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Although heavy use and engagement with social networking sites (SNS) are particularly prevalent amongst the so-called young digital natives (Kelleci and Inal, 2010; van den Eijnden et al., 2010), children’s needs and concerns in relation to digital applications and platforms have been largely neglected (Creswick et al., 2019). Nearly half of adolescents visit SNS on a daily basis (Tsitsika et al., 2014) and spend an average of 1 h per day dedicated solely to social media use and networking (Rideout and Fox, 2018). An increasingly popular social networking site amongst pre-adolescent and adolescent groups is TikTok, where users are able to produce, edit and share 15-s videos of themselves displaying talents such as dancing, singing, playing football and so forth. These videos can be shared through the user’s own profile, and users may share, like, edit or re-produce content made by others. Currently, TikTok has over 500 million users, mostly among pre- and late adolescent groups. One unique feature of TikTok is that users have the opportunity to “become someone” on the site relatively easily (Leight, 2019). Indeed, since its inception in 2017, several music industry professionals have declared TikTok as instrumental in promoting and launching new talent (Bereznak, 2019).
This article examines the appeal of this new SNS through the lenses of uses and gratification (U&G) theory (Katz, 1959; Katz et al., 1974; Ruggiero, 2000), psychological theories of self-actualisation and identity creation (Goffman, 1959; Bargh et al., 2002), and encapsulates these within Shao’s (2009) analytical framework which assumes that individuals engage with SNS in three specific ways: by passively consuming, by participating and by contributing content. The study further posits that these three different categories of uses are driven by ten different motivations, as outlined by U&G theory.
Hence, the current study contributes to past research by:
expanding the uses and gratification literature, which is proving to be especially valuable in the study of SNS (rather than traditional media) use;
providing data and analysis which is based on meticulous multi-stage cluster sampling procedures, seeking to ensure national representation and an adherence to strict codes of ethical practice when dealing with minors;
examining the relationship between pre-adolescent and adolescents’ developmental need for identity-creation, a desire for social recognition, self-expression and...