WOODBURY – While we wait for legislators to deliberate amidst chaos of whether or not TikTok should be banned, NHS students remain glued to their phones–and their favorite app: TikTok.
Ah, the server crashed.
Before the dark 12 hours before the server blacked out, the digitized world we were living for was built around every “like”, comment, and share. But let’s be real, who were we kidding? Behind every double tap, swipe or notification just comes to show how much the world values the infatuation of a high like feeling of a sugar rush as if this was the only thing that mattered. Now let me bring you brain rotted people back to reality.
Society has created this fake reality that the only thing that matters when it comes to social media is the number of interactions we collect as if it is some kind of online scavenger hunt but here’s the harsh truth none of it really matters.
“TikTok is digital fentanyl because it’s highly addictive and destructive,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican politician from Wisconsin. “We’re seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America.”
Behind the digital veil of TikTok’s allure, every minute of every hour there are people in our world facing real struggle and the reality of the real world–not the TikTok world. People are out there battling cancer and other cruel illnesses, people are stationed in places like Iraq fighting for our nation, and meanwhile what are we doing? We are glued to our screens oblivious to the world around us.
“I think that TikTok is one of those apps that feed into people’s insecurities,” said freshman Molly Daines who acknowledges the stream of information that fed to the eyeballs of American teens isn’t owned and operated by an American company at all. “I think it is also not not safe for China’s government to access our personal information because now that they have access to it they can do whatever they want with it like sell it however it is just dangerous overall because they can attack us.”
For most people, myself included, the TikTok ban had taken its toll on us, but now that it’s back we’re left to wonder what are its intentions?
For those who haven’t looked up from their phones over the previous months, TikTok is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, which as some politicians have feared, “invades and compromises our national security.” According to Brian Fung of the London School of Economics and Political Science, who penned an article titled, “There is Now Public Evidence That China Viewed TikTok Data,” states that by having this app on your phone it gives the Chinese government personal information including location and pretty much everything on your phone. Now this is where things get interesting; governments, even beyond the United States’, are concerned about national security.
Now for those asking why let me explain further.
TikTok has become so embedded in our culture that, according to Pew Research Center, 35% of teens admitted to using the app “almost constantly.” While teenagers should be concerned about their data being collected by the Chinese Communist party, more concerning is how this information is fed to American teenagers.
“This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” said Gallagher.
Therefore with that being said are rumors true? Is a US billionaire going to really rescue TikTok?
I doubt it. Did you really get fooled? It wasn’t like the app was for sale in the first place. After all, you can’t trust everything you hear online.
Despite the dark black out times undergoing the app, some people – including NHS students – regret deleting the app just because its back doesn’t mean it’s available in the app store from now on.
“I regret deleting the app,” said Daines. “ Even though I know the app is not necessarily good, it was just so addicting.”
Now here’s the question: is TikTok really here to stay? Or will it be banned again but longer? I guess we’ll just have to keep scrolling while we wait and see.