About this episode
WARNING: This episode features content dealing with self-harm, suicide, and related mental health topics.
Scroll through TikTok and you’re likely to find a series of harmless, sometimes hilarious, video clips of young people doing weird things.
But dig a little deeper, and you’re likely to find a dark underbelly of posts, sharing the experiences of people suffering from mental illness.
So what is TikTok doing about it? Do parents actually know what their kids are looking at? And what should our regulators do to keep New Zealand’s teenagers safe from harm?
Today, 20-year-old university student Megan Dykes shares a first-hand experience of a young person’s struggle with mental health in the age of social media, and NZ Herald investigations editor Alex Spence helps Damien understand why social media, and TikTok in particular, is raising concern around the world.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Damien Venuto
Producers: Shaun D Wilson and Paddy Fox
Executive Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Get every episode summarized
Each time The Front Page publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
No transcript yet
This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.
More episodes
More from The Front Page
Are we buying the wrong cars in the fuel crisis EV boom?
The Front Page
How illicit tobacco quietly grew to a quarter of all cigarettes sold here
The Front Page
Why Trump’s Iran blockade could backfire at sea
The Front Page
Inside the push to fix Luxon’s media image
The Front Page