The very young and the Tik Tok phenomenon
No doubt about it, technology is really getting us used to everything. Apps are born every day as if it were raining with the most disparate services and keeping up with all of them is naturally and cognitively speaking almost impossible. Among all, those of social media are now part of our life and if the over thirty are satisfied with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter coming down a lot of age there is a social network that is literally depopulating among the very young. We are talking about Tik Tok, a real teenage phenomenon!
The success of Tik Tok
This made in China was originally born to create a platform capable of embedding video and music at the same time on a social network over the years it has become the passion of millions and millions of kids all over the world. In our beautiful country about every day 2 million preteensthe, mostly female, engage in video and ballet attracting fans, sorry followers (let's call them by the right name!), from everywhere.
We know very well that today life flows at an astonishing speed and it is there speed the pivot of this app. Users are asked a few seconds to try their hand at the most captivating choreographies possible, hoping that they can be appreciated not only by schoolmates and neighbors, that they are of the same age group, God forbid, but that video made of strange faces and with their hands that not even a magician seems to know how to move so well receives as many likes as possible to allow thirteen-year-old Maria (imaginary person) from the village dispersed in the mountains or eleven-year-old Giulio who lives on a small island in the south of the country to achieve success. "The others have succeeded, why not me?"
Yes, because, let's face it, the main purpose is not so much the exhibition itself, they don't download the app just for the fun of jumping in front of a video, but the ease with which today you get to fame is definitely fast, too fast. From here then to the descent, to the derision by comrades and peers it is truly instantaneous. In fact, there is no shortage of episodes of children targeted for those videos shot in the room or in the bathroom, not very credible, unattractive, coordinated, little followed. Here, another trend that is taking hold are the so-called likes challenges, this too yes, due to the number of followers that the various selfies and stories are able to obtain.
They get together at home or in the park and study something truly captivating to attract as many people as possible. I know it well creative that in that minute of advertising they have to sell the product at their best, that's exactly the same thing, in short, it takes creativity, character and nerve to puncture the screen. It seems that the shy adolescents in full hormonal crisis, closed in their bedroom to ask existential questions such as "who am I?", "Where do I come from?" belong only to our generation!
We do not want to make a bundle of all the grass, they are not all like this but it is also true that the vast majority of the very young population is, the data affirm it.
Between a version of Latin and a chapter of history, the thought of the modern pre-adolescent turns to how to get more "followers", to how to be more popular, to be noticed, to exist to put it a little philosophically. To how that little boy or girl achieved such rapid success the explanation is simple, one word: to dare!
That's right, a very banal video of a few seconds with a daily and anonymous clothing he will never receive as many likes as one where Giulio (the first invented name) shows his unripe pectorals, the rebellious tuft and poses even if it were David Gandy in the D&G advertisement, or Maria from the top of the his mountains in those very fast seconds puts in place a choreography with a super low-cut t-shirt, mini-shorts, heels, hair to scream, make-up to be the envy of a successful make-up artist and the look of a true seductress. In short, it takes very little to transform a kid next door to a star of social media.
Read also: Social in adolescence: depression riskAnd the parents in all this?
Don't worry, they know it and how they know! Some do not miss the opportunity of the moment and taken by the curiosity of the app, they open a profile together with their children by sharing selfies and stories, ballets and so on to a heterogeneous audience and then bragging to friends, colleagues and relatives of the number of followers of the creature. Mother's heart!
Returning instead serious, alas, many parents are literally unaware of what happens in the four walls of their son or daughter's bedroom, convinced that the hours spent alone are dedicated to studying and sleep soundly unaware that what happens in the other room is actually doing the rounds of the web. To warn children with a threatening tone about the dangers they could face, we always remember that behind a profile a pedophile can hide, he has nothing pedagogical and educational.
We have also said many times that getting closer to their world, to their interests is certainly a step to get to know them a little more, but still put some rules without the absolute prohibition it could be a great help for all those parents who find it difficult to manage that obsessive relationship of children to social media.
We know that they are children of technology, banning what today are the phenomena of the moment would only lead us to isolate our children from the rest of the world. It is their time and these are the fashions of the moment. Ok to exchange videos and stories with friends but remaining within the limits of decorum, that is, without forgetting what their age really is. Experiencing of all kinds has exaggeratedly lowered age over the years. The first cigarette, the first drunk, the first intercourse have reached an age that under that face, in some ways childlike, are actually hiding pre-adolescents who, for a little notoriety, show off their body without any shame, hoping to be noticed by "who counts" and say goodbye to their sad preteen life of pimples and identity crises.
