Quarter of 5-year-olds watch TikTok videos that ‘blur fact and fiction’

One quarter of five to seven-year-olds are using TikTok, according to a new report that revealed the startling effects of social media use on children’s attention spans.

Once they reach eight years of age and above, the latest trend is for “split screen” viewing: social media posts featuring two, often unrelated, videos playing at the same time.

They appeal to young people who are so used to consuming television while simultaneously scrolling on their phones or tablets that they are no longer comfortable watching one thing at a time.

Children are drawn to “dramatic” content online and videos made by professional “influencers” but often fail to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. “For the children in this study, it often seems that it matters more whom something has been said by than whether it’s true,” Ofcom said in its annual Children’s Media Lives report.

The authors of the study said: “Much of the content the children were consuming seemed designed to maximise stimulation and minimise the investment required of them. Videos were fast-paced, short-form, with deliberately choppy editing.

“Cycles of drama, rivalries, reaction videos and layers of commentary seemed to be blurring the lines between fact and fiction for many of the children. Children were not always clear or correct in assessing whether they were watching a drama series or a documentary, whether the events they were following were real or fabricated.

“In some cases, it did not appear to matter greatly to them.”

TikTok replacing Google for search

The report went on: “Where last year children reported short attention spans and being unable to sit through whole films, or even a complete episode of a programme, this year the rise of the ‘split screen’ format meant that they were often viewing two videos at once within the same social media post, i.e. on a single screen.”

One example given in the study was of a 10-year-old girl watching snippets from films which she did not recognise on the top half of her screen, and a “sensory play video” on the bottom half in which someone played with slime.

Parents of very young children are allowing them to use the apps. TikTok is used by 19 per cent of three to four-year-olds and 25 per cent of five to seven-year-olds, while the figures for Snapchat are 17 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. One fifth of three-year-olds have a mobile phone.

For some children, TikTok is replacing Google as a primary source of information.

The report said: “Over the years, the role that social media plays in children’s learning and development has increased. Some might still turn to Google when they need specific information for their homework, but for many children … their first action when they want to find something out is to ‘search it up’ on TikTok.

“Relying on social media for information demands critical reflection – something some children in our study found difficult or irrelevant.

“The information landscape they find themselves in is hard to navigate; the cues inviting their attention on social media lean towards drama, controversy or emotion rather than objectivity, nuance or balance. This year, we saw children struggling to find a benchmark of trustworthiness.”

Consuming rather than creating

Children’s relationship to social media has “changed dramatically” over the past decade.

The report said: “We’ve seen social media platforms become a never-ending experiential conveyor belt of content in children’s lives.

“People may think of TikTok as the place where children post videos of themselves copying the latest celebrity dance craze. But, increasingly, children on TikTok are almost entirely consuming content rather than creating it.

“We used to see a lot more exploration and creativity by children on social media. For good or ill, they used it as a place to play and express themselves.”

The authors also found that children’s use of social media in “proactively positive ways” – such as sending a supportive message to a friend – has decreased over the past year.