On October 1st, Irvington’s school wifi blocked the trendy social media video app TikTok because of the numerous reports on violation of school-appropriate behavior. School administrators have evaluated the situation and have chosen to decrease disturbances by preventing access to the app.

Ever since Vine shut down early this year, people are coping by entertaining themselves with TikTok. The app quickly gained popularity, and in 2018, TikTok blew up with over 500 million users creating and sharing short lip-sync, comedy, and talent videos, catching the attention of even Irvington students.

 Similar to the reason why the school wifi blocks Instagram, Irvington’s staff noticed that many students are distracted by TikTok during class and flex time. Furthermore, the use of TikTok disturbs the learning atmosphere for others too.

“I usually let the students do anything they want during flex as long as they respect others’ work time, but recently there has been an issue with noise level,” said Mr. Hillman. “A group of students were blasting a song about ‘being obsessed’ while dancing and not talking with in-class voices. Obsessed about what? Their grades? The turtles?”

A substitute teacher Ms. Onteora also encountered a similar situation. She was told to just let the class have some class time to read To Kill a Mockingbird, but the freshmen chose not to make good use of their time, as expected. The substitute further reported how the students continuously made “sksksk” sounds that caused her to get a headache. 

“Listening to their chatter gave me a speech impediment via osmosis. I now have a permanent lisp, so everytime I say ‘s’, it comes out as ‘sksksk,’” stated Ms. Onteora. “Therefore, I have talked to the claskskss’s teacher about how I would not like to skskskubstitute for his class again due to their uncontrollable behavior.”

A student from that period also complained about how her peers’ use of TikTok was bothering her. 

“I was actually trying to finish APUSH notes before next period, but everyone just kept yelling across the room, trying to teach each other how to do a clock-woah,” said Sarah Lee (11). “I couldn’t even use the clock-woah to tell the time. It was so useless and I had to rely on those dumb sercurity-camera FBI clocks! I wished the substitute or anyone took more action in solving this issue, but with her ‘skskskspeech’ imepdiment she just sounded dumb.”

The school administrators investigated the problem by inspecting the app and interviewing students and teachers. From their findings, the administrators pointed out how songs featured on TikTok promoted STDs while some videos displayed drug use. 

“People keep on tiktoking their ID numbers that have ‘420’ or ‘69’ in them,” said one supervisor. “Now, those numbers have no real significance, but we can’t let those bots see our kids’ ID numbers or they’ll sell them to the credit card scammers! Not on my watch!”

The inappropriate content within the application also influenced students to break the school dress code by wearing oversized shirts and shorts which are too short that it looks like no pants are present. Administration have labeled these students as “vsco girls.” So many “vsco girls” keep violating the school dress code that there’s not enough space for all of them in detention, requiring their own quarantine zone. 

“Each quarantine has no scrunchies, metal straws, or hydroflasks. We have no other choice than to deprive them of water. When they have to resort to drinking from the school fountains, maybe they’ll consider being a normal person again,” said one administrator. 

The school administration had to even require more teachers to stay back after school to supervise rooms filled with “vsco girls,” causing some teachers to advocate for a solution to all these problems influenced by TikTok. By having the school wifi block TikTok, Irvington’s administrators hope to reduce issues relating to students’ behaviors and restore the school’s learning environment.