For some Menlo students, the TikTok ban felt like a seismic event, disrupting daily routines and upending a favorite social outlet. Some students went rushing to save their final videos or sneak in one final dance before the app went dark, while others shrugged and found another place to scroll. But with the Trump administration’s new deadline for TikTok’s parent company to divest or shutdown, students and staff across campus are considering how either outcome might reshape their digital habits.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on Jan. 17, 2025 to uphold the TikTok ban has sparked a wave of reactions at Menlo, ranging from panic to indifference.
Many Menlo students appreciate the variety of media this platform provides as it has actually served as one of the school’s most popular communication apps. Freshman Blake Putanec claims that he spends an hour and a half a day on TikTok. “I just spend my time interacting with my friends and sending them funny videos I know they’ll like,” Putanec said.
While awaiting the final verdict, many Menlo students, from freshmen to seniors, could be seen saving their videos to different platforms and trying to decide where their phone time will take them without TikTok; this platform, as of 2024, has 57 percent of teens 13-17 using it daily, according to the Pew Research Center.
TikTok is a short, video-based social media platform released in 2016 that blew up during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has about 170 million users in the U.S. that use the app to create, share and discover.
The push to ban TikTok was originally initiated in 2020, when the current president — Donald Trump — signed an executive order citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act. This initiative was taken due to TikTok’s data policy; the U.S. government was in fear of China collecting users’ information and using it for intelligence gathering, propaganda and other harmful purposes. After courts struck down this order, Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act on April 24, 2024, which was later signed by then-President Joe Biden. Yet, in 2025, half a decade later, the question of whether or not the TikTok ban will hold strong has yet to come to a close.
At 10:30 p.m. EST on Jan. 18, 2025, the day before the initial date that the Supreme Court ruled U.S. users would lose access to TikTok, TikTok shut down. TikTok provided users a short pop-up blurb upon opening the app, stating, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” Countless Menlo students uploaded screenshots of this message on other social media platforms. “I was just really upset when I got the pop up because I went into the app to spend my night on TikTok and it was just gone,” freshman Erin Sweeny said.
However, this air of chaos never made its way back onto the Menlo campus, as Trump’s intervention allowed users to resume their scrolling in less than 24 hours when access to the app commenced the following day.
Despite Trump being the one who originally signed an order to have TikTok banned in the US, he gave TikTok another chance. On the day of his inauguration, Jan. 20, 2025, he signed an executive order that gave TikTok’s parent company ByteDance another 75 days to transfer 80% of TikTok to a US owner before the ban goes into full effect.
The TikTok ban in the U.S. may be taking away countless professions and a source of communication, but the pressure to close off U.S. access was due to concerns for the safety of all U.S. users. Due to TikTok’s data policy, the US government was in fear of China gathering information and using it for intelligence gathering, propaganda and other harmful actions.
However, some students were less affected by the ban as they found entertainment elsewhere. If the app were to be discontinued, senior Landon Pretre recommends TikTok users switch to Instagram reels. “I spend all my time there, and it’s more entertaining,” Pretre said.
Sophomore Dasha Sokolova stated that she spends an average of about three to four hours on TikTok on school days. Despite being “visibly upset, as many others are,” she believes that “there will be a new alternative, or something else will pop up, because the industry is growing and social media will always be here. So if not TikTok, then something else new will show up.”
Educational Technology Lead Dayna Frank hopes TikTok survives in the U.S. because it is one of her personal favorite ways to exercise her freedom of speech and consumption. However, she advises students not to be upset if their daily TikTok time is taken away, because an opportunity presents itself in its absence. “Change the mindset: it’s not a piece of your day being taken away, it’s a piece of your day being given to you to be something more personal and in the moment,” she said.
