The App That Stole Our Attention

I have had a series of thoughts about this before finally coming to a reasonable conclusion on which of the social media platforms I will let go if I have the power. All social media platforms are very important, do not get it twisted, but they have more importance than the others, and that is why I will decide to ban TikTok. Yes, you saw that right; that app is very good because it has given a lot of people fame in just a short while. I could remember in 2020 during the coronavirus period, I was on one of my run-to apps to cure boredom, but without even asking for our permission, that app has stolen something more valuable, which is our attention. .jpg) I was with a friend one day, and all she was doing was scrolling through TikTok, from one video to another, her eyes glued to her screen with her changing facial expressions, so that she even forgot to eat and attend to things that mattered. Sometimes, on Instagram, I have seen myself do the same, just to check on a reel my friend sent to me, and I am out, but unfortunately, I ended up scrolling from one reel to another until an hour passed, and to my greatest surprise, I can't even really pinpoint a particular reel that I watched and can recall everything that happened. Just watching but not really there. In my country, a few months ago, some percentages were put in the prices of data, which made it become more expensive, and it does not even last, and looking at this app, it has now become a blessing and bondage for some because there is no real substance, but then they call it being creative. Real-life talk has now been replaced with videos that teach no real-life message. And there is nothing like real messages again; just post a video and call it entertaining. Sometimes, I usually imagine if there was nothing like TikTok, would there still be all this showcasing of madness in the name of creating content, or would we all be having real-life conversations and having time for each other? I get people say it is a way of escaping reality, but isn't it getting out of hand? Maybe if there was nothing like the app, maybe we would have enough patience, and our emotions would be in a place just like the way it was with our parents. .jpg) Me saying this is far away from not liking tech; I'm a tech enthusiast and an architect, and I stand firm on innovation and creating new things. And in everything we do, there must always be a good and solid balance, but is TikTok giving us that balance? To me it is a big form of distraction that even a disciplined person won't know when he has spent hours scrolling through in the name of entertainment. If this app is regulated, I think there's going to be some sanity to our world again. A lot of people, especially the underage kids who are on the app, would have time to think about their lives and know that there is a lot of good in sanity. Because at some point in our lives we need to know that to move forward we must do some things meaningful and say enough is enough. --- Thank you for reading. > _{Images created by MetaAi}