Due to TikTok’s growing popularity throughout the year, the brief 24 hour ban, due to privacy issues, was tragic for many. With its 170 million monthly users, the app clearly knows what it’s doing. When the ban went into effect briefly on January 19, 2025, many students felt lost and confused, leading many to start searching for new apps to entertain themselves with.  

People throughout FLHS have been using TikTok for many years, despite it still being a relatively new app. In 2017, a Chinese company called ByteDance bought the company that would later become TikTok, prompting the U.S. government to investigate their use of Americans’ data. In 2024, Congress passed a law that required TikTok to either be bought by a U.S. company or be banned. 

When the ban came into effect, many people didn’t know what to do. Sarah Assous, a freshman, said that she found herself opening the app over and over again out of habit. Eventually, she found other things to occupy herself with, such as practicing instruments or hanging out with friends. Another student said that she noticed that her friends were worried about their only form of entertainment being gone, with one saying that “it was like I had something missing in my life.” Clearly, TikTok had more of a hold on people than they thought it did.  

As users started to realize that TikTok might be gone for a while, they found other applications with short form content to replace TikTok. Many students found themselves using Instagram Reels for the duration of the ban, leading some to have moved off of TikTok entirely. One new Instagram user has become a die hard fan, and it seems that more and more people may be moving away from TikTok. If there were to be another ban, people could potentially move on from it entirely.