The next time Democrats attempt to win over my generation, one of the first things that will come to mind is that they banned TikTok, while Trump saved it.
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In January, the daily routines of over 170 million Americans — including myself and many from my generation — were interrupted by the TikTok ban, which had been made law by Congress late in Joe Biden’s presidency and approved by a unanimous Supreme Court.
That night, as my muscle memory kicked in and I instinctively attempted to open TikTok over and over, I was met with a message informing me that TikTok was banned.
But wait — there was more. I was also told: “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.”
There was hope. Thanks to Donald Trump, social media apps that are fundamental to the daily lives of many in my generation might still be available. He pushed back the effective date of the ban by 75 days to April 5, which would buy time to work something out.
A good thing, right? Our luckiest of lucky days! Thank you, President Trump!
Or perhaps not.
Contrary to popular belief, TikTok isn’t just a harmless part of my and my peers’ daily routines — for starters, it completely disrupts our schedules and fuels our tendency to procrastinate.
Each day, when I get home from school, I get to work on my homework. Typically, I hit a little snag and figure it won’t hurt to take a quick five-minute break. Soon, that five-minute break turns into a mindless scroll on TikTok, lasting much longer than five minutes.
A half hour later, I’m still on the app. Instead of being productive and writing my English essay, I’m watching highlights of my favorite soccer players and reflecting ruefully on how my favorite baseball team has made the playoffs only once in my lifetime. Before you know it, work that should have taken an hour takes up the whole day.
“A Slew of Mental Health Effects”
And there are problems more serious than procrastination. According to TikTok’s own research, published by NPR, “Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.”
Then there’s the dumbing down. During the 2024 election season, my “For You” page (short-form videos recommended by the algorithm) was consumed with “edits” of Kamala Harris and Trump by campaigns attempting to reach Gen Z. Edits, for you non-TikTokers out there, are short-form content with a culmination of pictures and videos over music. The aim seems to be to persuade without really informing.
Indeed, it became clear to political campaigns that the best way to reach this generation is not through any form of intelligent conveyance of their policy but instead via short-form video content that dumbed down both what was at stake and the basis for making an informed choice. Edits displaying Trump as an alpha-male personality and Harris asking people if they fell out of a coconut tree polluted the platform.
According to The Washington Post, “As people create and engage with content on TikTok, they’re being politically socialized — with the help of a powerful and inscrutable algorithm.”
When my generation realized part of our culture could be confiscated by Big Brother, we were outraged. The government wasn’t just banning some app — it was banning a part of our identity.
Whether my generation realizes it or not, we have become dependent on TikTok and other forms of short video content to get through the day and our lives.
So, given this sad but undeniable state of affairs, by banning TikTok, the government was removing an integral part of youth culture — one that influences our fashion, music, vocabulary, and mental health. As well as, it has become increasingly evident, our political choices and partisanship.
Naturally, when my generation realized part of our culture could be confiscated by Big Brother, we were outraged. The government wasn’t just banning some app — it was banning a part of our identity.
A Political Gift on a Silver Platter
Turning to whether Trump’s “saving” of the app is a good thing, I’m on the fence. My suspicion is that in Congress, inside their closed-door hearings, our representatives have been presented with conclusive findings that there is a serious national security risk to TikTok. But there hasn’t been adequate messaging from leaders in Congress about this, and it certainly doesn’t help when the people banning it seem out of touch with this generation and ask quite a few dumb questions in the course of public hearings.
These exchanges have spun around TikTok millions of times, and are the face of the movement working to ban it. For too many in my generation, the ban on TikTok is led by people in Congress who have no clue what they are doing.
But one thing is for sure: Unbanning TikTok was good politically for Trump. Maybe not good for my generation, but a resounding political win for the Trump administration.
I have heard more discussion about the ban than about any other political issue. For all the messaging about this generation being concerned about the Israel-Hamas war, to the vast majority of my peers, Gaza is and feels a world away. But TikTok was right in front of our eyes and under our thumbs — then, just like that, we watched as it was stripped from us.
The vast majority of people truly care only about issues that directly impact their daily lives. When Harvard’s Institute of Politics asked Gen Z what was most important to them, they found that, out of 16 different issues, inflation topped the list, while climate change ranked near the bottom and Israel/Palestine was second to last.
So, yes, the economy. But to paraphrase James Carville, maybe for this generation it’s the entertainment, stupid.
Although banning TikTok was initially a Republican initiative, the Democrats, by jumping enthusiastically and perhaps naively on board, took ownership and, in so doing, handed Trump, on a silver platter, the opportunity to be viewed as a hero by my generation. Now, his TikTok-sparing publicity stunt has likely created lasting political capital.
My generation is looking for a savior, and Trump, no doubt with Gen Z whisperer Barron close by, has been TikTok’s savior. He knew exactly what he was doing — he realized that by unbanning TikTok, he would make fundamental inroads to gaining further support from young voters.
And he likely also realized that TikTok has played a significant role in driving the movement of young men to the political right, in their surprising embrace of Trump, and in the outcome of the 2024 election. So a double win and a political no-brainer for Trump, whatever the actual impact on the mental and emotional health of a hooked generation.
Now, if TikTok does pose a significant national security risk — as I suspect Congress knows it does — there needs to be better messaging about this.
Because the next time Democrats attempt to win over this generation, one of the first things that will come to mind is that they banned TikTok, while Trump saved it.
Deus ex Computera?
Now it appears that an 11th-hour rescue is in the works. There have been reports of a group, including Trump megadonor Marc Andreessen, purchasing control of TikTok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance and bringing it home to the US. There are also reports that Jeff Bezos’s Amazon is making a bid. Trump is reported to be on the cusp of giving his blessing to one or another such arrangement.
If TikTok is so problematic, but also so popular that banning it amounts to political malpractice, is there any way to make it really beneficial, or at least less toxic?
Cutting the Chinese out would presumably resolve most, if not all, of the national security concerns, though, as with any social media platform, partisan ownership, albeit domestic, raises another set of problems. It is hard to imagine the likes of Bezos or Andreessen killing the political and electoral golden goose that TikTok has shown itself to be for Trump and MAGA. Or, for that matter, tweaking the algorithm in any way that might antagonize the president.
Which leaves the challenge: If TikTok is so problematic, but also so popular that banning it amounts to political malpractice, is there any way to make it really beneficial, or at least less toxic?
The answer to that probably depends on what we believe is wrong with TikTok. If we conclude that the problem is foreign interests weaponizing the app to undermine national security, foment division, sponsor a candidate or party, or destroy democracy, then the domestication of the app goes a long way to solving the problem. But if, in partisan domestic hands, TikTok’s path were to become one filled with even more political messaging seeking to influence this generation, then many of those problems would remain, perhaps even intensify.
One could imagine, perhaps, the development of a “liberal” TikTok, a counterbalance to the existing app’s perceived dominant ethos. But then — even assuming such an enterprise could get off the ground and compete, a very rosy assumption given the track record of such efforts — you wind up with even greater siloing and isolation, even more confirmation bias, and even less chance of healing the great gash through America’s heart.
And of course, you’d still have the nonpolitical problems of procrastination, attention attrition, social isolation, and the like.
So don’t look for an easy solution. As with other popular products and services — think fast food — people don’t always want what is “good” for them. The internet, smartphones, social media, and TikTok have all insinuated themselves into our lives, particularly my generation’s. For better or worse, we have developed a dependence. We want what we want: short, simple, visual, consonant with what we already know or believe.
Ask most of my Gen Z generation, and they’ll tell you that TikTok gives that to us better than any other source of information or entertainment. It may shape our culture, but it also strongly reflects that culture: TikTok’s problems are, to a great extent, our problems, our society’s problems.
Can we seriously expect TikTok, or its successor or equivalent, to change until we are ready to change? Is a “war on TikTok” any more likely to achieve its desired end than did the war on drugs?
Quinn Mitchell is a 17-year-old high school student with a strong belief in participatory democracy.
