By Addison Brown
Instagram vs TikTok has been an ongoing debate for which one is better. Instagram is a free social media platform that has over two billion users per month. On instagram you can upload photos, videos, or “reels”. Instagram allows you to view, like, comment, and share your friends uploads as well as celebrities posts. TikTok is similar to Instagram in a way. TikTok is also a free social media platform that gathers over one billion users per month. When you open TikTok it takes you straight to your “for you page” (or fyp) where you can watch other random peoples videos. TikTok also allows you to post your own TikToks and have people view them.
While Instagram does have more than double the monthly users than TikTok, TikTok is what is typically heard and talked about in the hallways at school, the mall, or anywhere you go. Although Instagram has double the amount of monthly users, TikTok has over double the amount of daily users. The reason behind this is that people use TikTok daily for many hours at a time when most people only use Instagram for small amounts of time to post or view certain peoples uploads.
TikTok is known for their very personalized “for you page”. According to The New York Times, “TikTok relies heavily on how much time you spend watching each video to steer you toward more videos that will keep you scrolling.”
TikTok is taking in accountability of what type of videos you like in order to keep things personalized and to entice you to continue watching. TikTok has been described as “pulling you down a rabbit hole” because you continue scrolling and watching short videos that can easily make you lose track of time.
Although TikTok may seem like it could be a waste of time, there are a lot of educational videos on the platform. TikTok has a tab that you can go to called “STEM” that is all about learning. All of the videos under that tab are educational and can help kids learn things they have never heard of before. TikTok can have some misinformation since people can post almost whatever they would like, TikTok has ways of detecting misinformation and taking down as many inaccurate posts as they can.
Instagram has a part on their app called “reels.” It was made in 2020 right when TikTok started to become popular, it was made “as an effort to compete with TikTok’s video frenzy.” Most Instagram reels are made by young kids whose parents haven’t allowed them to have TikTok yet or teenage athletes trying to get noticed by college recruiters.
Instagram is one of the biggest platforms to help athletes get recruited for college sports. Athletes are able to post any game or practice highlights they want the coaches to see. Many athletes are also able to be contacted through Instagram direct messages by any coaches that are interested.
According to NCSA.org, Coaches have said, “We use Instagram as a way to get a more in depth idea of the player, whether it’s personality or how they actually play.”