Participants share expectation as TikTok holds digital wellbeing summit in South Africa

Leading short video publishing platform, TikTok, is holding its Digital Wellbeing Summit in South Africa. Held in the city of Johannesburg, the summit is aimed at engaging creators, media and mental health practitioners to better understand the dangers of overexposure to digital platforms.

According to the social interaction platform, the summit simply wants to promote kindness and well-being for creators and general users of its highly engaging platform. The company noted that because people come to its platform to build communities, it is essential to fight harmful information by empowering creators with the right kind of information.

“People come to TikTok to build communities, so the digital wellbeing summit is about how we can collectively shape positive online spaces. It also highlights the importance of fighting harmful misinformation by empowering creators with the right knowledge,” a company rep told Technext.

Digital wellbeing has become an all-important aspect of technology and digital existence. Essentially, it refers to efforts made to establish a healthy relationship between technology and the virtual world on one hand, and the people who use the technology on the other. This is to help them employ the benefits of technology in a way that enhances mental, physical, and emotional health rather than detracting from it.

With its Digital Wellbeing Summit, TikTok wants to showcase its digital wellness features and other efforts aimed at keeping users safe while on the platform. Tagged, “My Kind of TikTok”, the company says the summit will be an interactive and gamified event that dials up kind social media affirmations throughout the journey and gets the participants familiar with its well-being features. 

The summit will feature a Space Exploration exercise where participants get to explore interactive well-being zones, play safety games and engage with immersive TikTok activations. It would also feature a dynamic mix of creators, experts and TikTok reps who will share insights on digital well-being, safety and community through panels and presentations.

What content creators and health experts expect from TikTok’s Digital Wellbeing Summit

The digital wellbeing summit will be graced by content creators from across Africa, many of whom are also health practitioners creating health content on the platform. One of them is Dr Olawale Ogunlana (olawalesmd), who, in a chat with Technext, expressed hopes that TikTok is going to be bringing mental health closer than it has ever been to users so as to break the stigma that has always existed when it comes to mental health.

He noted that because mental health is so abstract, people think that it doesn’t exist or that it only exists among weak people who are looking for an excuse. With this summit, he believes there is an opportunity for TikTok and its creators to help people truly understand what mental health is, how it affects everyone and how everyone requires mental health care and support.

“I am here to see what TikTok is doing about that and how it is going to support people like me to create valuable content that will assist people who are facing mental health challenges and generally just ensure that health advocacy and information is not restricted by some algorithm and is promoted through the voices of prominent people who are valued in the clinical space,” he told Technext.

On his part, Ghanaian football TikTok content creator, Dennis Seyram Aglago-Cofie (ourafricanfootball), while noting that the internet is the working space of digital content creators, expressed his desire to learn from the experiences of other creators and mental health experts and synchronise the lessons to improve his working conditions on the internet.

“The internet space is my working environment, and for every single person, when you go to work, you want to feel safe. You want the best working conditions. So, for a program like this which seeks digital wellbeing, I welcome initiatives like this because it is promoting a good working environment for us on the internet,” he told Technext.

For Claire Kinuthia (@dr.claire.kinuthia), a Kenyan doctor working in women’s healthcare and a WHO Fides health influencer, it has become alarming to see just how much misinformation is spread via social media platforms, with many of them giving harmful or even dangerous advice.

“I am excited to be here at the TikTok Digital Wellbeing Summit to learn about the various tools they have put in place to help safeguard their users’ wellbeing online. It is refreshing to see that this is a priority for TikTok and that families, especially with younger users, can put some of these measures in place to ensure they can use the platform safely by managing the type of content they consume,” she told Technext.

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