But I’ve never once 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 isn’t a place to connect with other people. It’s a place to waste time, to numb out, to unplug from reality and float in the feed. That passive, dissociative quality, while great for engagement, has also made TikTok feel more replaceable than other, more social networks. If it goes away, we’ll just get our fix somewhere else.
I’m also persuaded by the explanation given in The Atlantic by Hana Kiros, who says TikTok is a victim of its own success. TikTok’s popularity, she argues, has led lots of other social networks to copy its features. Now, users who want to drop into an infinite wormhole of short, entertaining vertical videos can go 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, maybe TikTok itself feels less necessary.
I’ll add one more optimistic possibility: Maybe we’re ready for a change.
What spending time on TikTok represents — to me, at least — 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 experience, and occasionally euphoric. (Every few days, my wife catches me laughing at my 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 focus, shortening my attention span, making me less interested in media that isn’t laser-targeted 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 quit it on their own.
It’s probably wishful thinking to believe that if the ban takes effect, millions of screen-addicted TikTok users will start reading “Ulysses” and taking long walks in their spare time. But maybe it’s reasonable to see the shrugs surrounding TikTok’s disappearance and wonder if, after years of giving that app our attention, we’re ready to invest it somewhere else.