiktok-user-statistics/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022
From my point of view, tiktok will never be able to replace a search engine like google. It’s true that tiktok has become very a popular app over the years, however I think people see it more as an entertainment app rather that a place where you can search for information. Also, not everything on tiktok may be true, as anyone has the access to post any kind of information, so what is stopping people from posting fake news? Im not saying that everything found on google is also true, but it tends to be more accurate.