Tik Tok, an app that started to become popular at the end of the academic year last year, has turned into the new app that everyone has and continuously talks about. Tik Tok was released in July 2018 after the app Music.ly was bought out. It was an app that had a similar structure as Tik Tok and was popular in 2015. Tik Tok is an entirely user-based social media where people use audio to dance, represent stories, and goof off, thus drawing many teens who used Musical.Ly earlier in their pre-teen years. As one walks through the halls of DSST: Byers, they can hear the students babble about the newest Tik Tok trends and doing the newest dances. Tik Tok has brought modern teenagers closer together by sharing their experiences and by giving a sense of interconnectedness. Many people think that Tik Tok has brought negative outcomes to our community. The first of these side effects being the cancel culture. As stated before, Tik Tok provides its users with a strong sense of interconnectedness, but this comes at a cost, as a strong community, there is a strong cancel culture, a culture where people come together to collectively block someone out of the culture. This can be seen time and time again as teens make mistakes that take away millions of their fans. This culture thus leads to a strong cancel culture to impact ours. Tik Tok has also made our community more tired. Most people who use Tok Tok spend around 7 to 15 hours a week on the app. “I spend an hour a night on a school day and then I’m on it 7 hours over the weekend.” one student says, while another one spends “15 hours on Tik Tok in a week.” This means that have less time to sleep or study because they are watching Tik Tok instead.
On the other hand, Tik Tok has also made our students more funny and creative. One of the main draws to Tik Tok is the humor and the creativity that its users incorporate in there 15 second videos. Being surrounded and exposed to all of the humor and creativity has made the community more creative. “Tik Tok has honestly made people funnier” one Sophmore said. In conclusion, Tik Tok has connected our community, integrated cancel culture made students more tired, and made students more creative. Many, if not all, students at DSST: Byers have Tik Tok on their phones and use it for many hours per day but the question is if the endless hours of Tik Tok have a positive impact on our community. While people get less sleep and have incorporated negative aspects to our community from Tik Tok, it can be argued that creatively, humor, and sense of community makes up for these aspects. Thus, concluding to Tik Tok having a positive impact on the community.