Why You Should Uninstall TikTok Right Now
Besides the controversy surrounding TikTok and their privacy settings there are other issues surrounding the extremely popular social media app where teens and young adults share small clips of all sorts- from daily “vlogs” to dancing.
Ever heard of the phrase “doom scrolling”? You might not realize but you most likely participate in this everyday- if not on TikTok on other social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Doomscrolling describes the activity of scrolling endlessy through videos on these apps for sometimes hours- we get hooked in these apps to keep viewing and taking in more seconds of new content at a dangerous rate. An interview from CNN looks at one teen who was a victim of doom scrolling: “Jerome Yankey said he used to pull all-nighters when he was in college — not studying or partying, but scrolling on TikTok until the sun came up.
‘I saw me not putting the effort into my own life, rather just trying to live vicariously through what I’m seeing,’ said 23-year old Yankey. He said he lost sleep, his grades suffered, and he fell out of touch with friends and himself.”
Because of TikTok you probably have felt similarly or the same way as Jerome- we get trapped in the endless scrolling of TikTok- the seconds of content keeps us hooked and we end up spending way too much time on this app that has no good purpose for us. Can you remember a TikTok video you watched yesterday? It’s all mostly useless information that added nothing to our day- and this is where it becomes a problem. Not only does it waste time it also causes us to be irresponsible and ignore impotant things that are actually going on in our lives. Scrolling through TikTok can be little escape from reality- and its okay until we spend hours just scrolling throughout our days without realizing.
Another thing about TikTok is the content that is on the app. Personally I’ve experienced how TikTok understands what you want to see and personalizes your home page to your liking. And this can be a really cool aspect of the TikTok until you get content that is toxic. For example if you like a video where it talks about depression, you will continue to get content that surrounds depression. And while you can get support and view other peoples’ stories with mental illness, it can also show content that can trigger what you’re feeling. I believe the content that TikTok shows us can be super damaging to how we percieve and feel day to day- TikTok alone is definetely responsible for the increase of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and more mental issues in young adults today. I believe that the things TikTok displays can make us compare our lives to others, compare our lifestyles or bodies and create really toxic mindsets towards ourselves and our lives. Teenagers constantly absorbing all of this toxic content will without a doubt send them into spiral and invoke feelings of confusion and anxiety.
Before you sit down and open up social media on your phone, think to yourself: what could I be doing with this time? Is scrolling through endless videos really going to help? Make sure you look at your screen time and understand how many hours you spend “doom scrolling.” Time is something so valuable, please don’t waste it on an app where everyone is just trying to get views to get attention and money.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/11/tech/tiktok-teen-mental-health/index.html
