TikTok, the huge social media platform that has used its addictive qualities to get over a billion active monthly users. And now, it might all come to an end. The government is wanting to pry away the app from the Chinese, and give full ownership to an American based company.

TikTok hasn’t been banned in Massachusetts, so that should mean I’m still okay, right? Or does it mean I’m still rotting my brain away scrolling endlessly without a care in the world, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

TikTok has been known to be addictive, and has caused many global issues with teenagers and even younger kids. An example of this is the “blackout challenge” where teenagers would try to hold their breath until blacking out, and wanted to see who could hold it longest. This led to multiple teens deaths and a lot of hospitalization. But it’s also relaxing once you get on it, if I find the right video I watch the whole thing, then go to the person’s account and try to find videos under the same category and suddenly an hour goes by in what feels like minutes. People spend hours a day on it, and don’t realize how much time is being wasted. It’s a waste of time, and studies have linked it to memory loss depression, and literally changes the nature of your consciousness. People argue that you gain knowledge from it, but usually they can’t even remember what the video they just scrolled past was about.

Then, you need to think about how people would react if it does get banned. In my opinion, there are so many people too far gone into the TikTok abyss of addiction to not have an outbreak if it does get banned.I like to think that I’m not too addicted, but even thinking about it being banned makes me upset because I scroll through videos for an hour or two each day. That makes me think about these people who can’t go an hour without their phone, how dramatic will they react, and could it become a national issue with uprisings and protests. 

America is too far beyond the point where they can ban TikTok with no issues, and even though I think it’s bad for you, it shouldn’t be banned. Some people make a living out of it, and if you don’t make content you can gain knowledge through all the videos you watch. Taking into account the addictions and the harm it does to your brain, it would still be worse if it got banned because of the protests and chaos that would quickly ensue.