On January 19th, Americans expected the popular social media platform TikTok to be banned following a bipartisan bill passed by Congress in Spring 2024. However, after surrendering and shutting down for a measly 12 hours, the app reopened to the simultaneous joy and horror of millions of Americans.

Many Americans view TikTok as an innocent pastime, while others view it as a time-sink with minimal value. On the other hand, the federal government sees TikTok as a tool used by China, one of the nation’s foreign adversaries, to collect data on its American users. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) claimed that the app could become “the most powerful propaganda tool ever.” Perceived as a national security threat, Congress voted to ban the app or have it sold to a U.S company, a law unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court. Yet, the government chose not to enforce this ban, partially due to its popularity.

The Grizzly’s editorial team believes this development to be harmful and that TikTok should be banned, but not for the reasons Congress has provided. We see greater potential benefits from banning the platform with respect to mental health and socialization.

One of our greatest concerns is that TikTok undeniably shortens the attention spans of its users, primarily youth. Watching short-form content gives users momentary yet addicting dopamine rushes, leading to people spending hours on the app. This phenomenon has become so prevalent among the American TikTok user base—around 50% of Americans—that declining attention spans have led to many users having difficulty keeping track of time or performing other tasks.

Neuroscientist Dr. Patrick Porter describes something called “TikTok brain,” which he explains is “characterized by a notably reduced attention span, often compared by neuroscientists to the brief, approximately five-second attention span of a goldfish. This phenomenon manifests as an increased need for instant gratification and a diminished patience for tasks that are longer and more complex.”

Perhaps nothing represents the dependence on the addictive app many TikTok users have better than the economy that has emerged on websites like eBay for phones that have TikTok. Though TikTok is not banned, it is unavailable to install from Apple and Google’s app stores, meaning users who deleted the app in anticipation of the ban that would have rendered TikTok obsolete cannot reinstall the platform.

Some online vendors, realizing the existence of a new market of Americans who are unfortunately still addicted to the app’s algorithm after deleting TikTok on their phones, have begun selling phones with TikTok installed for exorbitant prices, often fetching several thousands of dollars more than the phones’ normal price. Such desperation by those with “TikTok brain” to get their fix of instant gratification—paying thousands of dollars to use a free app—highlights how severely the usage of TikTok can endanger the livelihoods and functioning capacities of Americans.

We hope that a ban on TikTok will help some of the many Americans with “TikTok brain” to recover their normal levels of functioning and attention. The app hijacks its users’ dopamine receptors and leads to unhealthy outcomes; it’s in the best interest of most users and American society as a whole for the incoming ban to force TikTok users to take a break.

TikTok doesn’t only affect users’ attention spans, however. A 2021 study published in the National Library of Medicine suggests that TikTok might increase depression, anxiety, and stress in adolescents. As 63% of U.S. teens use TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center, the detriments the social media platform has on the mental health of adolescent users are widespread and impossible to ignore.

Moreover, due to how common disorders like depression, anxiety, and stress are in teenagers, TikTok’s ability to worsen these problems significantly harms its users. Banning TikTok could improve the mental health of the millions of young Americans who use the app.

So while our hopes for a healthier, more attentive generation were crushed by the Trump administration’s non-enforcement of the ban, we still believe that TikTok users should be aware of the health consequences of using the app, banned or unbanned. The government won’t uninstall it for you anymore.

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/24/1246663779/biden-ban-tiktok-us 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-supreme-court-congress/ 

https://nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/tiktok-ban-supreme-court-ruling-bytedance-sell-rcna187150 

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5258396/supreme-court-upholds-tiktok-ban

https://www.purewow.com/wellness/tiktok-brain-explained

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8393543/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8393543/

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/12/20/8-facts-about-americans-and-tiktok/

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-phones-ebay-facebook-stores-fcc55bfdde7483321f86cd6b8895f189