Once the allotted time is over, a password must be entered before the teen may continue streaming movies.
To reduce teens’ excessive social media usage, the video-sharing app TikTok has implemented a daily time restriction for all users aged 13 to 19.
As the business explains in a blog post, “in the coming weeks, any account belonging to a user under age 18 will be set to a 60-minute daily screen time restriction”.
It’s simple, however, to avoid the time restriction. When teen user wants to keep watching, they just input their password. TikTok maintains that introducing this additional barrier compels teens “to make an active choice to prolong that period,” which may encourage them to limit their app use.
“Research also suggests that being more conscious of how we spend our time might help us be more purposeful about the choices we make,” says TikTok.
Alternatively, a teen user might choose not to participate in the system. TikTok will still suggest they establish a daily screen time restriction if they use the app for more than 100 minutes daily.
This approach expands upon TikTok’s previous year’s attempt to include screen time limitations that gently remind users to log off and do something else for a while. “Our testing indicated that this helped improve the usage of our screen time features by 234%,” the app boasts. Furthermore, TikTok said on Wednesday that “everyone will soon be able to create their own tailored screen time restrictions for each day of the week and set a timetable to silence alerts.”
As an added convenience, we’re introducing a sleep reminder to facilitate scheduling offline time. They may set a timer, and a pop-up will appear to tell them to sign out when that time comes.
Such screen time limits might lead to less TikTok usage. But, the app is scrutinized intensely by US officials, with some calling on the White House to prohibit TikTok out of concern that the Chinese government may use it to spy on Americans.
In addition, US Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) has filed legislation to make it illegal for anybody under 15 to use social media. “Every day, children suffer from the consequences of social media,” he said. To put it mildly: “Big Tech corporations are at best ignoring the health of our children and capitalizing on their personal information.”
Meanwhile, on Monday, Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, imposed a 30-day deadline for US federal entities to uninstall TikTok from government-provided smartphones, bar other downloads, and block internet traffic to the app.
Currently, the minimum age for the default TikTok experience is 13. TikTok’s primary audience is young people; hence, the app also has a “TikTok for younger users” version that imposes additional limits on the service to keep it appropriate for those under 13.
