With TikTok granting us access to all the information we could possibly need, is it making Google’s functionality redundant?
Everything We Need in A Matter of Seconds
Google is an incredible search engine. It’s usefulness is apparent, especially when considering it is the most popular search engine. It’s even slipped into our everyday language as a verb! I’m sure you’ve heard someone say before ‘Let me Google this’ or something of the sort.
So how could Google ever be replaced by a video-sharing app? It likely won’t. However, TikTok nonetheless offers some interesting competition with the popular search engine.
How Can TikTok Rival Google?
To better explain how TikTok could be taking Google’s role, I’ll provide you an example.
Let’s say you want to cook a new dish. On TikTok you can watch a quick video that will show, in detail, each step of the recipe as well as the ingredient list (all in about a minute or so). Whereas if you find the same recipe on Google, you will likely have to read a lengthy recipe which can sometimes be confusing. This example has shown us that it could be much faster to learn new information through TikTok rather than Google.
The same applies if you want to learn information about finance, health related matters, dog training – literally anything you can imagine. TikTok user @veedstudio made all these points and even went on to say that, due to TikTok’s comment feature, users are able to share their thoughts on what they have seen. So, if someone is sharing information on TikTok, others can assess their reliability through people’s reactions to the content.
TikTok versus Google
TikTok user @brandnat shared three main points she believes make TikTok a great search engine in comparison to Google. They are:
- Super visual – instantly you are able to see whatever it is you searched for (e.g. food, place etc.)
- Gather information quickly
- Content is more relevant
Verdict
Google isn’t going away anytime soon. Its practicality is priceless. For me, as an academic, I wouldn’t be able to live without it – especially Google scholar.
Nonetheless, TikTok is demonstrating a strong ability to do what Google can, but even better.
So TikTok may be a “new” sort of Google but, in my opinion, it definitely won’t replace it.
