It’s been threatened before, but apparently it’s for real this time — TikTok is slated to go away on Jan. 19, 2025. The social video platform has been in my regular rotation since its inception in 2019, and it usually tops the charts in terms of the apps that take up my screen time each week. To be clear, the impending ban by the U.S. government is terrifying, considering the precedent it sets for censorship and freedom of speech in this country going forward. But, strictly on a personal level, I don’t feel all that sad about the possibility of it going away for good. I might even be relieved.
For starters, the app I use today is pretty different from the TikTok I came to know and love back in 2019. The TikTok of the olden days was an easy-to-navigate app with hilarious skits and helpful videos that seemed perfectly tailored to my interests. It also had a unique appeal in that anyone — really, anyone — could go majorly viral and amass a huge following. Factor in a demographic of bored, cooped-up high school and college students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s no wonder why it exploded in popularity in the early 2020s — it provided millions of people a platform to connect and not feel so alone.
But it wasn’t long before the TikTok I counted on for a quick laugh or life hack became oversaturated by brands and wannabe influencers, as gradually, my FYP became filled with already-famous creators instead of regular people. And when the app eventually implemented ads and a whole affiliate web store, scrolling my feed felt more like walking through a department store with very pushy salespeople. This shift isn’t unique to TikTok, and certainly doesn’t warrant a countrywide ban, but TBH, the downgrade in quality doesn’t make me feel like I’m losing out on all that much if it’s to be banned.
As the TikTok ban became more real in recent months — with lawmakers speaking seemingly constantly about the national security risks posed by keeping the Chinese-owned app legal in the U.S. — I’ve taken time to imagine life without TikTok, which as forced me to reflect on my own ups and downs with the app. And you know what? I think I’ll be gaining more than what I’m losing if the ban goes through. Sure, TikTok has brought me some great inspiration over the years: hole-in-the-wall restaurant recommendations, lifesaving stain removals, and many self-help books that said they would change my life (some did, others didn’t). But for every 30-second golden nugget, I wasted hours of mindless scrolling in between.
I know a screen addiction forming when I see one.
I’m a person who loves to read, exercise, and socialize. But I can think of plenty of times when my quick moment to sit down “quickly check TikTok” before taking a walk outside or cracking open a new book became hours-long scroll-fests, often replacing those other activities altogether. As someone who frequently rolls their eyes at iPad babies, I know a screen addiction forming when I see one. But while I would love to have the willpower to delete TikTok on my own, I fear my FOMO would be too great, so a law keeping me from accessing the app might be what it takes for me to reconnect with the real world.
Beyond the damage TikTok has done to my attention span, it has also been a vessel for a lot of harmful content. Most of the young women I know who use TikTok have developed at least one new body insecurity due in large part to the content they’ve been served on the app. And I can’t blame them — there have been entire microtrends that rely on promoting unreachable, often unhealthy beauty standards, as thousands of women and girls flaunting or criticizing their own side profiles, waist measurements, and skin textures. Just a few months ago, I saw a creator give a breakdown of how she lost weight as a model through dangerously restrictive eating habits; the comment section largely filled with young women thanking her for the step-by-step advice so they can follow in her footsteps.
Another bad side effect of TikTok is the extreme normalization of overconsumption. As much as I scoff at the ridiculousness of Sephora kids buying anti-aging serums at the ripe age of 10, people buying beef tallow (and then smearing it on their faces) for glowing skin, and grown adults getting into physical fights over limited-edition Stanley cups, I would be lying if I said I’ve never bought something just because someone on TikTok said to. As a college student, I’m looking forward to breaking free from the cult of consumerism so prevalent on TikTok and hopefully saving money post-ban by using what I have instead of feeling the pressure to buy the next trending thing. Even from a non-financial standpoint, I also hope the lack of promoted products in people’s faces will inspire them to cultivate their own personal senses of style beyond the latest TikTok trends.
The risks of the app are becoming greater than the reward
While these are some of the prevalent issues that riddle my own FYP, they barely skim the surface of the more dangerous downsides of the app that frequently allow hate speech and misinformation to thrive. From disinformation leading up to the 2024 election to family content creators exploiting their children, I think the risks of the app are becoming greater than the reward.
I know TikTok going away will not magically cure any of these issues — if anything, its successor could (and likely will) face the same problems. But if the ban does go through, I hope fans of TikTok will stop and reflect on whether the good of the platform really outweighed the bad before switching over to the next big social media app. While it’s had its problems, TikTok has provided a great online space that connected people from all over the world and opened them up to new and diverse perspectives, and to me, the things that made the app so great in the beginning were those feelings of community and camaraderie. I encourage my fellow Gen Zers to look for those things in their off-screen lives going forward. I know I will.