TikTok Limits Time for Teens

Solen Feyissa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

But not really, though.  

TikTok announced recently that every user under 18 will soon have their accounts default to a one-hour daily screen time limit, one of the most combative moves made by a social media company to help teens control their continuous scrolling.  

Teenage TikTok users will have the option to disable the new preset setting when it becomes available in the upcoming weeks. However, the feature modification may improve the digital well-being of younger users by requiring them to reject harsher screen time restrictions rather than passing the more difficult opt-in challenge. 

When determining the time limits to set for teenage users, Cormac Keenan, director of trust and safety at TikTok, said the company contacted researchers and experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital. 

“While there’s no collectively endorsed position on how much screen time is ‘too much’, or even the impact of screen time more broadly, we recognize that teens typically require extra support as they start to explore the online world independently,” Keenan said in a company statement. TikTok's statement was not well received by The Tech Oversight Project, a Big Tech accountability group. 

"[It is] a fake ploy to make parents feel secure without actually making their product safe,” according to The Tech Oversight Project. 

Mahsau Cullinane, a spokesperson for TikTok, told The Verge that all enhancements to Family Pairing, as well as the new default screen time limit for teenagers and customizable daily time limits, as well as the Mute Notifications feature will be implemented over the next few weeks.