TikTok announced on Wednesday that it would implement automatic daily screen time limits of one hour for under-18 accounts, as the social media platform faces criticism for its addictiveness among young users.
Teenagers will need to enter a passcode to continue watching after 60 minutes, and those under the age of 13 will need a parent or guardian to set or enter a passcode to get an additional 30 minutes, according to TikTok.
The changes would be implemented “in the coming weeks,” according to the short-form video-sharing app.
TikTok added that if a young person’s access to TikTok is through a family pairing account, parents can set a maximum screen time for their child based on the day of the week.
Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, limits under-14s to 40 minutes of daily use and is unavailable between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
The new feature complements existing controls for young people’s screen time, such as a prompt introduced last year to encourage teenagers to enable screen time management and a weekly inbox notification summarizing a user’s screen time.
However, as with other platforms, young users will be able to disable the time limit feature or lie about their age.
The Chinese social media site has come under fire for the excessive amount of time children aged four to 18 spend scrolling through videos suggested to them based on their preferences and algorithms.
According to a recent study conducted by the parental control app Qustodio, minors spent one hour and 47 minutes per day on TikTok in 2022.
Concerns about data protection in the West have also affected the ByteDance website, with the European Union’s institutions recently ordering their employees to delete the app from their devices.
The White House has given federal agencies in the United States 30 days to remove TikTok from government-issued devices, and Canada has taken a similar step.
