I’m a 17-Year-Old TikTok Junkie. I Need This Ban.

My friends and I never thought this day would come. The daily routines of over 170 million Americans have been disrupted by a nationwide TikTok ban. On the bright side, my homework will get done a lot quicker.

Every day, I get home from school around 3:30 p.m., with a list of assignments that, if I’m focused, should take until 6 to complete. But I don’t usually end up finishing them until 11. Why? TikTok. It all starts at 3:45, when I typically flop down on my bed and open the app for “just a minute.” But by the time I get up from bed, that “minute” has swelled into several hours. At the moment I am writing this, I could instead distract myself by looking at an orange Muppet-like monster detailing an outlandish and embarrassing story from a non-puppet person’s life. I’ll “like” one video, comment on another and keep my thumb moving. I open the comments on each to laugh and commiserate with others; oftentimes, the harmony in our responses creates the illusion of community — even though we are each very much alone with our phones. I love TikTok so much that I cannot imagine a life without it. And yet I desperately need a life without it.

This app has infiltrated American culture. The national TikTok ban, which entered into force on Sunday, was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court on Friday.Now, the Google and Apple app stores will be penalized for carrying it and the app has gone dark. President Biden has indicated he will leave enforcement of the ban up to the incoming administration. It still remains to be seen whether President-elect Donald Trump will be able to halt the prohibition once he takes office.

Given my love of TikTok, you might think the notion of losing it would horrify me, and yet, it fills me with hope. You see, I’m a 17-year-old TikTok junkie, and I wholeheartedly support a law that would sever me forever from my fix. My support for this ban has nothing to do with national security. I don’t know whether my name, email address and phone number are stored in Washington, Texas or China. Perhaps I should care more about that, but what worries me most right now is the future of my generation.

This app defines people my age, dictates our conversations, chooses our outfits, and determines what we buy. Last year, TikTok directed me to wear cheetah prints: Suddenly, those animal likenesses ran all my other clothes out of the apartment. Then, it was low-rise jeans only: One morning, I woke up to discover that the feed had been invaded by stylish girls — like the teenage influencer Demetra — wearing denim that shows off midriffs and flares out at the bottom. To finish off the look, social media mandated a slicked-back bun. Nothing screams “clean girl aesthetic” like this hairstyle. (And “clean girl aesthetic” is something I learned on TikTok as well).

Almost every dinner and lunch out starts with whatever is viral on TikTok. The app is my generation’s search engine. “Where should we go for sushi?” “I don’t know. Look it up on TikTok.”