The Portledge Press

On January 19, 2025 American kids faced one of the most shocking and confusing tragedies of their time and I don't mean a nationwide power outage. As a result of legislation passed by the Biden administration in April of 2024 The Chinese owned app “Tik Tok” said lights out for 12 hours. During the period our American youth was questioning many things. For some it was: What will I constantly look at when I’m bored? For others it was: How will I market my company? Sadly for a large group of people: What will I do for a job?

 

While the ban was short, during those 12 hours Gen Z was questioning a lot. A hole of time that was once filled with meme’s, singing videos, and ridiculous dances you had to practice 30 times before you could get it right was now gone. As a result, most people experienced something they had not felt in a while, utter silence and that effect is what intrigued the Press the most. We were able to speak with a few students like Delila Cody ’26, Madalena Peterson ’26, and Nia Green ’26 for a sit down interview on the specifics of a time that at one point felt inconceivable. The girls were asked their reaction when they found out the ban was confirmed, all of which had had it during the days of its previous name “Musical.ly”.

 

Delila first told the Press “I was sad, I didn’t know what I was going to do but I knew that I wasn’t going to be a mess because I did quit it for a year, but then I got back into it, so it was just hard to grasp.” As for Madalena, she had a harder time hearing about it. "I had TikTok my whole life, even since Musical.ly so it became really crazy when it was gone." For so long they relied on the platform and to picture a life without it was just out right weird. Sadly however, after many rumors and then the eventual announcement of  the possibility of its removal, The US government eradicated TikTok from the app store and it was then not able to be accessed at all.

 

For the whole country it was a huge shock. All over other social media platforms influencers, moms, dads, kids, were posting about the news concerned and flabbergasted. Feeds were flooded on Instagram with “So have we all moved here now?” and “What is going on?” Similarly on Snapchat, stories were filled with “I’m gonna crash out!” and “How am I gonna waste my time now?” America was swelling and spiraling. They needed to feed the part of their brain that craves a constant fuel of videos with no stop, all catered to your liking. People like Delila and Madalena looked for alternatives, specifically in Instagram which some argue is the same thing as TikTok, as it is presented in the same format. However, the girls expressed that “It just didn’t hit the same” and "It still felt like there was something lacking." The Press even chuckled at this particular statement from a student who wanted to be kept anonymous “I kept wanting to open the app and finish a ramen video but all I saw was a poster that read 'Sorry TikTok isn’t available right now' and some explanation on why.” It truly was a time that will go down in history as a moment that tested our society.

 

Finally, after the overall rush of emotion came the realization and acceptance. How would I move forward as a society? During those twelve hours, many people who relied on the app to promote their business were fearful, how they would appeal to the younger generation. The way the algorithm is so carefully designed helps widen a company’s outreach to demographics that seemed so far on a normal platform. An additional significant reaction came from various influencers who began posting jokingly that they would need to “brush up” on some of their old skills to enter back into the corporate work world. Other satirical takes showed content creators in a panic as there was a possibility of them having to return to their humble beginnings. In other words, fast food chains. For Madalena and Delila, they were lucky enough to keep the app in hopes of its return to where they would once again be able to see their favorite creators, new recipes, and exciting new trends. However, some people decided to take a different route to the app’s hiatus. Portledge Junior Nia Green was one of few in our community who made the executive decision to delete the app as a whole. When speaking with Nia, she believed it was the best decision to make for herself as she kept on clicking into the app and nothing would show up. “I wanted to break the habit early, otherwise it would just become really bad” she mentioned to the Press. Nia also felt that doing so made her more productive in her academics because it allowed her to focus on the information she was studying and not have a distraction in the back of her head. Nia’s choice reflects overall just how reliant we are as a society on these kinds of platforms, not only TikTok but also Snapchat and Instagram.

 

It is undeniable that they serve an amazing purpose in boosting small businesses, providing jobs for millions of people, and storing memories that will last forever. However, when analyzing the effect that the hiatus of TikTok had on the world and the emotion that was felt during those twelve hours, it makes one sit and think and postulate a few things. Maybe we would be better off without it? Have we been so programmed to these distractions in our daily lives that we don’t truly know how beneficial it would be without them? Would there be more of life to soak up? We will never truly know, but understanding the effects that these apps have on a person can not only allow us to become a better version of ourselves and become more aware that precious moments of life are taken up by too many distractions in the world. Moments we will never get back. So whether this piece motivates you to put down the phone once in a while or take moments of personal reflection, one thing we can know for certain is that January 19, 2025 gave us all a moment of much needed silence, to reflect, re-evaluate, and hopefully renew.