But I’ve never added a friend on TikTok, sent a direct message, or thought of myself as a “TikToker.” And I don’t think I’m alone. For most people I know, TikTok is not a place to connect with other people. It’s a place to waste time, numb yourself, unplug from reality, and float through your feed. That passive, dissociative quality, while great for engagement, has also made TikTok feel more replaceable than other social networks. If it disappears, we will find our solution somewhere else.
I am also convinced by the explanation given in The Atlantic by Hana Kiros, according to which TikTok is a victim of its own success. TikTok’s popularity, he argues, has led many other social networks to copy its features. Now, users looking to dive into an endless wormhole of short, funny vertical videos can head to Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or X, all of which have introduced TikTok-style feeds in recent years. And in a world where every app works like TikTok, perhaps TikTok itself seems less necessary.
I’ll add one more optimistic possibility: Maybe we’re ready for a change.
What spending time on TikTok represents, at least for me, is a kind of cognitive surrender, a willingness to stop actively directing my thoughts and feelings and to let ByteDance’s algorithm entertain me for a while. It can be a pleasant and sometimes euphoric experience. (Every now and then, my wife catches me laughing on the phone and asks, “What’s so funny?” The answer, always, is TikTok.)
But over the years, as I’ve spent more time on TikTok, I’ve also noticed how it’s starting to rewire my brain: blurring my attention, shortening my attention span, making me less interested in media that isn’t targeted to the laser. to my precise array of dopamine receptors. Others have reported that TikTok has become a harmful addiction for them, an app they desperately want the government to ban because they can’t abandon it themselves.
It’s probably wishful thinking to believe that if the ban goes into effect, millions of screen-addicted TikTok users will start reading “Ulysses” and taking long walks in their free time. But perhaps it’s reasonable to see the shrugs surrounding TikTok’s demise and wonder whether, after years of devoting our attention to that app, we’re ready to invest it elsewhere.