Coming from someone who loves social media and especially loves TikTok, I did something crazy. I decided to give it up. I did not think that deleting TikTok for Lent would change much. I honestly just saw it as a small break and a reset from the mindless scrolling. More of a way to reclaim more hours of my day. I was wondering what the effects would be and whether or not my mindset would change. I have always struggled with my self-esteem and I thought that TikTok may have added some negative thoughts into my mind, so I was interested to see if things would shift after giving it up.
Initially, I didn’t think much would happen, if anything, I was worried about tiktok withdrawal, or missing out on my friends posts, but somewhere between day one and day 40 things changed for me. I started looking at myself less and somehow I saw myself more clearly and more as a person.
I’m not a super religious person, but I saw lent as an opportunity and an excuse to give up TikTok, which I had considered giving up before. TikTok has become a part of my daily rhythm. Wake up, scroll. Walk to class, scroll. Procrastinate, homework, scroll. And while it felt harmless, I didn’t really realize how much of my time was being consumed on that app and how it was shaping what I thought about myself. Perfect routines. Perfect bodies. Perfect lives, curated into a perfect video. Even when I knew that it wasn’t fully real, it still lingered in the back of my mind.
Without TikTok, the constant comparison faded.
In my time away I took notes of how I was feeling, what I was thinking. I stopped analyzing my appearance in passing mirrors. I stopped thinking about how I looked from every angle, or whether I fit into whatever aesthetic was trending that week. I wasn’t subconsciously measuring myself against strangers on my screen anymore. And honestly? It felt like a relief I didn’t even realize I needed.
I also took a lot of time to reflect on how much I had been spending, focusing on things that didn’t actually matter to me. Current trends, opinions, and standards that I didn’t even choose, but that I still felt pressure to follow. Giving up TikTok gave space for me to consider a simple question: What do I actually care about?
And the answers were grounding.
I started to notice that I cared about how I felt and not just how I looked. I cared about the depth of conversation with my friends that weren’t interrupted by notifications or just scrolling time on my phone. I cared a lot more about being present in class on walks, walks around campus or honestly even just sitting in my own thoughts without the constant distraction of TikTok.
I also noticed a shift and how I viewed myself. Without the constant Aunt input from an app of how I should be, I started to feel more comfortable and being just who I am. Not a filtered version, not somebody curated. Just me.
Initially, I was worried that I would miss out on my friends videos and feel isolated and left out, that went away. What I noticed was that what mattered was the time that I spent with my friends in person and not just what I was seeing what they were up to online.
This doesn’t mean that everything was magically perfect for me. There were a lot of moments where I missed TikTok and I felt like I just wanted to get it back in something to pass the time. But I began to become comfortable with being bored. Without an app and mindless scrolling to replace it. It felt more real.
This experience honestly didn’t make me antisocial at all. I love social media and I will be the first one to tell you that. TikTok is so funny, creative, and honestly also very inspiring. But stepping away helped me see how easily it can blur the line between entertainment and ruining self perception.
Forty days without TikTok didn’t change who I am, but it helped me reconnect with it. And maybe that’s the point.
Getting off of TikTok wasn’t about restriction. It was about trying to reenter myself. About realizing that when you stop constantly looking outward, you finally have to look inward and actually like what you see.