No one knows for certain when the term "Social Media" was coined, or who coined it, but in 2003, a site that would be recognizable to today's social media enthusiasts as "Social Media" launched. Called "Friendster" it quickly registered 100,000 users, a first.

      One Friendster user who recognized the greater possibilities responded by developing and launching Facebook in 2004. It quickly attracted millions of users. Then billions. Other Social Media platforms followed. Today, more than four and a half billion people engage in a little to a lot of Social Media activity on a regular basis. Some much more so than others.

      All the current predominant Social Media platforms (except maybe TikTok) were designed for adults, not juveniles. Facebook launched at Harvard, a university, not a high school. But within two years it was allowing anyone with an email address and willing to claim to be 13 years of age or older to join. Apparently almost no one (except maybe Steve Jobs) imagined the day when almost every teenager would have a computer, a camera and a telephone on their person in the form of a smartphone. As a consequence the internet became a very dangerous place for the world's more than a billion adolescents.

      The people who designed and built the internet made the mistake of allowing anonymity which enabled nefarious individuals to engage with others simply by using easy-to-create false identities. Allowing this facilitated inappropriate interactions involving teens that would be criminal in the real world: adult sexual predators searching out and engaging minors, minors misrepresenting themselves as adults, and teens cyberbullying one another with girls disproportionately suffering the worst of it.

      While not every teen is targeted by anonymous internet sex predators or cyberbullies or foolish enough to misrepresent themself as an adult to a genuine adult, every teen is exposed to an unending flow of irresistibly engaging problematic content. Scientific studies have concluded that for many people, particularly young people, the more time they spend on certain Social Media platforms, the worse they feel about themselves. Facebook and Instagram have long known this, yet have persisted in refining the addictiveness of their product to young minds and profiting from it.

      It should be no surprise that in-the-know parents have taken proactive measures to safeguard their children. Old-time internet tech titans and bitter business competitors Bill Gates and Steve Jobs limited the use of Social Media and screen time in general by their offspring. Next-generation tech leaders have followed suit.

      Then there is short-form video hoster TikTok (launched 2016) which is renowned for two things: 1) its integrated video production tools for content creators, and 2) its user interface that when opened immediately begins playing an algorithmically selected video, with another video always just a swipe away.

      Wildly popular TikTok was the first Social Media platform to achieve a significant following in the USA that was not developed in the USA. A subsidiary of the Beijing-based company that developed its precursor (China-only app "Douyin"), TikTok is privately held and partially owned by the People's Republic of China (PRC) which ultimately controls it. Today TikTok has a billion users worldwide but is banned in its home country.

      Many people other than teenagers are involved with TikTok for reasons other than indulging in time-wasting entertainment. They are in it for the money, of which there is plenty. Businesses use TikTok to advertise, celebrities for self-promotion, and independent content creators for earning a living. Investors have acquired TikTok stock in anticipation of profiting greatly when it goes public.

      Comparing TikTok in the United States to Douyin in China is enlightening and frightening. A Chinese teenager on Douyin will typically view science experiments, museum exhibits, and patriotic and educational videos but only for up to the allowed 40 minutes per day. American teenagers on TikTok experience very different often less than edifying content without limit. One prominent American technology ethicist has likened Douyin to "spinach" and TikTok to "opium".

      Unsurprisingly TikTok has become unprecedentedly controversial in the USA. There are genuine concerns as to who is in control, their true intentions, and what threats there are to the USA. The federal government has banned TikTok on the mobile devices it provides to employees and those of contractors. Thirty-four states have followed suit. Last spring the governor of Montana signed legislation outlawing TikTok.