Banning TikTok in the USA: Why College Students Are Against the Decision

If you are looking for a trend-setting social media, TikTok will surely be the winner of the competition. Since 2018, this platform hasn’t stopped its storm-like influence on markets and societies, which also makes it one of the most influential networks out there.

The user-friendly design and intuitive tools for video recording and searching stand out a lot.

The biggest audience of the platform is made up of visitors from eighteen to twenty-four years old — a so-called category of college students. However, this popularity isn’t necessarily a good thing. TikTok is a matter of controversial dispute. On the one hand, 75% of students spend time on the media at least a couple of times monthly, and 47% do so daily, as the research states. On the other hand, 53% of students from Grand Valley State University confirmed the negative influence of the platform on their lifestyle and studies.

Whose side is the truth on? Keep on reading this article to find out.

College Student and TikTok Relationships

There might be several reasons why undergraduates and graduates spend time scrolling through the TikTok feed and watching videos online. It may be the right platform to embrace one’s creativity or help unwind a person’s stress and a quick method to depart from reality. The main concern lies in how addictive this app truly is.

It is easy to get lost among hundreds of videos, get stuck in that environment for hours instead of five to ten minutes of quick rest. This leads to many situations, such as forgetting to complete written assignments on time. Thus, the TikTok platform’s ban is supposed to solve many problems, but it creates student opposition instead.

Numerous students who use TikTok regularly and not daily don’t find this measure appropriate. The survey from Intelligent.com shows what might happen if this ban becomes a reality:

• 46% of survey participants don’t find this decision influential at all.
• 30% of college students believe that the TikTok ban will worsen their grades.
• 24% of students consider this decision for the better as a means to boost their academic success.

TikTok isn’t just a platform full of fun and entertainment. It is a source of educational content too. College students actively represent their degrees, campus life, and studies online. The way TikTok’s algorithms work highlights the rise of easy-to-grasp content with manageable pieces of information to remember and analyze in one go.

Why Using TikTok May Be a Bad Impact on College Students?

No matter how creative and entertaining information spread on TikTok may be, it requires careful analysis. Given that lots of college students use the platform’s services as a means of distracting themselves from their studies, they tend to absorb the data without much thought.

The other thing is that the risk of developing an overreliance on this kind of social media is extremely high. The focus on short-form and overly simple content formats isn’t always for the best, especially in the case of multifaceted and complex topics. It may serve as a poison instead of a source of enlightenment.

While TikTok’s feed has personalized algorithms to show the content a particular visitor likes, it prevents from broadening an outlook on the same topic. Furthermore, this app boosts procrastination a lot because of its highly addictive nature.

Filled with polished content, TikTok may be seen as a negative influence on students’ self-perception and lower their confidence in real life and studies. Many students use TikTok to improve their mental health — 65% of survey participants confirm this kind of content in their feeds. In practice, the platform doesn’t prevent poorly educated specialists or non-related individuals from posting videos on such delicate topics. Instead of providing real help, TikTok rather feeds college students what is viral at the moment.

How not to Let TikTok Worsen College Students’ Grades and Life

TikTok’s ban may seem like an excessive countermeasure against the problems highlighted in this guide. There are alternative troubleshooting strategies to adhere to:

• First and foremost, don’t forget about timers that can be set on TikTok. That’s how you can limit your access to the platform and use it only whenever you feel like it without overdoing it.
• It might be effective to delete TikTok from the list of your apps during exams or important study periods. This way, college students can find suitable solutions for a break (like taking a nap or reading a book) and get way more free time in return. This will allow exploring new opportunities, such as easily getting help from specialists to write my essay, enabling you to complete your written work even today. Instead of zoning out in TikTok for two or more hours straight, you can dedicate these minutes to your hobbies, for instance. It is easier to change your routine than it might seem at first.
• At the same time, developing an interest in something else aside from TikTok will be a wise move. You can join online discussion clubs or start dancing — whatever you find more appealing than sitting in one place and watching endless videos. That’s how the risk of falling back into the rabbit hole in the future won’t be that threatening.

Final Thoughts

Many TikTok users don’t find the ban on the platform helpful. This platform has a huge impact on their lives, and several report its useful nature as a source of information, relaxation, and entertainment. It is better to include personalizable and customizable means of TikTok use control rather than exclude this option from the list of apps available to students in the USA. Instead, it may boost the use of the platform and make things worse than they currently are.

If you believe TikTok is a bad thing for you, deleting or replacing it with other hobbies will be the right troubleshooting. If you are a pro-TikTok user, it is still worth tracking your activities within the system and analyzing its genuine influence on your mood, academic progress, and so on.

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