TikTok users regularly complain about lost hours on the platform, thanks to the video app’s unmatched ability to distract, entertain and engage users with its advanced recommendation technology. Its addictive nature has been the subject of numerous psychological studies and parental concerns, as TikTok is becoming one of the most used applications among children. Instead of re-branding its digital dopamine dispenser, TikTok is launching a new set of screen time features today designed to give users better control over their use of TikTok.
New features include two new controls for controlling and managing screen time usage, as well as a new digital wellness guide that is being added to the Application Security Center.
The guide, titled “How can I reflect on my digital well-being with my family and friends?”, Aims to help users “reflect more holistically” on how they spend their time online, TikTok said.
Image Credits: The new TikTok Security Guide
Meanwhile, the new screen time features are in addition to the screen time controls TikTok has already released for families, which have been available worldwide for more than two years and include a way for parents to set screen time for kids. The features are also complementary to the daily screen timeout tool that TikTok added in February 2020, which is available to all users from the existing Digital Wellness section of the app.
Instead, the newly launched application tool that arrives today helps users control how much time they spend on TikTok in a single session, allowing them to schedule regular screen time breaks.
The feature aims to address addiction issues in applications that are not related to total consumption, but to the loss of track of the time you are spending on TikTok every time you open the application. In other words, it is a tool for managing screen time per session.
Image credits: TikTok
With the new tool, users can ask the app to remind them to pause after a certain period of time.
By default, it suggests 10, 20, or 30-minute pause reminders, although users can set reminders for a custom time if they want to participate in longer or shorter sessions before being notified. These default suggested times for session breaks are greatly reduced by the daily screen time limits recommended by the existing tool. The latter requires users to set a daily screen time limit of 40, 60, 90 or 120 minutes.
Image credits: TikTok
TikTok points out that the tool can also be postponed or disabled at any time, allowing people to use reminders as they see fit. For example, users may not want to limit their connection time on a lazy weekend at home, but would like to limit their TikTok time during the work week when trying to go to bed early.
Related to this addition, TikTok is launching a new screen time control panel that will provide more information about the time users spend on the app. It includes summaries of the user’s daily time spent on the app, the number of times the app was opened, and a breakdown of day and night usage. Users can also choose to receive weekly notifications reminding them to check their dashboard.
Image credits: TikTok
While the new screen time tools are being implemented for global users of any age, TikTok says it is also introducing new screen time indications for users under the age of 13-17. From now on, if a minor has been in the application for longer. more than 100 minutes in a single day, TikTok will remind you of their new screen timeout tool the next time they open the app.
That this feature should even exist suggests that many parents have not yet bothered to set up existing TikTok parental controls, leaving the company as a digital parent.
Millennial users and Gen X, today’s parents, may have grown up with the technology or used it for most of their adult lives, but a staggering number still don’t use it to monitor their children’s screen time. the use of the digital device. A 2021 Kaspersky study found that only half of American parents used parental control applications and only 44% monitored their children’s use of devices. In other markets, the adoption of parental controls may be even lower. A 2020/2021 Ofcom study, for example, suggested that around six in ten parents in the UK were aware of digital parental controls, but only about a third used them.
Image Credits – TikTok Wellness Page
The launch of new screen time features follows a recent April 2022 Wall Street Journal investigation into the impact of TikTok on children’s brains. The report cited a widely reported scientific study that examined how the application algorithm activates brain reward centers, including those associated with addiction. Although the study focused on college students and young adults, not children, it found that about 5.9% of TikTok users may have “significant problematic use.”
Young people have even more difficulty managing their use of screen time, the WSJ reported, because the prefrontal cortex of their brain, which aims to control impulses and make decisions, is not fully developed until at 25 years old.
It could be said that TikTok’s screen time tools, including those for underage children, are more robust than those of rival platforms such as Instagram and YouTube due to the granularity of TikTok controls. And they are far ahead of Snapchat, which has not yet launched its own parental controls. But given the now well-documented health impacts of addictive social applications, especially on children’s brains, regulators are expected to step in soon to exercise more control over the market, so it’s not up to the manufacturers of applications choose which tools to offer and how to offer them. they should work.