TikTok usage among young people during COVID-19 in the Nordics 2020

TikTok saw an unprecedented increase in popularity during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the Nordic region. The largest increase, of up to 800 percent was observed among Danish youth. While two percent of them used TikTik before the COVID-19 outbreak, the corresponding share during the pandemic was 18 percent. Overall, TikTok became more popular in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland during the pandemic, regardless of the users’ age.

The rise of TikTok

   TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing social network, initially released in 2018, as Musical.ly. Over the period from 2017 to 2020, the app generated increasingly larger engagement rates, reaching nearly 15 million daily active users via iOS as of May 2020 on a global scale. Among the most followed accounts in Norway were the pop duo Marcus & Martinus.

COVID-19 on social media

   As of March 2020, almost all the most popular hashtags on social media in Sweden were related to the coronavirus. In fact, a recent survey showed that especially younger individuals worldwide seemed to rely on social media for updates on the coronavirus that same month . In contrast, the figures were much lower for people aged 55 or older. Nevertheless, social media use generally increased during the pandemic and facilitated the spread of news regarding the coronavirus. In some cases, even false information.