A recent threat on many students favorite social media app, TikTok, left many in a state of panic and shock, but in the following days, gave them a sigh of relief, as it was swiftly revived. However not all students were necessarily very worried about the TikTok ban, and some actually found it beneficial. Many people were already preparing to switch over to other avenues of short-form content, such as Instagram Reels, or Youtube Shorts, however this is now not necessary due to the ban being extremely swift. This has left people wondering if the banning of TikTok would really be such a bad thing
It is clear that TikTok has drawbacks as well as benefits.,”There’s benefits, people have livelihoods based on it, and social media in general helps people connect,”Senior Collin Wilson said.
Wilson however also recognises the potential downsides of Tiktok, “It can cause issues in school and cause distraction,” Wilson said.
Based off of this it is clear that things like TikTok is a more complex issue than meets the eye, and brings about many opinions.
Depending on peoples perspective they may have different opinions on TikTok, and obviously a teacher may see a side of TikTok that students may not see. Teacher, Zachary Keith said,“I feel the same way about TikTok that I do about a lot of other distractions, if TikTok wasn’t there to distract students then it would be instagram or it would be Snapchat…It can be a very big distraction, the phone is probably going to be more interesting than whatever they are learning.”
This brings up the larger issue of phones as a whole presenting a large distraction in many students, school and home life, rather than TikTok itself being the problem. Phone use, is likely to bring kids away from the moment, and have them focusing on something that in the long run, is unproductive, and harmful. “You’re not going to find any research that suggests that more screen time is good for anybodies attention span or just like their performance in anything.”
This demonstrates that screen time, which is unlimited truly could be dangerous to students mental health and productivity.
The banning of TikTok however was not about the attention spans of teens, or the concerns of parents that their children have too much screen time, it was about it being a security risk to the United States. This however could have some problems with the first amendment and peoples right to post what they want without government censorship.
“ In the US the first amendment has been heavily loved by people in the United States, and I feel that[The government] trying to ban that TikTok was against the first amendment,” Junior Ethan Lee said. TikTok allowed people to share their opinions to millions of people, without government interference.
“Its very easy for people to share actually good information, and unbiased information on [TikTok], and I fell banning it was a move to try and propagandize some of the other social media platforms, so that the US government can spread a message that only they agree with”
