Like most teenagers during the pandemic, my screen time skyrocketed, reaching well over 12 hours a day. I would spend my time scrolling through TikTok, discovering new “sides” of TikTok, and watching videos about random things like astrology, baking and the newest trending videos. Having TikTok for close to three years, I certainly noticed the app’s addicting nature. How it would suck me in for hours when I only intended to be on it for 10 minutes and how the scarily accurate algorithm always showed me videos I “just had to watch.”
Once the fall semester of my sophomore year started and life began to get more hectic and stressful, I truly started to hate how much time I was wasting on TikTok and how it became more of a negative outlet for me. While listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Anything Goes by Emma Chamberlain, she talked in an episode titled, “Two Weeks with No TikTok,” about why she deleted TikTok and its impact. Hearing how she deleted it and how by deleting useless, time-wasting apps we can have more time in our lives to dedicate towards doing things we really love and enjoy. After listening to that episode, I thought about it for a couple of days afterwards and finally bit the bullet and deleted TikTok off my phone, and I can say that it’s been such a positive change in my life.
Before deleting TikTok, I thought that I would be constantly missing the endless scrolling, hilarious and entertaining videos and the endless trends. I think the most shocking thing to me after deleting TikTok was that I didn’t even miss it. I used to get sucked into scrolling through videos for hours on end, and I would always have this nagging feeling whenever I was bored to open up TikTok. Now, that feeling was gone and I don’t even care about the app anymore. My mind isn’t continuously filled with the audio of the most popular trends or recent “TikTok songs.”
The main reason why I truly deleted TikTok is because I was sick of the feeling that this app had so much power over me. Every free moment I had or whenever I was bored on my phone, I would open TikTok and end up scrolling for 30 minutes to a couple hours. At some points I didn’t even want to continue scrolling and started to get sick of the videos I was seeing, yet it was like I couldn’t stop sometimes. I would always open TikTok right before going to bed and I would tell myself, “just 10 minutes,” but that 10 minutes would turn into 30 which would turn into an hour. I would get completely sucked in and that’s what I hated the most.
I was worried that after deleting the app, I would begin to miss out on all the newest trends and wouldn’t understand the references my friends would make. Now, I don’t care about missing out on the references and jokes, and I genuinely don’t even feel that I’m missing out on anything. At the most, maybe a post or two or a funny reference will pop up on my explore page on Instagram or on my Twitter feed, but I don’t feel like I’m being excluded from a secret inside joke. When I used to have TikTok, my friends would mention a new trending audio or ask, “What side of TikTok are you on?” And when I would fail to know what they were talking about, I would feel like I’m missing out on some special, secret life-changing new trend or side of TikTok that would somehow positively impact my life, when it was actually never that important.
Now, I’m not hating on the app because I know that it’s a collaborative, engaging space where many are using it as a creative, positive outlet and for many it’s changed their lives. However, with me, that just wasn’t the case. I was getting sucked into my “For You” page for hours and it just overall wasn’t benefitting me and almost started to feel like a chore. Growing up in the age of social media, it almost starts to feel like it controls you. Social media can become so anxiety inducing and a place where insecurity and toxicity can fester and build. It causes you to overthink about the littlest, most meaningless stuff like who liked your post, how long it took for someone to view your story, or if your pictures are “Insta-worthy” enough to post.
It’s been almost three months since I’ve deleted TikTok, and it’s one of the best changes I’ve made to my life recently. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that social media has no power over you, despite its addicting nature. It’s shown me that I have complete control over the media I consume and that maybe the most impactful thing is that I can live without social media. The only power social media has is what you give it. If you’ve been contemplating deleting TikTok or any other social media platform- do it. Your life will continue without it, and you will find more new and different things to enjoy and spend your time doing instead of mindlessly scrolling.
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