TikTok: ‘free speech’ app or threat to personal info?

The sudden shutdown of the wildly popular social media app TikTok on Saturday night, Jan. 18, caused an uproar of protest from users, influencers and small businesses across the country. The app’s cancellation had been in the works for nearly a year, following a ban passed by Congress that was signed into law in April by then president Biden. Because the app, used by 170 million Americans, is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company, many in government felt that users’ personal information could be at risk. The law stipulated that ByteDance sell TikTok to an American company or face being shut down domestically. The shutdown, however, lasted less than a day, as President Trump stepped in and proposed giving the company a reprieve period while looking for a permanent solution.

Many young staffers at Manor Ink are TikTok users, and Editor-in-Chief Zoey McGee agreed to share her thoughts about the app, free speech and national security. Offering an adult perspective is mentor Gina Ballard, a former Livingston Manor Central School teacher. Here are their observations.

The real issue is time wasted

By Zoey McGee | Manor Ink

As a teen who grew up in the ever-expanding world of social media, I have witnessed firsthand its impact on my generation. This is why I firmly believe that banning one of the most popular apps, TikTok, is essential.

I never truly liked the app from the beginning. I downloaded it in 2019 for the same reason many others did: because my friends had it, so I thought I should, too. Despite knowing the negatives of the app and feeling I shouldn’t have it, I kept it for two reasons. One was the fear of missing out, also known as FOMO. The other was that, like so many of my peers, I fell into the rabbit hole of enjoying the dopamine rush from watching short, perfectly curated videos.

For the longest time, I was good at controlling myself when it came to opening TikTok and falling into the endless, time-sucking doomscroll. Even when I did watch, I didn’t spend as much time as I thought was excessive. But in the last few months, the algorithm lined up perfectly, feeding me some of the best content about my favorite books and the most expertly-edited movie character clips. I wasted so much time on the app that I had to set up a timer to kick me off because I couldn’t control myself.

I set the timer for 20 minutes daily, which I thought was reasonable. But even though that is far below the user average, I became curious and did some math to see how much time I was wasting on something so pointless.

If I used TikTok for that maximum time every day, I would spend around 121 hours per year on the app. Over my entire life expectancy, that would amount to 7,543 hours spent on TikTok.

As a 17-year-old, I have an estimated 362,000 waking hours left in my lifetime. So, in other words, around two to three percent of that time would be spent on TikTok. Based on my other calculations, which concluded that I would spend 42 percent of that time working full- and part-time jobs, I realized how much of my free time was being wasted – and that’s just on one app.

This realization was liberating. TikTok is a massive time-sucker, stealing moments I could use for something far more meaningful. This new perspective made me feel for my generation. The teens spend several hours, if not all day, watching video after video. Not only is it consuming their lives, but it is also destroying their mental health.

Beyond the time wasted, spending the entire day consuming other people’s thoughts is not healthy for personal growth. Studies have shown that when we constantly hear other people’s opinions, they become embedded in our minds. Like how people who spend lots of time together often develop similar beliefs. But what happens when thousands of strangers on the Internet influence what you think?

I’ve been thinking about a quote from the philosopher Marcus Aurelius: “Everything we hear is an opinion. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” With the sheer volume of content people consume today, not just on TikTok, but across all social media platforms, many are becoming less comfortable with themselves, physically and mentally, after seeing what they believe they “should” be.

This “ideal” is often unrealistic, false or carefully curated. People already struggle to differentiate truth when hearing something in person. I would argue that our brains don’t fully comprehend behavior, personality and environment through the lens of a camera. Seeing the world only through a screen distorts our perspective, making it easy to mistake what we see as the truth. And many people don’t question it. As a result, fewer individuals are discovering who they are, finding their true worth, forming their own opinions, understanding their purpose and ultimately achieving happiness, because their lives don’t seem as good as the perfectly portrayed ones online. This significantly impacts people my age, whose values and self-views are constantly shifting and are as moldable as Play-Doh.

People need time alone with their thoughts to process life and discover themselves. But as a teen, I can admit that is difficult. We are stuck between childhood and adulthood, where things can and cannot be controlled at the same time. It’s confusing. So, as a distraction, I see teens often settle for the structured, quick dopamine hits of TikTok, avoiding boredom and never allowing themselves to sit alone and think.

Something often overlooked when discussing social media’s cons is that its creators want you to stay addicted. Apps like TikTok are designed to keep users hooked, using an algorithm that constantly feeds highly personalized content. Its never-ending scroll feature creates a never-ending “what’s next?” mentality, quickly leading to addiction. In a way, social media is as harmful as gambling, except instead of losing money, we pay with time and mental energy.

At its core, TikTok is an unhealthy, manipulative, addictive and potentially dangerous platform that does more harm than good. While some argue that banning TikTok goes against our American right to free speech, the damage it causes to mental health, personal identity, productivity and even national security far outweighs any benefits. Because, in reality, if it takes away all of those things, where is our freedom?

Whether TikTok is banned or not will profoundly impact the lifestyle of future generations. As someone from that generation, I believe the ban is not only justified, but necessary.

The need to keep our kids safe

By Gina Ballard | Manor Ink Mentor

As a Gen Xer, I admittedly lean towards Facebook Reels and not TikTok as a source of video entertainment. Yes, I know, I’m practically a dinosaur when compared to our more youthful readers, especially when also being a member of the retired teachers club.

So I’ll be an Ankylosaurus, known to be a friendly dinosaur with protective and tough outer armor. Perfect, because it may come in handy after offering my take on this hot topic.

I do not have the TikTok app on my iPhone or iPad, but I have watched videos (mostly sport, animal or music-themed) with my teenage nephews. They use the app frequently, as do their peers, so I can sympathize with our younger population being upset with the ban. The app can be inspiring, artistic and imaginative.

However, without meaning to be a killjoy (I can imagine the eye-rolling), the Supreme Court upheld the ban on TikTok for good reason. National security must take precedence over entertainment and creativity. The citizens of our great country need to be safe and protected from China amassing vast amounts of information from American users.

Now President Trump has signed an executive order to delay enforcing the ban for 75 days. Making the situation even trickier, Trump believes the United States should be entitled to get half the worth of TikTok, estimated to be one trillion dollars.

How on earth did social media get so messy with its political, legal and financial implications? As a former teacher, I believe there could be a silver lining: the TikTok situation may encourage the youth of our country to take an interest in how the United States judicial system works, especially at the Supreme Court level, as well as how the US Constitution guarantees citizens the right to speak freely. Many teens viewed the ban as personal and political, arguing that domestically-owned apps are collecting their data as well.

The positives and negatives of TikTok could be endlessly debated. The bottom line is we all want to keep our citizens informed of dangers and keep everyone safe, especially our youth, the future of our extraordinary nation.