Many teenagers are dreading Jan. 19. What will happen to the beloved TikTok app, and how will a possible ban affect them?
63% of teenagers in the U.S. use TikTok. 22% of those teens spend 2-3 hours a day on the app and 65% spend one hour a day. The average time spent on TikTok daily amongst all teens is between one hour and 53 minutes and one hour and 54 minutes.
The U.S. government has been considering banning TikTok for a while, but now it is officially planning to make TikTok illegal due to issues with data privacy and national security. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. The U.S. government is concerned that user data is being collected by the Chinese government.
The U.S. has agreed to keep TikTok if the Chinese government sells TikTok by Jan. 19. If it isn’t sold, what does that mean for teenagers and content creators? Many teenagers use TikTok not only as a way to spend free time but also as a way to form connections with others.
Some of Del Val students say that a TikTok ban would negatively impact their lives.
“I would not like TikTok to get banned because I would feel really upset,” sophomore Nicole Schneider said. “I use it on a daily basis. It would be upsetting not using it.”
A ban won’t only emotionally affect TikTok users, but it will also financially impact the influencers who use this social media platform as their main source of income.
“They [influencers] are going to be hurt financially, and although I don’t like that career choice, most of them are young and they can use those skills in business and marketing,” Kapetanakis said. “They are going to be hurt, but if they use those skills for other career options, they are not going to be hurt that much.”
There has also been chaos surrounding the fact that TikTok is going to be banned before Trump’s inauguration. He tried to get rid of TikTok in 2020, but he said that he has now called the U.S. Supreme Court to delay the ban while he tries to get to a political resolution.
The effect of this ban will be felt around the country later this weekend, and only time will tell what this ban means for the app’s users.
