What Keeps Us Scrolling
Image Courtesy: Ellie Grills
“I was excited to have my life back,” one of my friends said after I asked for their thoughts on the whole TikTok situation. “I was ready to… I don't know… read a book,” another added.
Where has the agency gone in our own lives?
TikTok was said to be getting banned on January 19th, 2024. The day before, I spent most of my time, not with friends, getting an early start on homework, or completing the tasks piling on my to-do list, but scrolling on TikTok. Like my life depended on it.
Content creators were crying, urging their followers to find them on other platforms such as Instagram and Youtube. Filled with fear and uncertainty, thousands of creators were about to lose the platform they used to make a living. Some didn’t believe it and made jokes about the situation, and others read right through the hidden agendas.
All the posts on my For You Page were about the potential ban, and seeing how it seemed to be affecting everyone gave me a deep sense of connection to other users. Even my 12-year-old brother – who responds to me once in a blue moon – texted me, “TikTok is gone.”
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how my screen time is a little high, but I never took any major action to change that.
That frustrating feeling – like I'm drowning and my goals are too far above water for me to reach – is one I experience in other areas of my life too, not just with TikTok: Spend more time with friends, connect with new people, meditate, workout, eat healthier, apply to internships, post more consistently on YouTube, write more.
What if these ‘areas of my life I want to improve,’ which are constantly sitting in the back of my mind, aren’t separate from TikTok?
Image Courtesy: Ellie Grills
I had more fun on the app in the days leading up to the ban than ever before. Tana Mongeau was posting her drafts, mukbangers were admitting they never ate all their food, dancers were reminiscing on their favorite trends, and my feed was full of posts captioned, “Before TikTok’s gone, what's one thing the app taught you that changed your life?” With comments like, “What limerence is,” and “That we are all humans having a universal experience,” thousands of users were sharing their top takeaway from the app.
There was such a strong sense of community. It was like we were all here for one last go-around and no matter what happened, at least we were in it together.
Community.
It's why I stay scrolling for so long. It's the reason I don’t delete the app even though I looked forward to its removal. Ironically, this sense of community is also at the top of my ‘areas of my life I want to improve’ list that lingers in the back of my mind.
Maybe personal agency and achieving my goals will come easier if I focus on creating the kind of community TikTok often provides – one that’s truly my own and can’t be stripped away on a random Saturday afternoon (although, as of right now, TikTok remains).
The potential for such a mind-consuming, life-altering app to disappear made me think about how much weight it has in my life – in all of our lives – and how important community is. Although I have yet to delete the app, this event did lead me to work on one thing on that list in the back of my mind.
And it sure does feel good to write again.
Maybe this will help build my community IRL, too.
Strike Out,
Ellie Grills
Edited by: Tasha Karam
Los Angeles
