'I'm here to teach everybody': TikTok Doctor Jennifer Lincoln takes her knowledge to social media
CHICAGO (CBS) -- You may recognize Dr. Jennifer Lincoln from her viral TikToks.
She's amassed an audience of over 2.6 million followers on the app by teaching sexual and reproductive health in small, digestible videos.
CBS 2's Jamaica Ponder sat down with Dr. Lincoln to learn more. When asked why is social media such a useful platform for the information and how does it makes it easier to connect, the doctor said "it was a natural choice."
"When Americans are on their phones for over two hours every day, that's a great place to put good information and unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation, so I find one of the best ways to help educate people about what's real and what's not is to empower them to get the information straight where they are," Lincoln said. "So that means in front of their phones on YouTube, on TikTok.
"And it's in fun little digestible bite-sized amounts of information that are easy to understand, evidence-based sometimes. You know, using trending sounds and so they really capture the audience and then before you realize that you've watched a TikTok for 15 seconds, you learn something about your body."
The doctor said that the well for information will never dry up.
"Honestly, I feel like I will never run out of content because there is so much stuff out there," Lincoln said. "And things, you know, just like with the new cycle things cycle over very quickly, so something I may have posted three months ago."
She added that the future will always bring in people who discovered her In another three months, it's going to seem like brand new again with new viewers, and you know how the algorithm works.
"What I've seen, which is really fun, is that a lot of my followers– they'll see a question from somebody on my social media, and they'll say 'Oh, she already covered this here's the link to that video' or 'Here's what she already said.' So I feel like I've got this great team of followers now, who are also educated and know what's good and what's bad, so I feel like I've got a lot of people helping me, which was really fun," Lincoln said.
The demographics of her audience don't just skew to the younger end of the spectrum.
"My demographics are so interesting. Definitely, on TikTok it started with the typical TikTok demographics: younger people. But, I now have all ages. And what's really interesting is on YouTube about 65% or 70% of my followers are men over the age of 50. Which I'm not quite sure what that's all about, but I just love that everybody is finding something useful," Lincoln said.
She added "I feel like it's wonderful that Gen Z is sort of bringing us along and everybody is benefiting. It's true that still, while Gen Z is much more open, there are still some places where at home, you know they're not getting information, they're not taught it in schools, their parents are not talking about it– so it's not ubiquitous and there's still definitely room for improvement."
Doctor Lincoln said information any information regarding a person's body shouldn't be limited to where someone lives.
"I tell people that, you know, my goal would be that none of my information is ever actually needed because you would watch it and be like well, obviously I learned that in freshman year or I learned that in eighth grade," Lincoln said. "But sadly, that's not the case. And your level of education should not be determined by your zip code and what state laws govern in terms of what you are or are not taught."
She says "I tell people who see my stuff and go 'Oh, my goodness, this is so scandalous.' [I say,] it's literally just biology. And so I'm here to teach everybody."