Layla Osborn's Design, Arts and Technology Capstone Research

TikTok Origin/History and Statistics TikTok’s origins help explain its rapid rise in popularity. It began as three separate apps. In 2014, Musical.ly launched in Shanghai with strong U.S. market ties and quickly gained popularity among American teens. In 2016, Chinese tech giant ByteDance launched Douyin in China, attracting 100 million users within a year. Recognizing its global potential, ByteDance bought Musical.ly in 2018, merged it into TikTok, and began international expansion. According to Statista, TikTok now has about 1.99 billion active users worldwide, making it one of the largest social platforms ever.(Sources from: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53640724 & https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/)  TikTok’s “secret” lies in its algorithm. Unlike traditional social networks that prioritize friends and followers, TikTok’s system immediately analyzes every user interaction (watch time, pauses, rewatches, and swi...

The Brown Public Health Journal article (https://youtu.be/vcTh35zptAk?si=9rpnnqNDicon8KM5) I found explores how TikTok’s rapid growth raises concerns about youth mental health. Rather than treating TikTok as simply another entertainment app, the article situates it within a broader body of research linking social media use to depression, anxiety, sleep disruption, and low self-esteem among adolescents and young adults. The article contains multiple peer-reviewed studies that reinforce these concerns. Lin et al. (2016) found a strong association between social media use and depression in U.S. young adults. Woods and Scott (2016) reported that nighttime social media use correlated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, and low self-esteem among teenagers. Similarly, Levenson et al. (2016) connected high social media engagement with sleep disturbance. While these studies do not prove causation, the consistency of the findings across different populations is shocking. What makes TikTok real...