Critical Thinking on TikTok

Abstract

Studies on critical thinking show that youth find it difficult to evaluate information critically. TikTok however, might be a platform that could provide youth to practice critical thinking. This study seeks to answer the question: ‘Does TikTok teach young people to think critically, If so, how?’. The research population is youth aged 13 till 21 but the interviewed youth are aged 16 till 21. The online interviews have been done through video calls and are supported by observations of informational videos to provide context to the interviews. First, the results show that youth tend to research more about a topic when they are interested in the topic. However, the direction of this relationship remains unclear. It also became clear that youth tend to critically observe the reliability of others by going through the comments and by looking at the creator. Furthermore, the participants generally think critically about the behavior of others, e.g., hateful comments. Secondly, it became clear that the participants varied in ways in how they thought critically about their own behavior, namely self-reflexivity. The association between critical thinking and TikTok cannot fully be made, but it can be said that TikTok could be a place where critical thinking could be taught. The limitations of this study include: a non-representative research group, non-random selection of participants, and colored interview questions. Thus, more research is needed. Future research should objectively focus on the learning opportunities on TikTok as well as the findings from this study.