When “Everyone Is Doing It” Is Actually an Algorithm That Curates Perception!
- The White Hatter
- 9 minutes ago
- 5 min read
One of the challenges of parenting in today’s onlife world is that youth and teens are often exposed to influences that previous generations never encountered.
In the past, if a youth or teen wanted to engage in risky behaviour, they generally learned about it from a small group of friends, older siblings, or people within their immediate community. Today, social media platforms can expose youth and teens to millions of voices, experiences, opinions, and behaviours with a single swipe.
Recent research from the University of East Anglia highlights how this dynamic may be contributing to the normalization of illicit vaping among some youth and teens (1). Researchers found that content on TikTok often portrayed illegal vaping as humorous, harmless, fashionable, or simply part of everyday teen life. Meanwhile, educational and public health resources tended to present factual information about vaping but often struggled to capture the attention of the very audience they were trying to reach.
This finding should not surprise anyone who understands how social media platforms operate. Social media is not simply a collection of information, it’s an attention economy. Content that generates strong engagement, whether through humour, shock, controversy, excitement, or social connection, is often amplified by recommendation algorithms. Educational content, particularly when presented in a traditional format, frequently struggles to compete against videos that are designed to entertain first and inform second.
What makes this especially concerning is that the issue is not limited to vaping. The same dynamics can influence how young people view gambling, diet culture, dangerous challenges, substance use, self-harm content, misinformation, extremist ideologies, and countless other topics the we cover off here at the White Hatter. Social media does not necessarily tell youth and teens what to think, however, it can strongly influence what they repeatedly see, what appears normal, and what feels socially accepted.
The researchers found that many TikTok videos associated with illicit vaping emphasized humour, shared experiences, and an apparent disregard for age restrictions or regulations. Some content creators openly discussed methods of obtaining vaping products despite legal restrictions. Others portrayed vaping as an ordinary part of teen culture rather than a behaviour associated with potential health risks. Collectively, these videos generated millions of engagements.
This is why parents, caregivers, and educators need to understand an important concept, “Young people do not determine what is normal by reading government reports, they determine what is normal by observing what appears common among their peers and within the communities they value.”
When youth and teens repeatedly encounters videos showing people their age vaping, joking about vaping, discussing vaping, or celebrating vaping, the behaviour can begin to feel commonplace regardless of its actual prevalence.
This social normalization is where behaviour starts to appear less unusual, less risky, and more socially acceptable simply because of repeated exposure. This does not mean that every young person who sees vaping content will start vaping, human behaviour is far more complicated than that. However, decades of research in psychology and communication studies have consistently demonstrated that repeated exposure can influence perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs about what behaviours are considered normal or desirable.
The good news is that parents, caregivers, and educators are not powerless. One of the most effective responses is not panic, prohibition, or fear based messaging, it’s conversation. Rather than asking, “Are you vaping?” parents may find it more productive to ask questions such as:
“What kinds of vaping videos are showing up in your feed?”
“Do you think those videos are realistic?”
“Why do you think those videos get so many views?”
“Who benefits when vaping becomes trendy?”
“Let’s sit down together and fact check what you seeing in your feeds, maybe we will both learning something.”
These types of questions help young people develop critical thinking skills rather than simply memorizing rules. They encourage youth and teens to think about how algorithms, marketing, influencers, and online communities can shape perceptions and behaviours.
We also believe this research highlights an important lesson for educators, public health officials, and policymakers, “Accurate information alone is not enough!”
If credible information is difficult to find, boring to consume, or disconnected from the way young people actually communicate online, it will struggle to compete against highly engaging content that is specifically designed to capture attention. The researchers themselves concluded that public health messaging must become more accessible, engaging, and relevant to young audiences if it hopes to compete in today’s online environment of misinformation and disinformation.
At the White Hatter, we often say that technology is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. What matters is how it is designed, how it is used, and whether young people have the skills necessary to navigate it critically.
This study is not really a story about TikTok, it’s a story about onlife influence. Today it may be vaping content, but tomorrow it may be something else. The real challenge for parents, caregivers, and educators is helping young people recognize when an algorithm is quietly teaching them that a risky behaviour is normal.
In today’s onlife world, one of the most powerful forms of influence is not direct persuasion, it’s repeated exposure disguised as entertainment. Young people are often not being told what to think. Rather, they are being repeatedly exposed to content that can shape their perceptions of what is normal, acceptable, desirable, or expected.
This is one of the reasons we believe legislation grounded in safety by design principles is far more important than legislation focused primarily on age gating. Safety by design addresses the environment itself. It focuses on the algorithms, recommendation systems, platform features, and design choices that can amplify risky, harmful, or exploitative content. It seeks to reduce exposure to potential harms at their source.
Age gating, on the other hand, primarily focuses on who is allowed through the door. While it may limit access for some young people, it does little to address the underlying systems that influence behaviour and shape online experiences for everyone else. In many respects, age gating attempts to manage the symptom, while safety by design targets the cause.
If our goal is to create healthier digital environments for children, youth, and adults alike, then the conversation should not begin and end with who can access a platform. It should also focus on how those platforms are designed, how they promote content, and whether their architecture encourages safety, well-being, and accountability. Ultimately, changing the environment is often far more effective than simply restricting entry to it based on age.
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
References:
