“Our depleted attention spans can mean that the world around us simply seems too complex, too bewildering for us to know how to influence it, so we can be increasingly drawn to simplified versions of why we are experiencing the problems we are experiencing. […] What if we begin to value our attention as the blessing and the birthright (and responsibility) it is – what should we do? I think we decide, in ways large and small, to fight like hell to get it back.”
– Rob Hopkins in From What Is to What If
Banning TikTok for a time, let’s say one year, would be healthy.
The platform has problems. I tried it for about one year, interested mainly in the videos created by the Everyday Engineering account. Shortly after he moved over to YouTube, I also deleted my account for some of the same reasons as he did. For me, the platform was noise. Imagine leaving your television on, and instead of manually switching channels, it did this on its own. Sometimes it seems to know what you might enjoy and other times it sends non-stop mis/disinformation, beauty tips, and advertisements your way. I was there to watch videos about streets and houseplants; I had to work too hard to get any of that. The TikTok approach to book culture delivered in quick shots where you couldn’t hardly see the title let alone catch the basic plot: total joke. And the noise is constant — it’s not like YouTube where you can quietly search the offerings, and then hit play and turn the volume up when you’ve found something. Everything is looping, constantly in motion, and loud. It’s disorienting. For some, it’s really addicting.
I have had to intervene with young adults who talked about what they were learning on TikTok. It is possible to learn something from any situation, but their “knowledge” was scientific misinformation and historical inaccuracy.
TikTok is just one of many places to get led in a very wrong direction, but it’s an atmosphere that is seductive like certain dating apps that gamify the experience. Instead of cautiously considering how you’re interacting, it becomes all about swiping and collecting compliments.
As we make our way through Dry January, a time when some typically heavier drinkers refrain from imbibing, even only a full month of mandated TikTok rest might be revealing to its heavy users.
I can’t talk about TikTok without acknowledging that social media now is too often not the same animal as it was circa 2006/2007.
The sale of Instagram to Zuckerberg (Meta) was not as immediately disappointing as the sale of Twitter to Musk. Instagram mostly still functioned well in comparison to Facebook, which is a turd circling the drain. From what I gather, the main reason anyone still uses Facebook is to keep in touch with their Boomer relatives who refuse to move over to other platforms or just write emails. Twitter, on the other hand, became noticeably weaker the moment it switched hands, because what would you expect from someone whose company sells a car that looks like a dumpster calls it a “truck”? To even the most casual viewer, it should be recognizable by now that Musk is known for fomenting chaos — and not in a sexy, mischievious way, but with real costs attached. After about a year into that upheaval, Twitter became nearly unusable. Bots and trolls were infesting the space while real people not on the far right were leaving. My use of Twitter was primarily to promote my writing, and when it stopped serving that purpose, I left for Bluesky.
These platforms are not all interchangeable. If you are appealing to an audience who reads, you want a more text-based platform — not TikTok. Those leaving TikTok would, if they have sense, go to YouTube. If you want all the unhinged commentary and none of the accountability, then one would move from Twitter to Reddit. People who have no specific preference about how they connect with others could go anywhere, but it really depends on what you’re trying to do with the platform and what level of credibility is important to you. Bluesky functions a lot like Twitter circa 2006/2007. It’s not a perfect virtual space as some have tried to portray it — lots of fake accounts — but it works and is not a cesspool. As of publication, there are no ads running on that platform.
Since Sunday — really, since Saturday night — I have been off of Instagram and Facebook as part of the Lights Out Meta campaign. I left messages on both to let people know other ways to contact me in the meantime. I signed out and deleted the apps from my phone.
Those who are old timers on this page know that I’m not afraid of a little habit change. Getting rid of my car and not replacing it about eight years ago — after driving for several decades — should say that loud and clear. I do plan to return to Instagram and Facebook, though I may delete the latter in the near future and force those relatives to contact me by email instead of sending memes through messenger.
In the first two days of the Meta break, I found myself more than once taking a photo of something with the plan to put it in my Instagram stories. Then I remembered, and shrugged. All the writing on here, I would usually be promoting on Instagram so that more people might know about it. When the break is over, I’ll catch up on all that. If I did not have this website, and if I did not have the alternative of Bluesky or a mailing list, this Meta fast might be hard.
That is a point that needs to be made: Meta is not the only game in town. There are other ways to stay in touch with people: non-Meta social media, email, texting, phone calls, letters, meeting in person. Likewise, social organizing benefited from Twitter in the past, but people organized before it was invented, and many have already moved on to connect in other ways.
Of all the social media, I do like Instagram best, balancing image with text, and being able to scroll versus having videos instantly thrown at you. But in watching Meta’s move to allow “statements of superiority,” I don’t know how much longer I will be able to say that it is a usable space for me.
At just over the halfway mark for this Meta break, it’s been needed and welcomed. Information bombardment during the change of presidents was not something that felt helpful to me, especially knowing that so much of that information was going to be people’s thoughtless expressions of despair — the kind that should go straight to the diary and not into the public realm.
So, it’s not like TikTok is the only social media platform that has its problems: the difference is that it’s more intense than the others and it actually was banned for a hot second.
And maybe it will go away, for good, in a few months.
In the absence of the excessive pleas and demands for one’s attention, what might heavy TikTok users — Gen Z uses it the most — do instead once they can hear themselves think? Not everyone will gravitate to another platform.
The new administration was quick to change course on the TikTok ban. We can speculate on all the reasons for that. But, their urge to ban books remains strong, and their Project 2025 makes the anti-intellectualism of the GWB Era look like it isn’t even in the same galaxy. I would have said expect to hear accusations against libraries regarding pornography, but there’s no need to wait. Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff received a threatening message already, despite the fact that there is no porn in the libraries, y’all, I’ve looked. If there isn’t any actual porn, then what is the objection to books?
Books aren’t ideal for disinformation campaigns because you have to spend quality time with them. You aren’t reading a book in under three minutes; you can be fed many, many lies in that time in a video. Except when we’re talking about TikTok, most of the videos aren’t even that long.
Books present more opportunity for nuanced ideas. You can finish one and feel many ways, and be thinking about it years later. It’s not that nuanced ideas are unallowed on TikTok, but the algorithm does not reward them. An administration that requires a base who can’t be bothered to develop any depth needs to feed that base. It can’t risk having a populace who is nurturing longform thoughts.
Books, with a few exceptions, aren’t trying to sell you something on every page. TikTok drives overconsumption.
My point isn’t that everyone on TikTok is going to suddenly descend on their local public library; it’s that an administration that thrives on consumerism and widespread ignorance is going to want to keep that flow going, while thwarting anything that might help the people want to live truly better lives. As Rob Hopkins said, what if we decided to value our attention spans? How would we fight to keep them?
