Video-sharing platform TikTok announced on Wednesday that it will introduce a limit of 60 minutes of screen time per day for minors, urging users to enter a passcode.
“While there is no consensus on how much time is considered ‘too much’, or even the impact of screen time more broadly, we recognize that teens often need a little extra support as they begin to explore the online world of independence”the company says in a statement released this Wednesday.
The platform, owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, details that in the coming weeks, any account of a user under 18 “will automatically have a daily 60-minute screen time limit set.”
TikTok noted that the decision on the allowed time limit takes into account “recent academic research and expert input from the Digital Wellness Lab at Children’s Hospital Boston”, in the United States of America.
“With this tool, we also encourage teens to set a daily screen time limit, if they plan to disconnect after the predefined 60 minutes or spend more than 100 minutes on TikTok in one day “, the platform also points out that every week a summary of the time spent on the application will be sent to each teen’s account.
The platform indicated that it already has different security settings for adolescent accounts, pointing out that user accounts between the ages of 13 and 15 are private by default and that direct messaging and live video creation are only available to users over the age of 16. and 18, respectively.
Additionally, the platform says it will implement three new features in the family monitoring feature: personalized daily screen time limits, screen time control panel, and silent notifications.
These features are not limited to underage users and can be applied to any account.
According to a Sensor Tower report on Android OS users quoted by Bloomberg, in Q2 2022, TikTok was the social platform on which users spent the most time each day, with an average of 95 minutes, ahead of YouTube (74 minutes) , Instagram (51 minutes), Facebook (49 minutes), Twitter (29 minutes) or Snapchat (21 minutes).
Source: DN
