The ban of the mobile app “TikTok” here in the United States has become one of the most talked about things amongst Americans. This has especially greatly affected the younger generation, as TikTok has grown to be one of the most well known social media apps. The reason TikTok is so popular is because of how reliable it’s become for teenagers. It is a great source for funny videos, tutorials, news, information and overall a good app to use to communicate with everyone around the world.
“I use TikTok every day. I spend about 4 to 5 hours on a daily basis watching videos. I use TikTok to get inspiration for things such as hair, nails,and outfit inspiration. I also use it to watch funny videos and learn about things going on in society,” says sophomore Ariana Montero.
TikTok has already been banned in many parts of the world, and the United States is soon to follow with the short ban that happened January 18 at around 8 PM and only lasted about 12 hours. During this ban, the people who used this app had to find a new way to entertain themselves.
“During the ban I tried to find other things to do. Such as finding alternative apps such as red note, triller, instagram reels and YouTube shorts,” says Montero.
“Honestly I don’t really know, I’m not interested in utilizing some other kind of application. Most likely it’ll just give me more time to do other things like find new hobbies and stuff, but I’ll always love my TikTok shop coupons,” says senior Natalie Huitron.
“I just watched tv since it was only gone for a little and I didn’t get another app,” says senior Mackenzie Scott.
Once the TikTok ban was over, it was restored and became usable by its users again, even if it was still taken off the app store and not able to be redownloaded. For most people, this was a good thing finally having their entertainment app back. For others however, they hardly noticed a change, if any at all.
“I use it less now and mostly spend my time reading,” says Scott.
“I kept impulsively trying to use it knowing that it was banned and then I resorted to red note, later that day I discovered that red note was allegedly stealing peoples bank information so I deleted it with no hesitation,” says Huitron.
“When I woke up the next morning and saw that the app was back up and running I was relieved. I continued to watch videos and continued to use the app like normal,” says Montero.
Overall, the TikTok ban caused a lot of conversation amongst teenages, since they were the ones more affected by the ban. Although this ban didn’t last very long, TikTok still remained unavailable to download in the app store and was only available to those who had the app installed before the ban took place. As of February 13th however, TikTok has become available once again for American users.
