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Kelsey Qualls, senior at Searcy High School states, “I like to post short dancing videos and most of them are with my family.” As of Q1 2019, Tik Tok is the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, with\u00a033 million\u00a0downloads in a single quarter. The app strongly beats out YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, which round out the top five.\u00a0What\u2019s more, this is Tik Tok\u2019s fifth consecutive quarter as the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store. This means that not only is Tik Tok able to keep its current user base strong, but it\u2019s also constantly evolving to attract a new and growing user base.<\/p>\n Emma Duncan, also a senior at Searcy High School and Tik Tok user states,\u00a0 “I have had a good experience with Tik tok. Its something my friends and I entertain ourselves with I love getting all\u00a0 my friends together and making funny dance Tik Toks.”<\/p>\n Tik Tok has gained a bulk of its new users in the US by advertising itself using app install ads on Facebook, but it\u2019s not spending as much as it once did. The growth of its US user base has slowed dramatically as a result.\u00a0It\u2019s been a while since a new social app got big enough, quickly enough, to make nonusers feel they\u2019re missing out from an experience. If we exclude Fortnite, which is very social but also very much a game, the last time an app inspired such interest from people who weren\u2019t on it was\u2026maybe Snapchat?<\/p>\n Developers of the app created it specifically with teenagers in mind. And clearly? They knew exactly what they were doing. According to\u00a0APP APE LAB, 40% of users are between the ages of 10 and 20. That\u2019s right, kids as young as 10 are some of Tik Tok\u2019s biggest fans.\u00a0And in an effort to encourage positivity, Tik Tok only has one reaction symbol \u2013 a heart. However, there is no firewall in place to dissuade negative comments.<\/p>\n Qualls states, “It could become a bad thing because there are a lot of rude comments.”\u00a0Tik Tok also has a \u201cDuets\u201d feature, which has been exploited by sexual predators who use the platform to groom underage users. One user\u00a0in\u00a0particular,\u00a0TheBudday, is notorious for performing suggestive duets with underage girls, sending them inappropriate reaction videos, and even attempting to meet up in real life.<\/p>\n Duncan states, “It’s easy to blow up on Tik Tok, and this could lead to unwanted good or bad attention, and negative comments from strangers.”\u00a0\u00a0So is Tik Tok safe for kids? On its merits, Tik Tok is a great way for teens to keep in touch online. But that doesn\u2019t mean the app will always be a safe place to socialize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Searcy, AR (LP)-\u00a0 Tik Tok, the explosively popular Chinese social media platform, may be approaching the upper limits of its global popularity. The platform launched in 2016 as a lip-syncing app called Musical.ly before being acquired by Byte-dance, now the\u00a0world\u2019s most valuable startup. Following an international launch in 2017 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-about","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51156"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51226,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51156\/revisions\/51226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/IMG_8746-225x400.jpg\")