@Daojoan I'm asking about the other end of the data: not what they use as a search engine, but the major mode of _using tiktok_; it's presuming that search is the dominant mode of information access, rather than asking what modes people use. Given that, yeah, you don't get good information about tiktok because while it has search, its search is bad and it's not really how you use it.
Researching this is pretty hard to do well. What's the source of data you're citing, btw?
I actually think we're in a weird space where search itself has had its credibility and utility increasingly atrophied, from personalization of results, removal of binary search options, the desire to never ever ever show "no results found", never mind the actual manipulations of SEO, and now LLM-generated text.
Not to say TikTok is groundbreakingly accurate or anything — but it is a mode shift, and I think asking questions with that possibility in mind is critical.