TIKTOK has introduced a raft of new features which seek to curb the time teens spend on the social media platform.
It comes amid concern that teens and children are spending too much time on the app.
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TikTok exploded in popularity in the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when most children were out of school and continuing their education at home.
Now, every account belonging to someone below the age of 18 will automatically be set to a 60-minute daily screen time limit, under new rules.
If teens decide to turn off this new default limit and spend more than 100minutes on TikTok in a day, the app will send them a push notification prompting them to set a daily screen time limit for themselves.
“In our first month of testing, this approach increased the use of our screen time management tools by 234%,” said Cormac Keenan, the head of trust and safety at TikTok.
“And, we’ll send every teen account a weekly inbox notification with a recap of their screen time.”
Teens will be able to adjust their screen time limit for each day of the week, possibly allowing more time to scroll on the app on weekends.
A new screen time dashboard also gives parents and caregivers a breakdown of how their children are using the app.
This includes how much time spent scrolling both during the day and night, as well as the number of times TikTok was opened.
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As part of the new settings, TikTok now gives parents the options to set a custom schedule to mute notifications.
“While there’s no collectively-endorsed position on how much screen time is ‘too much’, or even the impact of screen time more broadly, we recognise that teens typically require extra support as they start to explore the online world independently,” added Keenan.
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