 There's a massive panic around TikTok, as well as other social media apps, because there's this narrative that it's gravely affecting the mental health of young people. And in this video, we're about to debunk a lot of that. So if you're a parent, make sure you watch this. If you're a kid, make sure your parents watch this. And if you ever plan on having kids, watch this video and please save it. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. And what I like to do is take different topics going on in the world and try to see what we can learn from it to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. And I don't discriminate. I want to help parents and kids and everybody in between. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And if you're not yet, follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul, all right? So let's jump into this thing. Yeah, I got the idea for this video for a few reasons, but I really wanted to make it because when I was in California last week in my hotel room during VidSummit, I was watching like Good Morning America and I haven't watched that in forever. And this is a huge, huge show, but they were talking about the dangers of TikTok, right? And there's a website called commonsensemedia.com. And anyways, they were talking about all these crazy things about TikTok and I'm like, we need to talk about this. So some of the main concerns are predators on the platform as well as explicit content. And we're going to address those things later in this video, but first we're gonna discuss the research. And before I dive into this and start debunking stuff left and right, I wanna make it very clear, all right? There are many issues with social media platforms and I've done videos about this in the past about how they're designed to get us hooked and everything like that. And they can affect mental health. But here's the issue, all right? When people are panicking and making huge deals out of the wrong things, we're never gonna be able to help anybody, right? So my goal with this video is to explain the truth, what the studies and the research say so we can help our kids in a much better way. So one of the reasons all of this panic about social media started was because of this book right here called iGen by Dr. Jean Twainy, all right? So in this book, she cites a lot of research about how mental health of young people has been negatively affected by the age of social media and you're always hearing about screen time and everything like that. But here's what a lot of people are starting to realize. Many of these studies were wrong or they were inflated or they were just very small sample groups. So anyways, a lot of these studies in the book have been debunked by some amazing, amazing people such as the psychologist, Sarah Rose Kavanaugh, the psychologist, Jonathan Haidt and the best-selling author, Nir Iyal, all right? So each of these authors, they have books which I will link down in the description below. The book from Sarah Kavanaugh is called Hive Mind. It's brand new and it is oh, oh so good. All right, Jonathan Haidt, he is one of my favorite authors. He's a psychologist and the book I'll be referencing is The Coddling of the American Mind and Nir Iyal, he recently just released his latest book which is called Indistractable, all right? So anyways, Sarah Kavanaugh is an amazing psychologist and she does a ton of research. So something that Sarah wanted to do was understand why some people get PTSD and other people don't. For example, I believe in her book Hive Mind she discusses 9-11, right? So how come there were some people who got PTSD from 9-11? Even people from across the country who weren't even near the Twin Towers, all right? How come some of them got PTSD? Whereas there were other people who were actually there who didn't, all right? So a lot of her research has been discussing our understanding different vulnerable populations, all right, and this kind of leads into the social media conversation because Sarah Kavanaugh wanted to understand why some people are negatively affected by social media and some people aren't. Something that Sarah and Nir both discuss in their books which is something that I really hope people learn more about is that when kids are acting up in any way, parents are often looking for anything to blame, all right? So obviously in this day and age we wanna point our fingers at screens, like video games and social media apps like TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and everything like that. But here's the thing, this is a natural thing that parents do because like I'm a parent, all right? Like a lot of us don't wanna look at ourselves and think that we're doing anything wrong. So it must be those dang video games or the social media apps or whatever. Like did you know, did you know that even the idea that sugar makes kids go crazy and act up is a myth? I believe it was in Sarah Kavanaugh's book. But anyways, they did a study where they told parents that they gave kids sugar and the parents who they told they gave kids sugar to reported that their kids were being more rambunctious, irritating, annoying, running around and all these other things but they didn't actually give those kids sugar, all right? So they've done a lot of studies on this and this is just a psychological effect that parents have and they wanna blame something but the kid was actually just acting normal. So aside from parents looking for things to point their fingers at, Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Coddling of the American Mind, he discusses how a lot of us have become so overprotective as parents and like I think too many of us think of this in extremes, right? Like we think of like overprotecting as like helicopter parenting but there's something like right below helicopter parenting where you're not that bad but it's still pretty bad, all right? So somebody that Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of work with is this woman right here, Lenore Scanesi and she's the author of Free Range Kids, all right? And that book, there's been, you know, a lot of discussion about it but it's basically like, you know, we gotta let kids do their thing and learn and grow and become resilient because Jonathan Haidt as a college professor and seeing just kind of like the outraged culture and everything like that, he kind of sees how since we've been, you know, overprotecting our kids, they've lacked this resiliency. So as they get older, they get really upset about really trivial things, all right? So to sum it up, all right? No matter what generation you're in, okay? That's watching this. Just know that the generation before you was freaking out about certain things, all right? This is something that has happened throughout history. Something that each of these very well-educated people discusses is this and it's so important. Kids need to be social, okay? This is part of the growing process. Like I want you to look back at your childhood, all right? And think about how you were social, okay? Like I grew up, I grew up in this weird time, like right when the internet kind of became a thing and like AOL came out and everything. But anyways, I look at it and like, I used to go to friends' houses, like when I was in elementary school, I would walk or ride my bike, sometimes one, two miles away from home and guess what? This was before cell phones, right? When I got to middle school, I think we had pagers and everything like that. But as a parent, I look back, like how was I being social as a kid? How protective were my parents, right? And like this affects us too, because as I've gotten older and we've kind of been flooded with this idea that kids are just perpetually in danger, like I remember I got to a point where I was like, I can't believe my dad let me just do those things, but this is just something that's happened throughout history. Like as technology has advanced and as the world has become a safer place than ever before, we've become more protective and it's absolutely bananas. Because today, the thing is that we're so concerned, we're so concerned about kids just even going outside and playing, right? And trust me, like I can be guilty of this too, but we have to be self-aware and recognize that we're doing this, all right? So we need to understand that when we're keeping kids indoors and they have this biological need to be social with others, they can't go outside, guess what they're gonna be social inside, all right? And that is what apps like TikTok and other social media apps are doing. So my son, he's 10 and he hasn't really gotten into social media at all yet, but the way that he's social is through video games, right? He plays Minecraft, he plays Fortnite with a ton of friends. And I look at that and I'm like, oh my God, like this is modern day playing, right? Now, one of the arguments against that is that kids aren't being physically active and things like that. Well, here's the thing, like last weekend, for example, my son and I, we took a break from playing video games together and everything like that and we went to the gym, okay? In my opinion, it's about finding this balance. So let's circle this back to TikTok, okay? So TikTok, one of the arguments is the predators who are on there. Like when TikTok was first blowing up, I remember I kept seeing videos about this dude right here who was pretty creepy on TikTok, all right? But we need to understand that when we see these things, we freak out about it, okay? So TikTok currently has about one billion monthly active users, one billion, okay? So let's pretend in a scenario that the FBI did this massive sweep and they caught 500 child creditors, right? 500 of them, okay? So they caught 500. Do you know what percentage that is of the monthly active users on TikTok? It is 0.000049%, okay? It is a fraction of 1%. So I want you to ask yourself, is that something to justifiably freak out about? Something less than 1%, right? Like think about all of our other irrational fears that we have, right? Like the fear of sharks in the ocean, even though like chances of getting hurt are more likely just driving to the store. You know what I mean? So we need to recognize that. Now, as far as the explicit content on TikTok, like trust me, like there's some balance that we need to find, but again, I look back at my own childhood and I'm just gonna be real with you guys. Like when I was a kid, like I was sneaking around and watching rated R movies. Like when my dad was at work, I was doing that thing because there was before internet and I was like going under his bed and finding his playboys and things like that. Like these are things that kids are naturally going to do. And just like sheltering them and shielding them isn't gonna solve anything, right? So here are some of the solutions and suggestions that I have. From a young age, I've just kept conversations open with my son and I can make more in-depth videos about this, but we just need to have our kids understand that we need to have conversations about these things. And because I let my son try things out on his own, like he comes to me with a lot of things, right? Like I might be an ignorant parent, but my son comes to me for just about anything or questions and all that kind of stuff. But the last thing I wanna talk about when it comes to being social and everything, like Jonathan Haidt and so many others are talking about is like if we over protect our kids and we don't let them have these experiences, like we're really doing them a disservice. So this last little story I wanna share, like my son, he's been really into Minecraft lately, that's been blowing up. Well, he jumped back into Fortnite since chapter two came out. But anyways, there was one day because he'll be playing Minecraft with his friends and they're just building these epic things, right? And it's cool, like I love it. I love watching, I might do a video on this too, where I love watching how creative they get to be in there and stuff like that. And anyways, I'm not sure how Minecraft servers work, but they spent hours building this thing and my son kept showing me and he was so proud of it and everything and some friend of a friend came in the server and he blew up this huge portion of everything they built. And my son told me about it and he was so upset, right? So upset. And like any parent, I wanted to find that kid who did that and just, you know what I mean? But anyways, I talked to him about it. I talked to him about how on YouTube when I make these videos, sometimes like my computer crashes and the thing I worked on for hours, you know, it got messed up and da, da, da. And I told him, I'm like, sometimes, you know, when I go back and remake it, it comes out better, you know? And seriously, like maybe an hour later, my son was just so excited and brought me into the room and him and his friend got together and they just rebuilt it and like, they added all these new things and because of the explosion, they were able to put these other cool things and they're like little back cave that they made and stuff like that, right? So what I'm getting at is, I wanted to be very protective of my son. I wanted to coddle him because he was upset, but this was an experience that he got to go through and become more resilient from, you know what I'm saying? So again, just recognize, you know, what the actual studies and the research say. I'm probably gonna do more videos citing some of Sarah Kavanaugh's work, understanding vulnerable populations on social media to kind of explain that a little bit more, but anyways, like I said, make sure that if you're a kid watching this, share this with your parents. If you're gonna be a parent at any time in the future, hold on to this video, check out some of the books, all the books that I cited, I'll be linking down in the description below, all right? Anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books and merch and all that other good stuff, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.