Many kids at Freedom High School enjoy scrolling through the TikTok app and are not alone. According to Pew Research, 63% of teenagers aged 13-17 use TikTok. However, rumors have been circulating recently that the app will be banned nationwide later this year.
In 2014, a social media app featuring short videos, called Music.ly, became popular in Shanghai, China. Afterward, social media company ByteDance invented a similar app called Douyin. In September 2017, the same creators of Douyin and ByteDance wanted to expand the app internationally.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance as well. The name for the app came from the short, “snappy” videos that it features. Since then, TikTok has taken off all over the world, and it is one of the most used social media apps among teens in the United States (US).
Last year, rumors of TikTok being banned in the US started to surface, and if ByteDance did not sell TikTok to an American company by January 19, 2025, it was to be banned in the US.
However, upon Donald Trump’s inauguration, he postponed the ban until April 4th, allowing ByteDance a longer period of time to give TikTok to an American company.
According to CNN, the government says that the main reason they are banning TikTok in America is that they do not trust the Chinese app with American data. TikTok has been rumored by the public as an app that takes a lot of personal information from the user’s device.
Officials say that TikTok has not done anything with users’ data for their own benefit as of now, but America would have had extreme repercussions if they did. For example, the government is worried that China may use its ownership of TikTok to access information about Americans and spy on them. Some people in the government and American citizens do not trust foreign countries with their data.
Another concern is that China could edit the app’s algorithm, banning and pushing into feeds certain things such as propaganda to users, swaying elections and policy-making of our country.
For many Americans young and old, TikTok users or not, it can feel very scary knowing that a stranger knows a lot of their information. TikTok collects a lot of data from users, such as what videos they respond well to, and how much time they spend on each video, creating an extensive and specific content feed so they spend more time on the app.
Many people might be wondering about people who already have the app, as they will ban it from the app store. People who already have the app will still be able to use it according to CNN, but it will not receive updates and bug fixes, making it work poorly as time goes on.
This is not the only reason why TikTok is getting banned. Many teachers at Freedom have been saying that kids are addicted to the app and have trouble paying attention in school and completing assignments.
Kids watch TikTok while in school, but studies from “The Week” show that long-term use of TikTok gets the brain used to short videos, fast-paced animation and music. Long-term use can train the brain to be unable to sustain an attention span for long periods, like for reading or studying.
“I think TikTok has become an addiction for today’s youth – Any time they have downtime or should be working on something and not having direct instruction, it’s kind of an impulse or compulsion to look at it – instead of focusing on their assignment,” Ms. Courtney Anderson said.TikTok is more addictive than many believe it to be. The brain gets dopamine, the hormone responsible for a feeling of happiness and satisfaction, from seeing the short videos.
Watching videos over and over again makes the brain experience this all day, making it easy to get used to, and therefore dependent on. Each time someone sees or “likes” a video, it creates a feedback loop of dopamine in the brain, causing a rush of dopamine to the system and making people to want more time on the app.
TikTok is also different from many other social media apps with its “For You” page, which uses Artificial Intelligence to survey someone’s reaction through likes, reposts or comments, and introduces similar videos to their feed.
As it turns out, the popular TikTok app can not only be harmful to national security, it can also pose a threat to attention span and education.
Fortunately for TikTok fans, there are many other apps similar to TikTok, so if TikTok actually does get banned, there are other apps for people to use to see their preferred content.