Roughly a third of adults in the United States use TikTok, but possibly not for much longer. The social media platform is heading to the chopping block for U.S. users, and the sudden shock of losing it might affect some more than they expect.
Here’s everything to know about the potential TikTok ban and how going cold turkey on social media can affect you:
Are they really banning TikTok?
It’s true. By Jan. 19, TikTok could be banned from the U.S. Thanks to a new federal law, web hosting companies will be barred from hosting the social media service — erasing it from the Apple and Google app stores.
Current users that already have TikTok downloaded would still be able to use the service, but it would no longer receive updates, security patches or bug fixes — degrading the app’s long-term use and safety.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, said the president-elect is exploring options to preserve the app. The news followed a report by The Washington Post that Trump is considering an executive order to suspend the federal law banning TikTok.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments from TikTok challenging the ban last week, too, but SCOTUS unanimously upheld the federal law on Friday. The social media platform’s owner has until Sunday to sell TikTok to a U.S. buyer if it wishes for it remain in the hands of its millions of American users.
After the Supreme Court announced its decision on Friday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement to the public.
“President Biden’s position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President’s desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” she wrote. “Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”
Will you notice TikTok is gone?
Back in 2018, avid social media user and University of Washington Medicine columnist Kristen Domonell ran a little experiment. She swore off all social media from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. Over those five weeks, she wrote down her observations about life without logging in.
“The first day I deleted the apps after publicly announcing I wouldn’t be using social media, I realized just how habitual my use had become,” she wrote. “I found my thumb instinctively swiping to find the Instagram app after I answered texts, an unconscious loop that my brain had developed. With nothing else to do on my phone and a not-yet-kicked desire to swipe, I deleted hundreds of junk emails that had been piling up.”
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine, sat down with Domonell to discuss what was going on.
“The important thing to know is that the addictive properties of these sites aren’t incidental or coincidental,” she told the columnist. “We live in what some people call an ‘attention economy.’ All of these sites make their money by competing for your attention and they build in features that make it difficult for you to disengage.”
For some, quitting social media is no easy task. Losing TikTok, for many, may mean a sudden realization that the platform played a larger role in their lives than they realized.
Will TikTok users band together?
When David Mohammadi decided to pull the plug on his social media accounts, a two-week experiment transformed into something much grander.
“The first week was hard,” he told Healthline. “The second week was nice. And as I got closer to the end date, I just was like: ‘Wow. It feels great to be so present, and not just on my phone.’”
Mohammadi would go on to detox from social media for over a year, and he built stronger friendships along the way.
“I’ve always warned my friends I’m not a phone person,” he explained. “And my text messages tend to be very short — just a sentence. But [because of] the lack of social media, and not being able to see what my friends were doing, I was more willing to reach out, and call, and talk to people.”
“I wanted to hear their voices and hear what’s going on with them,” he added. “Listen more.”
For Mohammadi, losing social media was an opportunity for a new perspective — one that strengthened his relationships. If nothing else, perhaps TikTok’s many nervous U.S. users will have each other come Sunday. So if a friend is stressing the impending social media loss, don’t be afraid to reach out. Stronger relationships could be built along the way.
What science says about social media detoxing
According to the American Psychiatric Association, researchers from Stanford and New York universities studied more than 3,000 Facebook users to better understand what happens when people stop using social media. The team requested all users stop logging in for a month and monitored their behaviors.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The study discovered that participants fasting from social media use experienced roughly a 25% to 40% increase in subjective well-being through improvements to their life satisfaction, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms and happiness.
TikTok being banned could be an opportunity to healthily detox from social media, maybe even get a mental health boost. Those who would prefer to find a TikTok alternative have options too.
Is RedNote a TikTok app alternative?
Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat Spotlight — “TikTok refugees” have a lot to apps to choose from. According to CNN, one of the most popular picks surging in app store downloads right now is RedNote. Also known as Xiaohongshu, it’s a China-based app that most closely resembles Instagram.
Curious app users should know, however, that most of the service’s content is not developed for English speakers. The Atlanta-based news outlet said Duolingo’s total Mandarin users have soared 216% since January 2024.
Other rising TikTok competitors include Lemon8, Clapper, Flip and Fanbase.
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