New features to protect young people's mental health with TikTok

While Facebook recently published its own study condemning the use of Instagram as harmful, TikTok has announced new features specifically designed to protect mental health.  

Social media is now an integral part of everyday life, with its advantages and disadvantages. Research There is a wealth of evidence that social networking sites have a negative impact on teenagers' self-esteem and contribute to anxiety and depression. To address this, TikTok, a popular social networking site for young people, has introduced new features specifically designed to protect mental health.

TikTok took some steps earlier this year to help its users with eating disorders. For example, if a person searches for terms like proana (short for pro-anorexia) or eating disorder in English, the site displays various support resources, including a phone number for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). The new development will see more advice and content on the topic available in the coming months, providing additional useful information to guide young people with eating disorders.

The company's other development focuses on suicide prevention, and works on a similar principle to the feature mentioned above: if a user searches for the term suicide, for example, the system will bring up pages that help them avoid the tragedy. A feature focusing on suicidal behaviour is already available on the site.

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