High school students' use of TikTok in terms of free time practices

The concept of free time can be seen as a field shaped by each person's own individual perception, outside of their daily economic activities. However, today's economic relations are an area where free time is designed, planned, and most importantly, tried to be manipulated like any other industrial field. The possibility of free time is an area that individuals reserve for themselves and design according to their own intellectual world in line with their personal discretion and try to add meaning to this world has almost been eliminated. As we end the first quarter of the 21st century, rapid changes in information technologies and the widespread use of the internet cause important social changes. These innovations affect all social segments, as well as young people. As in all societies in history, young generations represent the carriers of every material innovation today. With the use of Web 2.0 tools, it is seen that young people spend most of their time on social media platforms. How high school students, who are in the personal development phase of their lives, spend their free time, to what extent they use social media during this time, and their awareness of this issue are matters of discussion. TikTok, which has been one of the most popular social media platforms recently, is widely used by young people in our country, as in many countries around the world. As with other platforms on social media, TikTok is also a subject of debate in various aspects. In this study, with the semi-structured in-depth interview method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, it was tried to reveal the free time practices of secondary school students in general, and the role of the time they spend on the TikTok application in their free time practices in particular. As a result of this study, it can be said that high school students see TikTok as an important tool in spending their free time and that TikTok has irreversibly changed their free time practices.