Those under 18 will now have a limit of one hour a day to watch TikTok videos. Bytedance, the creator of the popular short video platform, announced the new measure this week as part of a series of tools to improve safety and well-being on the platform. After that time, minors will have to enter a code to continue watching videos.
While there’s no official position on how much screen time is “appropriate,” the company says it consulted current academic research and experts at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Digital Wellness Lab when choosing this limit.
It’s an easy block to circumvent (users between the ages of 13 and 18 will choose the code themselves) and, in fact, users can choose another limit than the 60-minute limit that is imposed by default. But the notice, they maintain from the company, can help make time management more effective. “This research also shows that being more aware of how time passes can help people be more responsible about the decisions they make,” they explain.
In addition to the cap, TikTok will send each teen a weekly notification to their inbox with a summary of their screen time. The new function also joins other tools designed to avoid being “glued” to the screen watching videos, especially at bedtime.
The measures are important to Bytedance because it is coming under increasing scrutiny from governments, particularly in the US and Europe. In these territories, the application has been banned among government workers or the military due to Bytedance’s ties to the Beijing government, but it remains available to private users.
TikTok has become one of the fastest growing apps in history. More than 1.5 billion people use the app at least once a month, a formidable figure that grew especially during the pandemic.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
