| Social media allows individuals and groups to network,create and share information online.Information is shared by users in the form of photographs,audio files,text,and videos.Commonly used social media platforms are Whats App,You Tube,TikTok,Facebook,Twitter,and Google.Although young people,children,are growing up in the face of technology and high consumption of various social media content,awareness on its possible negative impact on the mental state of mind is not as advancing as technology is.Among the literature review conducted for this study,there are no scholars who have explicitly researched why parents are allowing their children to use TikTok though are not of age according to the platform’s age restrictions.Recent research in the literature review indicates a relationship between the overuse of social media and behavioral modelling,child influencers,and the development of adverse behavioral outcomes,such as being anti-social,poor sleeping habits,and impulsiveness among the children population who are at a critical and vulnerable stage of their development.Interpersonal level theory(social cognitive theory)and media theory(uses and gratifications theory)are discussed and used in this study to analyze the research findings.Social cognitive theory was included to fill the gap on uses and gratifications because it explains behavior as a cognitive process,meaning people do not end up gratifying towards a certain media platform,it is a result of an internal(mental)process.This study sample is children still under development and not rational enough and not old enough to be consuming social media content.There is a tangible proof in the literature review that a child’s rational part of the brain is not fully developed until the age of 25 and this study sample is children between 8 and 12 years of age.A mixed research method was used in this study,that is,qualitative and quantitative methods.Under the quantitative method,questionnaires were developed for children to respond while under the qualitative method,interviews were conducted to get responses from the parents.In terms of the aim of this study,I adopted semi-structured interview as a supplement to the questionnaire.The study covered 97 primary school children between 8 and 12 years old and a total of 13 parents from both the urban and rural areas of Lesotho.This study aimed to study TikTok’s influence on both private and public primary school children’s academic performance,to identify the behavioral effects differences between the two types of schools,and lastly the parental engagement on TikTok access by their children.The findings of this study indicate that generally,TikTok’s influence on Lesotho primary school children is positive because for some children,it has improved their academic performance,it has influenced their behavior in the sense that those that there shy have opened up,they are imitating what they saw on this social media platform.The rural school parents seem to not know about TikTok’s restrictions and do not enforce parental controls on the phones that their children accesses while the private school parents generally know about the restrictions but still allow their children access due to the good or lack of harm,they perceive TikTok to be.The conclusion of this study is that Children under the age of thirteen are accessing TikTok and so far,the general influence is positive with a potential of being harmful.Both primary school children are more of passive consumers with a minimal number of those who contribute specifically from the urban area school however,in their case,the influence is also positive and most of the parents are aware of parental controls and they monitor what their children accesses though there is a margin of those who are not aware.Rural school children consume TikTok content without any restrictions,content selection and the only reason why there is a limit on TikTok access is lack of internet data because they are not in a fortunate state financially. |
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