IY-LAW

A deep dive into the world of teenagers and social media.

Soolyn Tek

Soolyn is a student at the Northbridge International School Cambodia in Phnom Penh.

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It’s almost second nature now. You download a new app, a wall of text pops up, and without thinking, you scroll to the bottom and tap “Accept.” You’re not alone — we’ve all done it. But what if that app is TikTok? And what if the person accepting those terms is a 14-year-old?

I remember the first time I downloaded TikTok. I was 13, and my older cousin had convinced me to join because “everyone” was on it. I barely glanced at the terms of service. In fact, I was more concerned about what username to pick. I certainly wasn’t thinking about what data I was handing over — or what that would mean. Years later, I find myself wondering: was that consent… actually meaningful?

That question — whether teenagers truly consent to how their data is used on platforms like TikTok — isn’t just philosophical. It’s urgent.

Let’s start with the obvious: TikTok collects a lot of data. According to its own privacy policy, it tracks everything from your device ID and IP address to your location, search history, watch history, messages, and even keystroke patterns. For an adult, that already raises eyebrows. But for a teenager — someone still learning how the digital world works — it’s like walking into a room full of surveillance cameras without realizing you’re being watched.

Legally, consent is supposed to be “informed,” “freely given,” and “specific.” But when a 15-year-old taps “I agree,” how informed are they, really? Most terms of service are written in dense legal jargon that even adults struggle to understand. A 2022 study from Common Sense Media found that the average terms of service document requires a college reading level to comprehend — yet apps like TikTok have millions of users under 18.

This disconnect leads us to a more uncomfortable truth: in many cases, the “consent” teenagers give isn’t truly consent at all. It’s more like a box they’re told to check to get to the fun part.

And the stakes are high. The information TikTok collects can be used to train algorithms that shape what content shows up on your For You page — content that can influence your mood, your beliefs, and even your self-image. In 2021, internal research leaked from TikTok revealed how quickly users could be funneled into spirals of harmful content — including videos related to eating disorders and self-harm. For teenagers whose brains are still developing, that algorithmic influence isn’t just creepy. It’s consequential.

But beyond what TikTok shows users, there’s also the question of what it does with their data. The company has long faced scrutiny over its data-sharing practices, especially its links to China through its parent company, ByteDance. While TikTok insists that U.S. user data is stored in the U.S., multiple reports suggest that engineers in China have had access to it. In 2023, the U.S. government even moved to ban the app from federal devices over security concerns.

That brings us to a central tension: teenagers are being asked to trust platforms with their personal information, yet they aren’t equipped — developmentally, educationally, or legally — to evaluate those risks. And worse, no one really pauses to help them.

If we’re being honest, most of us were never taught how to read terms of service. I wasn’t. There was no lesson in school explaining what data brokers are, how algorithms track behavior, or how ad targeting works. We grew up in an environment that rewards convenience over caution. So even if a 16-year-old wanted to make an informed decision, they’d probably have to Google three or four words just to make sense of the first paragraph.

In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) attempts to give minors more protection by requiring parental consent for users under 16 (or 13 in some countries). But enforcement is patchy, and in practice, many teens bypass these age gates. In the U.S., COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) only protects kids under 13 — and even then, companies have been caught violating it. TikTok itself was fined $5.7 million in 2019 for illegally collecting data from children under 13.

So what are we left with? A digital landscape where the law lags behind reality. A world where teenagers give up personal data without understanding the long-term consequences. A system where companies rely on the assumption that “accept” equals “consent,” even when it clearly doesn’t.

Still, I don’t think the answer is to ban teenagers from platforms like TikTok altogether. Social media — for all its flaws — is also a place where teens find community, expression, and sometimes even opportunity. The issue isn’t that teenagers are online. It’s that no one has handed them the tools to navigate that world safely.

So what might real, meaningful consent look like?

Maybe it means rewriting terms of service in plain language. Maybe it means short explainer videos or interactive guides that pop up before you use the app. Maybe it means mandatory digital literacy classes in schools — ones that treat students not as passive users, but as informed digital citizens.

Maybe it means pushing companies to design for transparency, not just engagement.

And maybe, most importantly, it means listening to teenagers when they say they feel exploited, manipulated, or unsafe. Because behind the debates and policies and headlines are real people — young people — trying to figure out what it means to grow up in a world that sees them as both users and products.

If I could go back to that 13-year-old version of myself, fingers trembling as I chose my first TikTok handle, I’d want to explain to him what that little box really meant. That it wasn’t just about getting access to dances and memes and funny cat videos. It was about handing over something much bigger — a piece of his identity, his data, his privacy.

But I’d also want to tell him this: it’s not his fault. No one taught him. No one warned him. And it’s not too late to learn.

We owe it to the next generation to make sure that when they say “I agree,” they actually know what they’re agreeing to.