Posted on 01/19/2025 2:29:35 AM PST by Libloather
TikTok junkies are in for a painful biology lesson.
The controversial app’s imminent removal over Chinese spying concerns — possibly as soon as 12:01 a.m. Sunday — could spark serious physical and psychological withdrawal among serial scrollers, doctors told The Post.
“The universal symptoms of withdrawal from any addictive substance are extreme anxiety, irritability, insomnia, depression and cravings – and people who are addicted to TikTok, if they stop using it abruptly, may experience any or all of these symptoms,” said Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke.
Lembke, who specializes in addiction medicine, also warned of mood swings, panic attacks and dysphoria – a profound negative mood – that could plague TikTok’s faithful after the app’s removal.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court unanimously voted to uphold a law that will ban the social media app nationwide unless the Beijing-based company, ByteDance, sells it to a US-approved buyer.
Without TikTok as a vice, levels of dopamine — a chemical that’s released in the brain when a person does something enjoyable, creating the urge to do it again — will begin to plummet, according to Dr. Victoria Dunckley, author of “Reset Your Child’s Brain.”
With every mind-numbing scroll, users are bombarded with a relentless stream of short videos ranging from dance challenges and make-up tutorials to melodramatic confessionals and absurd stunts.
Desperate TikTokers have been flooding the platform with tearful posts and dramatic pleas – with one user wailing about their “life falling apart.”
“It’s really not fair that, like, they’re banning TikTok, and I know that’s dramatic as hell that I’m crying,” a TikToker named Inzlay said in a Thursday video with tears streaming down her face. “I know it sounds dramatic to say I don’t know what I’m gonna do without TikTok, but like, bro, I really don’t know...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I’ll pass.
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