Alex B

Oh, so you think you’re superior because you still haven’t downloaded TikTok? Let me tell you why you’re missing out. Social media is hot and for one simple reason: it’s the driver of contemporary culture. Where can you find the latest trends? Social media. Where is the agenda of debate being set? Social media. Where are all the celebrities, the politicians, the influencers? You guessed it, social media.

While some may dismiss this realm as merely a collection of silly videos slowly rotting our brains, my retort would be, “What’s wrong with silly videos?” Every cultural form, from the novel to the movie, was once dismissed as frivolous. Yet being an influencer requires endless creativity and an ability to comment perceptively on our times.

Not that social media is just brainrot. The apps provide access to news ignored by mainstream publications and spawn political movements with real-world consequences (my personal favourite being when K-pop stans managed to empty a Trump rally). Every time I open Instagram, I learn something I would never find elsewhere, be that how to invent your own bird language or the technology required to design a robot Remy the rat. Granted, this may be the specificity of my algorithm. But isn’t that what’s great about the Internet? It provides communities for people with niche interests and, crucially, members of marginalised groups.

“The Internet would certainly be a friendlier place with less man baby CEOs floating about retweeting hate speech”

That isn’t to say that social networks are perfect as they are. The Internet would certainly be a friendlier place with less man baby CEOs floating about retweeting hate speech. But I’m tired of people blaming social media for issues that have much broader structural roots. No, it isn’t phones that are making young people depressed; it’s the seemingly unstoppable death spiral of late-stage capitalism. So, yes, let’s have some regulation and algorithmic transparency. But enough with the TikTok bans and moral panics.

Whether you like it or not, social media is increasingly the media. It’s not just hot; it’s essential if you want to stay in the know. As long as you’re spending a reasonable amount of time online (I’m looking at you with the ten-hour screen time), social media is not going to make you fail your degree. Take a deep breath. You’re going to be fine.

Alex M

I am superior because I haven’t downloaded TikTok. If you think TikTok is the driver of contemporary culture, you need to get outside and touch some grass.

Whilst it may be true that politicians are on TikTok and it is not all just silly videos, I will tell you what’s wrong with silly videos: they’re rotting your brains! And I’m serious about this. There are countless studies which show that our attention span is going down partly as a result of these 30-second videos.

“If you think TikTok is the driver of contemporary culture, you need to get outside and touch some grass”

I would also like to push back on the idea that, like comic books, TV, and even newspapers before it, TikTok is in some way just the latest moral panic. Just because there has been a moral panic about something does not mean that thing is good. Of course, the 1980s moral panic over TV was batshit, and the 1990s/2000s panic over video games was similarly ridiculous. But do I think it has been good for 14-year-old boys all over the world to be playing Grand Theft Auto? Of course I don’t. Two things can be true at once: there is no need to panic about supposed societal downfall from TikTok, but it is also not good for us as individuals or as a society.

We are all addicts craving the next hit of Instagram Reels as if it is a particularly effective horse tranquiliser. You know as well as I do that you’re addicted to it. It’s very very hard to turn off, and whilst it may feel good to start with, it is just not good in the long run.

So, dear reader, no I am not an anti-TikTok, but I do impose a strict limit on my phone (with the repetitive pressing of the extend by 15 minutes button being frequently used) because I know I have a problem, and I think deep down you know it too.