When the TikTok ban went into effect on Jan. 19, blocking app service to American users, I was excited. Not because I enjoy being a contrarian — in fact, I like a lot of Taylor Swift’s music — but because I believe TikTok is setting our generation back.
Putting the issue of national security aside, a topic that deserves an entire column in and of itself, I have a few qualms with the app from personal experience. To me, TikTok is reminiscent of pandemic escapism, a time when the inability to socialize in public was replaced by seemingly never-ending free time. And it serves as just that: a time waste and a distraction from real-world interaction and community building.
First of all, I despise how humor is becoming increasingly referential. Instead of creative jokes, young adults are relying more and more on joke trends, which follow a pre-existing format to farm cheap laughs (and clicks). While there are certainly novel creators getting their start through cultivating channels of loyal viewers whom I commend, I can’t help but feel that overall, TikTok homogenizes humor in a way that reduces independent thought. A formative part of my adolescence was coming up with little inside jokes with my friends and using my imagination. I worry that the replacement of entertainment with video content at early ages will completely stifle youthful creativity and independent thought.
And it’s not just humor that has become standardized; the micro-trends circulating TikTok make everyone dress the same as well as talk the same. Ultimately, TikTok influencer culture promotes excessive consumerism. TikTok trends and the in-app TikTok Shop encourage fast fashion consumption and turnover at a rate exceedingly harmful to our already fragile environmental context, and what’s more, they stamp out any semblance of originality among our generation.
Furthermore, short-form content is completely decimating Gen Z attention spans. No longer can America’s youth sit through a full-length movie without the accompaniment of an occasional — or continuous — doomscroll on TikTok. Moreover, I’ve noticed that my friends and I often have entire conversations without lifting our gazes from our screens. Anecdotally, short-form content also makes it a lot more difficult for screen-less activities to seem fun anymore, heightening the expectation for instant gratification in every aspect of our lives.
It’s no wonder — the app optimizes for two main factors in its algorithm: “retention” (whether or not a user returns to the platform) and “time spent” (how long a user spends on the app per session). Consequently, rewarding users’ brains with instant dopamine release is certainly critical to a business model like this one, and users our age buy in, with an hour on average spent on the app per day. TikTok and other social media apps affect addiction pathways in the developing brain in the same way that alcohol and drugs do. The app can become addictive after just 35 minutes of use, according to internal communications between TikTok executives.
Making matters worse, with the desired goal of retention, the algorithm creates echo chambers of similar material, making it incredibly easy for users to fall into traps of misinformation, without the existence of diverse viewpoints. I’ll be honest: I’ve caught myself neglecting to check the sourcing of a piece of information after hearing it on TikTok. Nowadays, everything is seen as true: broadcast to a captive audience without any guardrails separating fact from fiction. Let’s face it: TikTok throws content at young brains with no incentive to validate the content being shared. Young people are being fed skewed or false news, self-diagnosing with medical disorders and just generally getting manipulated.
Our generation is desensitized to voluntarily sharing personal information on the internet. All occasions, from life milestones to travel, to death, health issues and trauma, are documented daily and published by our peers for the world to see. My mother raised me to beware of sharing personal information with strangers online. Now, it seems it is normal to divulge private information to strangers online for what is quite literally 15 minutes of fame.
While some may argue that TikTok allows for organic small business growth and independent content creators to develop, the app is also holding back so many young minds from being creative and original by trapping them in their screens indefinitely.
Banning TikTok gave us a brief glimpse of what it would be like to set Gen Z free. I’d be happy to see the ban return, this time for good.
Carlin Reyen is a third year student in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her fortnightly column Just Carlin’ It Like It Is centers around student life, social issues, Cornell life hacks and the university’s interactions with the broader community. Carlin can be reached at [email protected].
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