Why the Kids Love TikTok Search

Why the Kids Love TikTok Search

TikTok’s influence is expanding well beyond the social sphere. The app is increasingly being used for the types of internet searches one would normally rely on a web search engine for. The video-based social app might not seem like the best place to find answers to your burning questions, but many users have made it their tool of choice for finding bars and restaurants to visit, movies to watch, or clothes to wear. It's a trend that has companies like Google more than a little concerned. The popularity of the app has also raised the hackles of US lawmakers, who have cited security concerns about the app and have even introduced legislation calling for a wholesale national TikTok ban.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED's Lily Hay Newman joins us to discuss why all the kids are using TikTok for search and dig into whether the app's ownership by a Chinese firm really makes it a national security threat.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about her week of using TikTok for search. Here’s Lily on TikTok’s security threats. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of TikTok.

Recommendations

Lily recommends the essay collection "You Are Not Expected to Understand This": How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World, edited by Torie Bosch. Lauren recommends the book I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Mike recommends the classic seasons of the show Doctor Who, which you can find on BritBox.

Lily Newman can be found on Twitter @lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jaksot(431)

The Treacherous Allure of OG Usernames

The Treacherous Allure of OG Usernames

Product designer and internet native Chris Messina was lucky enough to snag the username @chris on Instagram back when Instagram was known as Burbn, and, like all of his early usernames, it became a p...

15 Helmi 201959min

The App Smackdown

The App Smackdown

Move fast and break app store rules: That very well may have been Facebook’s motto for awhile now, only, we’re just learning about it this week. After TechCrunch reported that Facebook was sidesteppin...

1 Helmi 201949min

Amazon Delivery Bots Are Here

Amazon Delivery Bots Are Here

Kids are particularly terrible for robots. At least, that’s what researchers in Japan discovered when they let a robot roam around a shopping center in Osaka in 2015. A group of kids antagonized the r...

25 Tammi 201942min

Nike’s Truly Smart Sneakers

Nike’s Truly Smart Sneakers

Self-lacing sneakers have been the dream since Marty McFly first rocked Nike MAGs in 1989, but most attempts at turning shoe leather into smart sneakers have been expensive, produced in small batches,...

19 Tammi 201946min

The Best of CES

The Best of CES

We came. We saw. We touched a lot of gadgets. This week was the annual CES, one of the world’s largest consumer electronics show, and WIRED’s team was on the ground covering all of the top tech trends...

12 Tammi 201952min

The Year in Tech, in One Word

The Year in Tech, in One Word

If you had to sum up the year in tech in one word, what word would you choose? That’s what we at the Gadget Lab asked ourselves as we looked to somehow recap a year’s worth of tech-related drama in ap...

21 Joulu 201849min

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

Most people, at this point, believe that climate change is a real thing that will harm future generations of humans. And yet, a cognitive dissonance exists around that knowledge and our sense of respo...

14 Joulu 201856min