It’s time to study the health impacts of TikTok, researchers say

Tessellated TikTok logos against a dark background. — Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

People have flocked to TikTok in droves over the past few years — but research into the social media giant’s potential health impacts hasn’t kept up. Despite the fact that TikTok now has over 1 billion users, public health researchers know very little about the health effects it might be having on the platform’s (mostly young) users. That’s concerning, because researchers know social media platforms can be harmful, especially to the health of some groups of teens and adolescents.

“The platform is so massive, but there’s almost no scholarly investigation into it,” says Marco Zenone, a health policy researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Zenone believes it’s urgent for researchers to start figuring out if TikTok...

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