TikTok announced on Wednesday that every account owned by a user under the age of 18 will have a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes in the coming weeks.
These changes are announced in a context where the various governments are increasingly concerned about the security of the application.
Families are struggling to limit the time their children spend on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Cormac Keenan, head of trust and safety at TikTok, clarified in a blog post on Wednesday that when the 60-minute limit is reached, minors will be prompted to enter an access code and “take the initiative.” to continue watching videos or not.
For accounts where the user is under 13, a parent or guardian will need to set or enter an existing passcode to grant an additional 30 minutes of viewing time after the initial 60-minute limit is reached.
TikTok says it established the 60-minute threshold by consulting academic research and experts from Boston Children’s Hospital’s Digital Wellness Lab.
“According to a study by Internetmatters.org, being more aware of the use we make of our time also allows us to better reflect on the decisions we make,” argued Mr. Keenan in his text.
Social media executives, including those of TikTok, have been summoned before the US Congress to explain how they prevent harm to young users.
TikTok also said on Wednesday it would start inviting teens to set a daily screen time limit if they opted out of the default 60-minute feature. The company will send weekly notifications to teen accounts with a summary of screen time.
Some of TikTok’s existing security features for teenage accounts include setting up default private accounts for people between the ages of 13 and 15 and making direct messaging available only to accounts where the user is 16 or older.
TikTok has announced a number of changes for all users, including the ability to set custom screen time limits for each day of the week and allowing users to set a schedule to turn off notifications. The company is also launching a sleep reminder to help people plan when they want to be offline at night. Users will also be able to set a time and when the time comes, a popup will remind the user that it is time to log out.
Apart from the exorbitant usage by some minors, the app is causing growing concern around the world about its security. The United States, Canada and Europe have banned the app on official government devices.
