What if No One Can Find TikTok?

But I never added a friend on TikTok, sent a direct message or thought of myself as a “TikToker.” And I don’t think I’m alone. For most people I know, TikTok is not a place to connect with other people. It’s a place to waste time, to numb, to unplug from reality and float the feed. That passive, dissociative quality, while good for engagement, also makes TikTok feel more replaceable than other, more social networks. If it’s gone, we’ll just go somewhere else.

I was also impressed by the explanation given in The Atlantic by Hana Kiros, who says TikTok victim of own success. The popularity of TikTok, he argues, has led many other social networks to copy its features. Now, users who want to fall into an endless wormhole of short, fun vertical videos can go to Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or X, all of which introduce TikTok-style feeds in the bag- good years. And in a world where every app works like TikTok, maybe TikTok itself feels less necessary.

I’ll add one more hopeful possibility: Maybe we’re ready for a change.

What spending time on TikTok represents — for me, at least — is a kind of cognitive surrender, a willingness to stop actively directing my thoughts and feelings and let ByteDance’s algorithm entertain me for a while. It can be a pleasant experience, and sometimes euphoric. (Every few days, my wife catches me laughing on my phone and asks, “What’s so funny?” The answer is, always, TikTok.)

But over the years, as I spent more time on TikTok, I also noticed how it started to rewire my brain – shifting my focus, shortening my attention span, making me less interested in non-laser focused media. in my proper order of dopamine receptors. Some have reported that TikTok has become a bad habit for them — an app they want the government to ban because they can’t quit it on their own.

It may be wishful thinking that if the ban is implemented, millions of screen-addicted TikTok users will start reading “Ulysses” and take long walks in their free time. But perhaps it is reasonable to see the shrugs surrounding the loss of TikTok and wonder if, after years of giving our attention to that app, are we ready to invest it elsewhere.