I've noticed my 14-year-old cousin knows a ton of historical facts, but he's learned them all from creators on TikTok and Instagram, not from school. I'm wondering if this is actually a good thing or if it's distorting our understanding of history. How is the way recent generations access historical information evolving?
The problem is that TikTok gives you the snippets that work best, not the full story. Your cousin might know cool anecdotes about minor characters but could have huge gaps on context, causes, consequences - the boring stuff that actually explains what happened. Creators go for engagement, not lessons, so they cut everything that isn't spectacular. Add to that the fact that nobody fact-checks what you see there and you end up with kids who know tons of disconnected details that have nothing to do with actual history.
I see the same thing with the kids around me! The speed at which they absorb historical details from videos is impressive - like, they know stuff about palace intrigues or forgotten figures that I didn't even know about. The plus side is that history becomes less boring and more accessible - a good creator can make something fascinating that looks deadly dull in textbooks. The problem is that these videos inevitably simplify things, cut out context, build engaging narratives that aren't always balanced.
What happens is they pick up facts scattered here and there, without the conceptual framework you get from school. Like, your cousin might know details about a specific battle but have no idea what caused it, what the economic consequences were, how it connects to the rest of the period. Videos are short and need to hold attention - there's no time for nuance, for saying "this historian thinks one way, that one thinks differently." And then there's the risk that the creator just gets it wrong or sensationalizes everything for engagement, with nobody to correct them.
It's not all bad or all bad - the point is that school should integrate with this stuff, not compete with it. If teachers pushed them to track down the sources behind those videos, to compare different versions, that would be a powerful mix. Unfortunately, a lot of schools still don't know how to deal with it, and kids end up learning on their own without a critical eye. What really worries me is that history becomes pure entertainment, when it should also teach you to think critically about how information gets served to you.
My younger brother started doing the same thing, and at first I was skeptical, but then I noticed he was actually drawn to history, which wasn't the case with textbooks. The real trick is getting him to cross-check sources: when he discovers something on TikTok, I ask him to look up the same topic on Wikipedia or a more in-depth history podcast, so he fills in the interesting fragments with actual context. It's not about choosing between TikTok or school, but teaching kids to use the platform as a starting point, not as complete history. Real research begins when the video ends.
The fact that your cousin is learning history from TikTok is partly positive and partly a mess, depending on how you handle it. These creators have the advantage of telling stories that actually interest kids - nothing boring, lots of drama and personal stuff. The real problem isn't so much that he's learning from there, but that he's completely missing the context. He might know all the scandalous details about a specific king but not understand how society worked in that period, what the long-term consequences of certain choices were, or how events connect to each other.
What nobody else mentioned: TikTok and Instagram have algorithms that reward sensationalism and snippets that generate engagement. That means your cousin is constantly exposed to the most exciting facts but also distorted more often to get clicks. The same historical event can have completely different versions depending on who tells it, and he doesn't have the tools to verify or understand which one is more accurate. Without a solid foundation from traditional sources, it becomes easy to believe it.
The ideal would be to balance it: let him keep watching the videos if they keep him interested, but push him to at least read a real summary of the historical periods that fascinate him most. You don't need a boring manual - some articles, real documentaries, even well-made podcasts work fine. That way he develops both the interest and the critical ability to evaluate what he sees online.
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