In this new UvA course, there’s a lot of TikToking going on during class
Dietary supplements, fitfluencers or the latest trendy coffee spot in De Pijp; on social media, young people are bombarded with persuasive images promoting the latest food and health crazes. In the new UvA course FitTok, these trends are examined through a critical lens.
Showing up the old-fashioned analogue way? That’s simply not an option in the Honours module FitTok. Just take a look at the course guide for the subject, which is being taught at the UvA for the first time this month. On the list of required materials, you’ll find not only the prescribed literature, but also an account on Instagram, TikTok or – of interest to the more mature student – Facebook. At first glance, that may seem an unusual requirement, but this course revolves entirely around social media.
Because although platforms such as Instagram and TikTok are now awash with content on topics like nutrition and health, fact and fiction are not always easy to tell apart. That is why communication scientists Edith Smit and Monique Alblas introduced this brand-new course at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Dubious information
As soon as the class – taught on the Roeterseiland campus and, with a few exceptions, attended almost exclusively by female students – gets under way, it kicks off straight away with practice. However interesting the scientific theory behind this field may be, it is on their phones that these students are bombarded in daily life with food adverts and health gurus. So right at the start of the lesson, mobiles are pulled from their holsters and feeds are opened; the scrolling can begin.
Alblas suggests an experiment: everyone stands up and only sits down once unreliable information appears on their feed. After all, how long does it really take before you come across something you don’t trust on social media? The students scroll away. “Do you think this is AI or not?” someone asks hesitantly. After about three minutes, only a handful of students are still standing, prompting the question: do they follow the most reliable accounts, or are they simply the most gullible?
When the students are asked shortly afterwards why they eventually sat down, some striking stories emerge. One says they came across a video claiming that cucumber juice can create a non-stick coating on a frying pan. Another encountered a post presenting underwear that tracks the number of farts per day. Dubious information, to say the least.
Fatigue complaints
And that is precisely what this course is about, says Alblas. “Nearly 45 per cent of Instagram posts about nutrition contain incorrect information. So this is a very real problem.” Misinformation often has a sensational ring to it, which makes it highly visible. And, as the lecture reveals, Gen Z is the generation most susceptible to this kind of deception.
Alblas herself, however, can also speak about the misleading effects of social media. “To combat fatigue complaints, I once bought dietary supplements that were recommended to me online. They turned out not to work.” The message: even researchers who specialise in this field are not immune.
Are we really completely defenceless then? Fortunately not, says Alblas. There are tips. “Verify the source, check whether something is being sold. Is fear being stirred up, or does a remedy seem too good to be true? If so, be alert.” But in fact, many students already know this, the assistant professor of persuasive communication explains later during the break. “They are more resilient than we often think. It is frequently assumed that young people don’t really understand the effects of this kind of misinformation, but in the first few classes I noticed that they genuinely approach it critically.”
Hair loss
Still, things do sometimes go wrong, as 21-year-old law student Hilde Kras recounts from her own experience. “I struggled with an anxiety disorder for years. It just wouldn’t go away, so I decided to try a product I came across on Instagram. I felt so good at the time, I’d never felt so confident. But then suddenly my hair started falling out, in clumps. I’m very attached to my hair, and my hairdresser said it wasn’t normal either. That’s when it hit me. The hair loss turned out to be caused by that product. Fortunately, it all grew back once I stopped taking it.”
It is anecdotes like these that reinforce Alblas’s conviction that the new course is of great importance. “We can no longer ignore the fact that social media play a significant role in the health choices we make.” Even so, it remains a striking sight: a course in which scrolling during class is actively encouraged. “I think we may well be unique in that respect,” says Alblas. “Usually you’re telling students to put their phones away for once. But I think those personal experiences are really important in this course. What do they come across, and what can they then do with it? That helps us, as lecturers too, to understand the bigger picture.”
