Just how do you think they get introduced to TikTok? What do you think gets posted in the school class WhatsApp group chat?
My kids' WhatsApp group chats are mostly a torrent of sharing idiotic TikToks, YouTube Shorts, and celebrity Instagrams.
Which my kids can't watch… until they're savvy enough to bypass my restrictions. Until then, they'll watch it in school, on their friends' phones - little consolation there.
And when that pauses, they just have stupid sticker wars, and the kind of impolite banter (often misogynist/homophobic in nature, definitely not age appropriate) that may well have been par for the course when I was their age, but that I would never have committed to in writing, in essentially a public space. Not to mention the almost bullying.
The mere suggestion by my kid (on my advice) that a separate space was created to discuss actually important stuff, like forgotten homework assignments, test dates, etc, was met with incredulity and laughter by peers (the almost bullying).
Kids teach their peers how to act. Peers have way more influence than their parents. We need a majority of kids to understand TikTok/etc are bad for them.