TikTok announces screen time limit to protect minors | The USA Print

A news that should delight parents, but not so much the under 18s. They spend on average 1 hour 47 hours a day on TikTokthe Chinese social network particularly addictive thanks to its short videos and its algorithm. As reviews from concerned parents grow along with the app’s popularity, new features “designed for teens and familiesare expected to be implemented in the coming weeks, according to a press release from TikTok.

“All user accounts under the age of 18 will automatically have a limit of 60 minutes of daily screen time“, announced TikTok. The application will still be able to be used after these 60 minutes with the entry of a password. With this warning after one hour of usethe objective is to ensure that young people take responsibility for their screen time. If a young user “exceeds 100 minutes of screen time in a day, they will receive an alert prompting them to set a daily time limit.”

Also, each week will be sent “a notification via teen users’ messaging in which they find a weekly recap of their screen time“. In this regard, the direct messagingallowing users to send messages to each other, will be reserved for over 16sand only adults will be able to organize a live.

Finally, to better protect young people, the account of TikTokeurs from 13 to 15 years old will be by default in “private mode” : their published videos will therefore only be seen by their subscribers, unless they switch to “public mode”.

Family Connect mode, a kind of parental control set up in 2020, is also being strengthened.

• Parents will be able to define a maximum screen time for their child.
• A dashboard dedicated to screen time is going to be set up, with information on the time the minor spends on TikTok.
• Parents will soon be able to choose to put the mute their child’s app notifications sometimes. Users under 16 already no longer received alerts after 9 p.m., and those between 16 and 18 after 10 p.m.
• Finally, a last feature should soon be deployed to protect children from inappropriate content: parents will be able to filter hashtags, and thus control the type of content they watch.

This series of measures is a step forward, but considered insufficient in particular by the Secretary of State for Children Charlotte Caubel.

Finally, these new features are based on the responsibility of young users, who in the end will choose their time of use, or even may indicate a false age in the application to avoid these measures.