TikTok, one of the most criticized platforms for its negative effects on young people, announced that it has made new moves in this regard. In the statement it shared today, the platform stated that it brought a series of new features to the application to protect young users.
New features; screen time includes things like the ‘Family Match’ mode, which gives parents more control over how their kids use TikTok.
Screen time will be limited to 60 minutes for users under 18 (it will also be possible to disable the feature)
TikTok has announced that it will automatically impose a daily screen limit of 60 minutes for every TikTok user under the age of 18. Teens who reach this limit, which will come by default, will need to enter a password to continue watching. Let’s add that this new feature can be disabled completely. But the platform says teens will have to set a new limit if they watch over 100 minutes.
On the other hand, it is said that the time limit will also apply to users under the age of 13. In this case, parents will be required to enter a password for an additional 30 minutes of viewing time if the screen time limit is reached. Parents will be able to set these passwords themselves.
TikTok says these moves are made to raise awareness about screen time. It is also stated that young people will be sent a notification summarizing their screen time every week. In this way, it is aimed to raise awareness among underage users and to enable them to take active decisions on this issue. According to the dev platform, it was also observed that the use of screen management tools increased by 234% during the testing period of the features.
There are innovations that will increase the control of parents for the Family Match mode.
In addition, TikTok stated that it has introduced innovations for the ‘Family Match’ mode, which increases parents’ control over children. According to the statements, parents will be able to set special screen time limits for their children.
In addition, the screen time control panel will be added to the mode, which provides a summary of the time spent in the application, how much TikTok has been opened, and the total time spent in the day and night. Additionally, a setting will be added to this mode where parents can mute notifications from younger users.
Everyone can set their own screen time limit, set a sleep reminder
Finally, it was stated that everyone will soon be able to set their own screen time limit and time to mute notifications for each day of the week. Along with this, it was reported that a sleep reminder feature is also coming. Users will be able to set the reminder to a desired time and see when they need to exit the application with an incoming notification.
TikTok stated that new features will come to the application in the coming weeks.