TikTok has announced new features aimed at ensuring digital well-being for its teen users. The company will set a 60-minute daily screen time limit for every account belonging to a user under the age of 18.
If the limit is reached, teens will be prompted to enter a passcode to continue watching, requiring them to make an active decision to extend that time. TikTok said that it consulted with Boston Children’s Hospital – Digital Wellness Lab in implementing this limit.
For those under 13, the daily screen time limit will also be set to 60 minutes, and a parent or guardian will need to set or enter an existing passcode to enable 30 minutes of additional watch time.
The company will also prompt teens to set a daily screen time limit if they opt out of the 60-minute default and spend more than 100 minutes on the app in a day.
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Furthermore, to help parents and caregivers support their teens in achieving digital well-being, TikTok is introducing three new features to Family Pairing.
Parents and guardians will be able to use Family Pairing to customize the daily screen time limit for their teen, including choosing different time limits depending on the day of the week.
TikTok is also bringing its screen time dashboard to Family Pairing, which provides summaries of time on the app and a breakdown of total time spent during the day and night.
And a new setting letting parents to set a schedule to mute notifications for their teens.
In addition to bringing new features to Family Pairing, everyone will soon be able to set their own customized screen time limits for each day of the week and set a schedule to mute notifications. The company will also introduce a sleep reminder to help users more easily plan when they want to be offline at night.
TikTok is rolling out these new features to help families establish an ongoing dialogue about safety and well-being in the digital world.
These new changes should go live today and in the coming weeks. However, these only apply to the TikTok app and not its browser versions.
