TikTok and Eco-anxiety - Maddie, Anna, Piper

Why we did it!

    For us, it was important to connect and support young adults because we understand the impacts eco-anxiety can have on someone's everyday life. As Eckerd students with Environmental and Marine majors, we understand the burdens and overwhelming feelings attributed to the climate crisis. Almost every class mentions the doom and despair of our environment that comes with climate change. Draining, right? To help secure a future for generations to come, we can start by finding ways to combat the climate crisis that will not feel draining. Our goals were to inspire people to take action without feeling like what they do won't matter in the end. We want young adults to know that there is a future in our environment and there are many simple ways to contribute. Helping to combat climate change does not have to be a burden, and can be helped in many ways, big or small. 

What is eco-anxiety?  

    Eco-anxiety is a term used to describe feelings of hopelessness and worry about our current and future state of the environment.  Eco-anxiety manifests in many ways, usually anger, sadness, guilt, and frustration. People experience these feelings as human-induced climate change and other anthropogenic impacts become more apparent and widespread.

    Unfortunately, eco-anxiety is a concern for many young adults and teenagers as they become increasingly aware of climate change's impacts on them and future generations. Young people often feel overwhelmed by the environmental crisis and burdened with the responsibility to stop such devastation. Not only do other peoples' actions affect someone's eco-anxiety, but many young people feel guilty about their own actions and how they may contribute to plastic consumption or carbon emissions. Many feel helpless and think that their actions will not help or feel overwhelmed by the lack of government response to the crisis. Overall, eco-anxiety creates a plethora of emotions about our environmental future and can run the lives of younger generations.

    Eco-anxiety is a prominent issue in younger generations and can stunt the process of addressing the environmental crisis and working towards a more sustainable future for all. According to CNN, about 84% of people between the ages of 16 to 24 experience the effects of eco-anxiety (DuLong 2022). To help young adults cope with eco-anxiety, it is important to provide them with accurate information about climate change as well as ways to address environmental issues. It is valuable to support young adults by encouraging them to take positive actions, like participating in environmental activism or volunteering for environmental groups to combat climate change effects. 

    Ultimately, it is important to address eco-anxiety in young adults and other individuals, but it requires a collective effort from communities. 

Our project

     Framing was an important concept in creating this project. We wanted to frame climate solutions in a positive and fun way, versus the draining and overwhelming ways many solutions can be portrayed. Framing is important when talking about climate change solutions to young adults because of their eco-anxiety. It important to use positive and enlightening framing with young adults to help ease and relieve them of the immense pressure they already feel with climate change.

    Our goal was to help young adults and other individuals with eco-anxiety by providing resources on ways to combat the climate crisis, without overcomplicating it. We decided TikTok was our best platform due to such wide usage from younger audiences. About 80 million people use TikTok with 60% of users between the ages of 16 to 24, which is our target audience. We also noticed that #ecoanxiety has 46.0 million views, meaning it is a heavily searched topic which makes TikTok a great platform for our project (Doyle 2023). We created and posted four videos pertaining to ways to combat the climate crisis and support eco-friendly decisions. 

Goals on Google Forms and Videos: 

- Reach 1,000 viewers on one video

- Have 30 responses to our survey with positive feedback

- Reach 200 likes on one video

TikTok 1: Our first video was aimed at ways to help with climate change. We connected to the audience's eco-anxiety by giving them small and easy tasks that won't feel draining or overwhelming. These included eating more vegetables (less meat consumption), driving less or biking and walking more places (fewer CO2 emissions), using less hot water and being water conscious (uses less energy and releases less carbon), or buying a plant! (views: 577, likes: 32, comments: 2)


TikTok 2: Our second video targeted eco-anxiety about finding jobs in environmental science and conservation. We have different websites that list job postings. These job boards included Conservation Job Board, Brown Girl Green, and Conservation Careers. Knowing what jobs to apply for can give places for environmentalists to start when thinking about helping the climate crisis. (views: 287, likes: 13)



TikTok 3: Our third video gave places to donate. Even though we all know young adults are tight with money, it is still a way to contribute to combating climate change and does not feel like an excessive amount of work. These non-profits looking for donations to climate change action include Oceana, Greenpeace, Clean Air Task Force, and the Evergreen Collaborative. (views: 274, likes: 11)




TikTok 4: Our fourth video focused on eco-friendly clothing brands or places to buy clothes to help limit clothing consumption in St. Petersburg. Young adults can feel the pressure of social media and stay up-to-date on trends. These included Sunshine Thrift Store, Out of the Closet, Goodwill, and Wendy’s Closet. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of fast fashion because of how cheap it is. We feel that giving cheap but trendy options can help relieve the pressure and guilt to stay up-to-date with the latest fashion without hurting your wallet. (views: 306, likes: 21, comments: 1)



Google Form: Along with our videos, we asked people to fill out a Google Form with yes or no questions regarding the information we provided in the video. The link was found in our TikTok bio. We asked three questions:

1) Did watching these videos help ease your environmental anxiety?

2) Did you learn any useful information from these videos?

3) Do you plan to try and include some of these tips in your everyday life?

    We only had 12 respondents, but of that 12, all said yes to all three questions. Although we did not reach our goals, we still felt that our videos reached people that deal with eco-anxiety and may ease feelings of stress and hopelessness towards their actions and the future!

References

Doyle, B (2023, March 21). Tiktok Statistics: Everything You Need to Know. https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistics/#:~:text=Average%20Minutes%20Per%20User%20%E2%80%93%20TikTok,users%20have%20posted%20a%20video.

DuLong, J. (2022, October 13). Do you have “eco-anxiety”? here’s how to find out. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/12/health/eco-anxiety-harmful-for-health-wellness/index.html#:~:text=CNN%3A%20What%20is%20“eco%2D,global%20survey%20of%2010%2C000%20people.


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