Signing off social: Meet the teens with no time for TikTok

When Tanvi Chawla got a phone in fifth grade, she wanted access to “everything” – all social media. But her parents said no until she was 13. Now in 10th grade at an all-girls school in Pasadena, California, Tanvi’s views on social media have almost entirely reversed.

In early 2020, when Tanvi – along with the rest of the world – found herself stuck at home, social media became her “entire life,” she says. “I didn’t post much but it was a means of communication with my friends because ... I couldn’t see them physically.”

But after a few months of life online, Tanvi deleted Instagram in the beginning of eighth grade. She hasn’t replaced it with any other social media. “I just saw how harmful it was to my mental health and I think it was negatively impacting my peers, too,” she says. “So I made that decision for myself to stop