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The Rise of Spiritual Content on TikTok
Exploring the influence of TikTok's algorithm on the proliferation of spiritual content, the potential risks to vulnerable users, and the appeal of new age spirituality for Gen Z amidst concerns of falling into spiritual psychosis.
In this week's episode, I explore the spiritual-adjacent corners of TikTok like manifestation-tok, tarot-tok, psychic-tok, and astrology-tok, and how this content can lead users down a harmful pipeline. I look at how young people, Gen Z in particular, are turning to new-age spirituality to make sense of the world and how the TikTok algorithm contributes to increasingly extreme beliefs in this area. I also share case studies of users who have devolved into "spiritual psychosis" (an unofficial term) after becoming obsessed with this side of TikTok.
Timestamps:
4:05 Why I wanted to talk about this topic
5:13 Overview of the spiritual side of TikTok
10:30 Explaining “spiritual psychosis”
13:36 Creator case studies
17:44 The role of TikTok’s algorithm
Find Dr. Ash King: https://www.heavymental.com.au/
Join our Geneva home: https://links.geneva.com/invite/7eb23525-9259-4d59-95e3-b9edd35861a5
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infinitescrollpodcast/
Follow our publication: https://www.instagram.com/centennialworld/
Follow Lauren on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenmeisner_/
Sources:
https://www.popsugar.com/astrology/spiritual-psychosis-signs-49354925
https://screenshot-media.com/gen-z-news/tiktok-spiritual-psychosis/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jgJZGJWwjQ
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/30/tiktok-mental-health-social-media
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/tics-and-tiktok-can-social-media-trigger-illness-202201182670
https://sxustudentmedia.com/new-age-spirituality-and-spiritual-psychosis/
https://www.inverse.com/input/culture/schizophrenia-schizophrenic-tiktok-hashtag-ban
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22832827/manifesting-tiktok-astroworld-conspiracy-qanon-religion
https://time.com/6083293/astrology-apps-personalized/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbn43/manifesting-is-gen-zs-answer-to-new-age-spirituality
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22832827/manifesting-tiktok-astroworld-conspiracy-qanon-religion
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23580200/lucky-girl-syndrome-tiktok-manifesting
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8462234/
https://www.tiktok.com/@alliepbackupaccount/video/7357763096598826282?_r=1&_t=8lZJiR5s80o
https://www.tiktok.com/@neomudang/video/7147845030022057262?_r=1&_t=8lkuc1M7w6i
https://www.tiktok.com/@jasminesgarden23/video/7148037000959085870?_r=1&_t=8lkuep9Adpx
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