The image is by Alex Castro.
Teens and adolescents might be turning to TikTok to learn about sex when their typical sex education isn't enough. The videos on the platform aren't screened for misinformation and don't give teens ways to ask additional questions.
Sex education in the United States is usually inadequate, and most states don't require kids to be taught about topics like contraception, consent, and gender diversity. TikTok has millions of adolescents and teen users, and information about sex is being spread on the site.
One author of a new study created an account as a 15-year-old and downloaded 100 videos under the #sex education and #healthclass hashtags to evaluate the sex education information on TikTok. Most of the time, the focus was on female and male sexual pleasure. Only five of the sample covered other aspects of sexual health, and 13 percent talked about contraception.
The authors of the analysis note that one area traditional sex education isn't effective is the volume of content on female sexual anatomy and pleasure on TikTok. If teens are looking to TikTok for information on those topics, it means they are not getting it elsewhere.
It could be helpful to have a place to see information that might answer questions about sex. If adolescents have more questions, they don't have a clear or easy way to get more information from those videos. They don't have an easy way to determine if a video includes misinformation. There are so many videos that it is difficult to keep up with them all.
There is no guarantee that a user will ever see a corrective video on TikTok, as the amount of content available makes responding to all misinformation impractical. The platform has spread bad information about other areas of health, like COVID-19.
The study concluded that experts should conduct more research on sex education information presented on TikTok because of the platform's size. The research agenda for TikTok included a call for researchers to study the medical advice given on the platform.
In the meantime, doctors should ask patients about their social media use and use that as a jumping off point to answer questions or clear up misinformation. The authors wrote that providers have a critical role to play in anticipating common myths and misunderstandings and providing correct information about sexual health topics.
