On March 18, 2020, there was a statewide Stay-at-Home order issued that impacted TikTok’s growth in popularity.
Graph depicting Worldwide TikTok downloads show an increase from Q2 2019 to Q2 2020 which is around the time quarantine started. Source:Mediakix (https://mediakix.com/blog/tik-tok-user-growth-infographic/)
By: Jaqueline Pacheco and Xochilt Garcia
Since the announcement of COVID, quarantine has begun in March 2020, and as a result, TikTok downloads have skyrocketed. The number of downloads has nearly doubled.
Due to quarantine, people started to use TikTok for many different reasons. One being that it could help build the user’s identity since the algorithm changes into what the user is interested in. It also helps to be a part of a community that is facing and overcoming new challenges together.
Many people know what TikTok is, but for those who do not know what TikTok is, it is a video sharing app and is owned by a Chinese company named ByteDance. TikTok was released in September 2016 but did not get its popularity until later on. On TikTok, people can make videos from three seconds to one minute of different kinds of content.
This image displays how around the time the Coronavirus \ started was in the beginning of 2020 and this image shows that many people downloaded TikTok when they went into quarantine. The image was taken by Elizabeth Timmis MCHUGH (https://www.stellarising.com/blog/tiktok-surges-in-quaran)tine
Music business worldwide shows the increase in downloads on the week of March 16th. The video app had a 18% increase in downloads from the previous week which is about 2 million downloads. The app also saw a 27% increase in the first 23 days of March compared to February with 6.2 million downloads.
About 27% of TikTok users are from the age of 13 to 17 years old. Many generations use TikTok like Millennials and Generation X. There are even a few ‘Baby Boomers’, 41-56 year olds that use TikTok.
Tiktok users tend to participate in different TikTok trends and challenges. Various users are making whipped coffee and bread, have parents acting like their kids, and are doing ‘put a finger down’ challenge. People even came together to create a musical on Ratatouille.
“I have noticed I use TikTok more due to the pandemic since there is nowhere else to go, I use it to interact with other teens” APB Junior Ramirez Diana said.
Since the app offers a variety of videos that are fit to the user, users are more likely to go on the app to see content they like. Another great use for TikTok is that users can interact with others without meeting them in person which helps social distancing.
There is constantly new content that maintains TikTok users engaged and entertained. “TikTok is an easy app, it’s like watching a TV show” APB Junior Katelyn Martinez stated.
These teens as well as many others like the 22 year old, medium.com user Delilah Joseph wrote that the once cringey TikTok that was downloaded as a joke then became a place to enjoy and have a laugh. This is just one of the many emotions people felt when downloading TikTok in through quarantine.
Many high list celebrities have also enjoyed the many things that TikTok has to offer. This has encouraged new people to give TikTok a chance in hope to see their favorite celebrities on their ‘for you’ page.
TikTok is for anybody even if they like different things. Many people can interact with each other by TikTok like seeing funny videos and sharing them. As well as people creating videos of their own so that others can enjoy them. TikTok is helpful so that people do not sit all day doing nothing and being bored but now they can use TikTok to get things off their mind and relax.
One can see that over the quarantine, TikTok grew a lot and became a part of many people’s lives. It brought many things to people during this time. TikTok has proven to have many different things to show people. Many people before didn’t know what TikTok was and now it is one of the most used apps.
