TikTok Will Tell You To Take a Break With New Screen Time Tools
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
TikTok is rolling out new tools to help users limit how much time they spend on the video-sharing app—including one aimed at teens who may be addicted to social media.
The Culver City-based social media firm will introduce a “screen time dashboard” where people can track how often they open the app, their daily time spent on the platform and other usage data. TikTok users will soon have the option to enable prompts reminding them to take a break from the app after a preset amount of time.
The company also announced Thursday that it will launch weekly “digital well-being prompts” for teens who have used the app for more than 100 minutes in a single day. The next time those 13- to 17-year-olds users open the app, Tiktok will remind them of its screen time limit tool.
The new features come as TikTok and other social media companies face mounting pressure from politicians and advocates to make their apps less harmful for teens. California lawmakers are considering a bill that would let parents sue social media firms for allegedly addicting their children to online apps, while TikTok specifically is facing an investigation from eight state attorneys general over whether its platform is harming minors’ mental health.
Children’s advocates have blamed a number of design patterns for making social media apps addictive—from push notifications to so-called “bottomless scrolls,” which can turn a quick check of the phone into a half-hour session on TikTok.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, has previously taken steps aimed at protecting young users, such as cutting down the time period when they can receive push notifications and launching a curated viewing experience for users under age 13. The app already offers daily screen time limits.
The company’s blog post about its new tools included quotes from “expert advisors” offering support for TikTok’s approach.
"Features that provide people with insight into screen time, and allow them to flexibly customize their online experiences to emphasize quality over quantity, can help provide this sense of agency and support mindfulness,” Dr. Nina Vasan and Dr. Sara Johansen, who lead Stanford University’s mental health innovation lab, said in a joint statement.
But at least one children’s advocate, who is pushing for passage of the California social media addiction bill, believes TikTok’s new measures still aren’t enough.
“These tools are like offering nicotine patches to children after delivering them a carton of free cigarettes and urging them to smoke,” Ed Howard, senior counsel at the University of San Diego’s Children’s Advocacy Institute, told dot.LA Thursday.
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Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
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