For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine
By Kalley Huang
2022
Gen Z refers to people born between 1997 and 2012. In this article, Kalley Huang discusses how
Gen Z uses the social media platform TikTok.
As you read, take notes on Google’s response to TikTok’s rise in popularity.
When Ja’Kobi Moore decided to apply this
year to a private high school in her hometown
of New Orleans, she learned that she needed
at least one letter of recommendation from a
teacher. She had never asked for one, so she
sought help.
“Teacher letter of recommendation,” she
typed into TikTok’s search bar.
Ms. Moore, 15, scrolled TikTok’s app until she
found two videos: one explaining how to ask
teachers for a recommendation letter and the
other showing a template for one. Both had
been made by teachers and were easier to
understand than a Google search result or
YouTube video, said Ms. Moore, who is
planning to talk to her teachers this month.
TikTok is known for its viral dance videos and pop music. But for Generation Z, the video app is
increasingly a search engine, too.
More and more young people are using TikTok’s powerful algorithm — which personalizes the
videos shown to them based on their interactions1 with content — to Mnd information
uncannily catered to their tastes. That tailoring is coupled with a sense that real people on the
app are synthesizing and delivering information, rather than faceless websites.
[1]
[5]
1. Interaction (noun) the action of one upon another or others; an action in response to
others
1
On TikTok, “you see how the person actually felt about where they ate,” said Nailah Roberts, 25,
who uses the app to look for restaurants in Los Angeles, where she lives. A long-winded written
review of a restaurant can’t capture its ambience, food and drinks like a bite-size clip can, she
said.
TikTok’s rise as a discovery tool is part of a broader transformation in digital search. While
Google remains the world’s dominant search engine, people are turning to Amazon to search
for products, Instagram to stay updated on trends and Snapchat’s Snap Maps to Mnd local
businesses. As the digital world continues growing, the universe of ways to Mnd information in it
is expanding.
Google has noticed TikTok edging into its domain. While the Silicon Valley company disputed
that young people were using TikTok as a replacement for its search engine, at least one Google
executive has publicly remarked on the rival video app’s search capabilities.
“In our studies, something like almost 40 percent of young people, when they’re looking for a
place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram,”
Prabhakar Raghavan, a Google senior vice president, said at a technology conference in July.
Google has incorporated images and videos into its search engine in recent years. Since 2019,
some of its search results have featured TikTok videos. In 2020, Google released YouTube
Shorts, which shares vertical videos less than a minute long, and started including its content in
search results.
TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, declined to comment on
its search function and products that may be in testing. It said it was “always thinking about
new ways to add value to the community and enrich the TikTok experience.”
Doing a search on TikTok is often more interactive than typing in a query2 on Google. Instead of
just slogging through walls of text, Gen Z-ers crowdsource recommendations from TikTok
videos to pinpoint what they are looking for, watching video after video to cull the content.
Then they verify the veracity3 of a suggestion based on comments posted in response to the
videos.
This mode of searching is rooted in how young people are using TikTok not only to look for
products and businesses, but also to ask questions about how to do things and Mnd
explanations for what things mean. With videos often less than 60 seconds long, TikTok returns
what feels like more relevant answers, many said.
Alexandria Kinsey, 24, a communications and social media coordinator in Arlington, Va., uses
[10]
2. Query (noun) a question
3. to evaluate if something is factual or truthful
2
TikTok for many search queries: recipes to cook, Mlms to watch and nearby happy hours to try.
She also turns to it for less typical questions, like looking up interviews with the actor Andrew
GarMeld and weird conspiracy theories.
TikTok’s results “don’t seem as biased” as Google’s, she said, adding that she often wants “a
diLerent opinion” from what ads and websites optimized for Google say.
Ms. Kinsey said she also loved how quickly TikTok videos presented information. Although she
sometimes fact-checks what she Mnds on TikTok by using Google, she said, “I rarely see
something that requires that much thought.”
TikTok’s ascent as a search engine may mean that more people stumble upon misinformation
and disinformation on the app, which could then be ampliMed and spread further, said
Francesca Tripodi, an information and library science professor at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. The platform has struggled with moderating misleading content about
elections, the war in Ukraine and abortion.
TikTok’s algorithm tends to keep people on the app, making it harder for them to turn to
additional sources to fact-check searches, Ms. Tripodi added.
“You aren’t really clicking to anything that would lead you out of the app,” she said. “That makes
it even more challenging to double-check the information you’re getting is correct.”
TikTok has leaned into becoming a venue for Mnding information. The app is testing a feature
that identiMes keywords in comments and links to search results for them. In Southeast Asia, it
is also testing a feed with local content, so people can Mnd businesses and events near them.
Building out search and location features is likely to further entrench4 TikTok — already the
world’s most downloaded app for those ages 18 to 24, according to Sensor Tower — among
young users.
TikTok “is becoming a one-stop shop for content in a way that it wasn’t in its earlier days,” said
Lee Rainie, who directs internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center.
That’s certainly true for Jayla Johnson, 22. The Newtown, Pa., resident estimated that she
watches TikTok videos on her phone two hours a day, and said she had begun using the app as
a search engine because it was more convenient than Google and Instagram.
“They know what I want to see,” she said. “It’s less work for me to actually go out of my way to
search.”
[15]
[20]
4. to establish Mrmly and unchangeably
3
"For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine" by Kalley Huang. From The New York Times. ©
September 16, 2022 The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.
Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Ms. Johnson, a digital marketer, added that she particularly appreciated TikTok when she and
her parents were searching for places to visit and things to do. Her parents often wade through
pages of Google search results, she said, while she needs to scroll through only a few short
videos.
“God bless,” she said she thinks. “You could have gotten that in seconds critical idea written like a 8th grader short
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