For Maële*, it all started with harassment at school (she filed a complaint last year against a student). At the same time, Maële got her first phone, just before she turned 14. A friend then told her about TikTok, and that was the beginning of the spiral.
Now weaned from TikTok, the teenager testifies to the “infernal spiral” that the platform has been for her.
franceinfo: How did it all start?
Maële: I wasn't doing very well between the time I got my phone and installing TikTok. I had started to hurt myself, to scar myself and I liked content that talked about sad songs. Afterwards, it resulted: content inciting self-harm, suicide or things like that. For example, there are people who show their scars, some still fresh, with blood. Or people who say they're going to go buy blades and others who said “If you don't end up in the emergency room after a suicide attempt, it doesn't count.” Or, for eating disorders, you have to be underweight, with a probe in your nose, to be legitimate.
How you reacted to this content on your phone ?
All of this, unfortunately, is anchored in the brain and it revives the idea of wanting to harm myself or wanting to attempt suicide. TikTok encouraged me to end my life, giving tips on where to buy medicine or what to use to harm yourself, things like that.
“I realized that I only had videos of sad people. But I took pleasure in that, I liked it because I felt listened to.”
But a few months later, my brother, after coming out of hospitalization, asked me to uninstall TikTok. I did it. I lasted several months I think, and I reinstalled TikTok a few months later. And he attempted suicide again afterwards.
You feel like it was an addiction ?
I would go on TikTok to keep myself busy and whenever I had free time, I would go there. I could spend more than four hours there on weekends, less when I was in high school, but it took up a lot of time out of my day.
Today, what is your relationship with TikTok?
I have a 30 minute parental control. I go there a lot less. For example, I open my phone: the first publication I have is a music video, of someone making the oboe with helium! A classic TikTok video, and good humor.
Let's say that I'm desensitizing TikTok, that I'm doing little by little, that if I stopped suddenly, it would be too hard and that I risk reinstalling. And when I need to clear my head, I'll watch videos of people making oboes with helium!
What would you say to other teenagers? ?
I want to tell them that it's going to be okay. Afterwards, I advise getting help, whether from health professionals or loved ones. It's a downward spiral. Afterwards, it's very difficult to stop it, but it's possible because I did it. Afterwards, there are still difficult days, but TikTok did not create my discomfort, but it accentuated it with these kinds of dark videos. If you are not fragile, it may not affect the person, but if there is already fragility, you can take refuge in your phone. But the shelter is on fire and so it won't help and we can't get out.
What would you like to see TikTok change?
I would like TikTok to review its video triage priorities, because there are videos that incite suicide or self-harm, or other things like that, that are totally trivialized and are quite common on the platform. In any case, on TikTok, I really became aware of a lot of things that are unhealthy. And there I am surrounded by a whole team of professionals, like an athlete, to help me as best as possible.
*The first name has been changed
Maële's mother, Morganefor his part, underlines the importance that the legal action launched against TikTok has in his eyes.
“When I found out what my daughter had seen on TikTok, she said, I was stunned, the sky fell on my head. I was a million miles from imagining that. And I think that this summons of the platform to justice allows us to raise awareness among the general public, to say what is happening on TikTok and to be careful. Whether parents, teachers, health professionals, no one is aware of the horrors that our teenagers can see. So this assignment allows this awareness, and then also, we hope, a regulation of content.”
“This legal action is also a way of telling my daughter that we can help her, that we can change things, and make things better for her and for others.”
Morgane, Maële’s motherat franceinfo
Morgane installed parental controls, so that her daughter does not spend more than half an hour of TikTok per day. “Sudden withdrawals, whatever they may be, are never good. So you have to go little by little. And I am convinced that there is also good on social networks, but you have to know how to sort.”
Maële and her mother opened an Instagram account, on which the teenager talks about her experience and how her practice of crochet helped her free herself from her addiction.
Contacted, TikTok did not respond to franceinfo’s requests.
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