When Savannah Kalata, a high school senior, wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is turn off her alarm. The second thing she does is open TikTok.
“It’s just like this quick fix,” said Ms. Kalata, 18, who lives in Minnesota. “I can’t take my eyes off it.”
Ms. Kalata spends about two and a half hours a day on TikTok, she said. She watches videos while she’s eating, while she’s walking on the treadmill, and while she’s in bed before she goes to sleep. “I feel like my phone can kind of control me at times,” she said. “I don’t even necessarily want to go on TikTok. It’s a habit, and it’s something that’s hard to break.”
Ms. Kalata may have to quit cold turkey.
The Supreme Court on Friday backed a federal law that would effectively ban the popular app from operating in the United States. The decision means that the app could be banned as soon as Sunday. How that might play out for TikTok’s roughly 170 million U.S. users isn’t yet clear. But it may soon be difficult, if not impossible, for users to scroll to their heart’s content.
“I WONT SURVIVE I FEAR,” one user wrote in a video caption. “How will I ever laugh again?” wrote another.
The videos about TikTok “withdrawal” aren’t all serious. But some users, like Ms. Kalata, say they do genuinely feel addicted — and some experts who study social media use say that may be true, to an extent.
“TikTok is actually a very good example of having an addictive design,” said Dr. Isaac Vaghefi, an assistant professor at the Baruch College Zicklin School of Business who studies social media. He rattled off several features that keep users coming back for more: a never-ending feed of content, short videos that command attention, and a highly effective, personalized “For You” algorithm.
TikTok has said its app has several features in place to help users manage their screen time, including scheduled screen time breaks and daily screen time limits.
“Everything on my For You is pretty much content that I want to watch,” said Brandon Gapultos, an accountant in Glendora, Calif. Mr. Gapultos, 29, spends more than two and a half hours on TikTok every day, he said, often watching day-in-the-life posts about other people’s work lives.
The videos “give me something to relate to,” he said, “and get me through the day.”
Breaking a TikTok Habit
“Social media addiction” isn’t a formal medical diagnosis. But experts generally agree that some people develop “problematic usage of social media,” said Dr. Marc Potenza, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine who specializes in addiction. Scientists don’t fully understand why that happens, but some research suggests that social media usage activates the parts of the brain that respond to pleasurable experiences, called the reward pathway.
Dr. Potenza said there are some telltale signs that your TikTok habit could be problematic — if you prioritize using the app over eating, sleeping or working, for example, or if you feel compelled to open the app throughout the day. Some people might feel on edge or crave watching videos when they don’t have access, he added.
Another red flag is “a loss of control” over how long you use the app, said Dr. Michael Tsappis, co-director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Lisi German, 17, a high school student in Ladera Ranch, Calif., said she spends at least an hour and a half on TikTok every day. Ms. German, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, said her urge to scroll on the app made it even harder to manage her time and get homework done. Sometimes, she said, she thinks she’s been on TikTok for just 10 minutes — but she’ll soon realize it’s been an hour.
Research suggests that those with mental health conditions such as A.D.H.D., anxiety and depression may be more likely to overindulge in social media, Dr. Tsappis said, but anyone is susceptible to problematic use.
For the millions of TikTok users in the United States, losing access could lead to feelings of anxiety or irritability as they adjust to life without an app they used often, said Dr. Anna Lembke, a professor of psychiatry and addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. But experts said that a ban could also present an opportunity for people to re-examine social media’s role in their lives.
Ms. Kalata, who has about 31,000 followers on the platform, has done just that. She won’t try to move her following somewhere else — ideally, she would like to get off social media altogether.
“But since I’m already so obsessed with TikTok,” she said, “I feel like that’ll be hard.”
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