On Saturday night, in compliance with a law that the U.S. Supreme Court had just upheld, TikTok shut down its popular video-sharing app for American users. On Sunday, after an incoming president Trump vowed to negotiate a deal once in office, they began restoring service. It’s unclear what will happen next, as some lawmakers in the president’s own party remain firmly in favor of the divest-or-ban demand, while some democrats seemed to back-pedal.
From my perspective as a technology critic, the ultimate fate of this particular app is not the most important storyline here. What interests me more about these events is the cultural rubicon that we just crossed. To date, we’ve largely convinced ourselves that once a new technology is introduced and spread, we cannot go backward.
Social media became ubiquitous so now we’re stuck using it. Kids are zoning themselves into a stupor on TikTok, or led into rabbit holes of mental degeneration on Instagram, and we shrug our shoulders and say, “What can you do?”
The TikTok ban, even if only temporary, demonstrates we can do things. These services are not sacrosanct. Laws can be passed and our lives will still go on.
So what else should we do? I’m less concerned at this moment about national security than I am the health of our kids. If we want to pass a law that might make an even bigger difference, now is a good time to take a closer look at what Australia did last fall, when they banned social media for users under sixteen. Not long ago, that might have seemed like a non-starter in the U.S. But after our recent action against TikTok, is it really any more extreme?
It’s fortuitous timing that all of this is going down during the New Year season, when we typically think about self-improvement. Next week, for example, Scott Young and I are launching a new session of our online course, Life of Focus, which we traditionally do around this time of year. This course unfolds over three months and helps people find more depth and meaning in their work and life. Here’s what relevant to our current moment: the entire first third of the course is dedicated to digital minimalism. Scott and I realized as we were originally working on these lessons that until you repair your relationship with your devices, you won’t have the attention or energy to make a difference anywhere else.
This is why it heartens me to see our culture begin to consider stronger steps against the most powerful of digital distractions — a key instantiation of my philosophy of techno-selectionism. But you shouldn’t have to wait for the next big legislative move to begin reclaiming your autonomy from the clutches of a small number of massive online platforms. You can implement your own personal technology bans anytime you want, and there’s nothing the president, or the industry insiders who have his ear at the moment, can do to stop you.
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As mentioned: Life of Focus, my three-month course co-taught with Scott Young, will reopen for a new session on Monday, January 27, 2025. Find out more here.
