TikTok: Where Mental Health is a Priority
From facebook to Instagram, social media has infiltrated our everyday lives. Walking down the street you’ll see people scrolling through their feeds, digesting all sorts of digital narratives. However, all of these platforms haven’t created a digital narrative quite like the app TikTok. From home renovations to political videos, TikTok has created over thousands of digital narratives; but one seems to be the most popular: removing the stigma on mental illnesses.
The app, otherwise known as new media, was first created in 2016, and later reached the United States after buying out former app Music.ly in 2018. In total, the app has over 800 millions users world-wide and has been downloaded in the app store over 2 billions times. According to Brian Neese’s essay What is New Media? new media refers to media that is “easily processed, stored, transformed, hyperlinked, and…easily searched for and accessed.” TikTok allows its users to create, watch, share, and even duet these videos found on the app. Although thousands of digital narratives have been created from these users, the most popular one is normalizing mental illness and helping those who don’t quite understand how to cope. From anxiety to depression, many of these videos can be found under the hashtag “edutok”, which has over 10 millions videos listed. One creator, Dr. Courtney Tracy, uses her platform to de-stigmatize certain mental health issues like anxiety. Throughout her videos, Dr. Tracy uses techniques of personal narrative to help ease her audience when it comes to struggling mentally. She says, “the authenticity that people show on TikTok is dramatically supportive of the normalization of many difficult and varying mental health concepts,”. Her overall goal is to shed a light on how to cope with these issues through telling her own stories of her struggles and how she overcame them. This personal strategy helps normalize these issues because it helps the audience understand they’re not alone. Despite them feeling isolated, Dr. Tracy assures them that anything they’re feeling hasn’t been anything new and that it shouldn’t be ignored.
Tiktok has also exposed the strategies behind balancing mental health and everyday life. Clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Smith uses her platform to discuss overcoming anxiety episodes and depression. In one of her sixty-second videos, Dr. Smith breaks down five ways to get through an anxious episode, like using breathing techniques. By doing so, she’s created this digital narrative that suggests having mental health issues is completely normal and that there is no shame in it. When scrolling through her page, you can find thousands of comments from other users thanking her for normalizing mental health and helping them feel better about what they’re struggling with. Dr. Smith says her main goal on this platform is to “raise awareness and remove some of the stigma of discussing mental health issues,” which has clearly been accomplished. The technique she uses when making these popular videos is to use factual information to put her audience at ease. She also uses tactics that involve calming music, encouraging messages, and positive reinforcement. By introducing all of these forms, it breaks away from the typical mental health issues you could find on YouTube. Quick and simple videos seemingly have more of an affect on this younger generation as our attention soans have seemingly dwindled over time. Since TikTok is all about 60 second or less videos, the probability of someone watching and disgesting this information is more high than that of someone actively seeking this type of content. Recently, Dr. Smith as also used her platform to discuss the feeling of isolation due to the pandemic, short videos can be found of her dancing with encouraging text to make her audience feel better. In an interview Smith stated, “being in isolation away from friends and family has brought new challenges to people,” and that she aims to help normalize that feeling of loneliness and how to cope with it.
Another creator, Therapist Michelle Maalouf, uses her platform to directly reach our to her audience and offer some sort of free therapy. With over 160,000 followers, Maalouf created a platform unlike any others, one that offers free mental health advice. Maalouf says thousands of followers send her their story in the hopes of them being posted to help others experiencing similar issues. Her overall goal is to use these personal stories and build off of them suggesting ways that they could’ve worked through their dilemma’s and to validate their feelings. “I think people are grateful to be able to get mental health education for free,” Maalouf said in one of her videos advocating for cheaper mental health. She stresses how many people can’t afford therapy, how stuck they feel not knowing what to do. This narrative that everyone is going through something and how our struggles could help benefit someone else was created and continues to grow today. The reason why TikTok is a much more powerful form of media is because the page is directly altered to your tastes. More times than not, those who are struggling mentally don’t know where to start when it comes to seeking help, by creating videos like Maalouf, these videos can be more easily available to those who are too scared to seek out their own answers.
Overall, TikTok has created thousands of digital narratives, the most popular being the normalization of mental health issues. Many creators are developing or adding to these digital narratives everyday, causing the app to be more directly apparent when it comes to the stigmas surrounds mental health. Despite TikTok being a short video directed platform, these videos seemingly have had more of an affect on de-stigmatizing these issues than that of other platforms like YouTube. Considering these videos find you more than you finding them, it can reach hundreds of more people that need help but are too scared or unsure of where to start seeking this help.
Citations-
Mohsin, Maryam. “10 TikTok Statistics That You Need to Know [July 2020].” Oberlo, Oberlo, 15 Sept. 2020, www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics.
Neese, Brian. “What Is New Media?” Southeastern University Online, Southeastern University Online, 15 Feb. 2016, online.seu.edu/articles/what-is-new-media/.
Paul, Mathures. “TikTok Is Rewriting the Art of Storytelling and Teaching Life Skills on Social Media.” Telegraph India, Telegraph India, 19 Oct. 2019, www.telegraphindia.com/science-tech/tiktok-is-rewriting-the-art-of-storytelling-and-teaching-life-skills-on-social-media/cid/1712838.
Yurieff, Kaya. “These Therapists Are Using TikTok to Help You Get through the Pandemic.” CNN, Cable News Network, 15 May 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/05/15/tech/tiktok-therapists/index.html.
