TikTok has announced new digital well-being tools that will prompt users to take a break from the app after extended usage periods. With screen time becoming an increasingly sensitive subject, tech companies and social media platforms have been busy over the past few years trying to show they’re committed to the well-being of their users by rolling out various digital well-being tools. These features are supposed to help smartphone and computer users manage their screen time without creating a health risk.
Owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, TikTok is one of the largest social media platforms in the world and is especially popular among teens and young adults. However, the app has also often attracted controversies for its supposed slack privacy practices, dangerous challenges, and the adverse effects it is said to have on young users. As a result, Attorneys General in eight U.S. states are investigating TikTok for alleged violations of consumer protection laws and whether it harms young users.
TikTok announced a new digital well-being tool that the company says will let users control how much time they spend on the app in a single sitting. As part of the plan, the app will now show prompts that will remind people to take a break after spending a pre-determined amount of time watching videos without a break. The user can set the time, meaning they can choose whether they want to be interrupted every few minutes while watching TikTok videos or keep watching videos for hours before seeing a prompt. What’s more, users can even turn off the feature in case they do not fancy being interrupted by such prompts.
New Digital Well-Being Tools From TikTok
Alongside the feature mentioned above, TikTok also introduced a new screen time dashboard that will give its users data about how much time they spend on the app. The new dashboard will show them summaries of their total daily time spent on the app, the number of times they opened the app, and a breakdown of daytime and night-time usage to help users balance their digital and real life. The company said that users could also choose whether they want to receive weekly notifications to review the dashboard.
TikTok also announced a new digital well-being feature for younger users to limit their screen time on the app. According to the company, the app will remind children aged between 13 and 17 to use the screen time limit tool once they have already used the app for more than 100 minutes in a day. However, the app won’t interrupt their viewing to show them the message. Instead, it will only display the prompt the next time they open the app. It is worth noting that TikTok’s Chinese version, called Douyin, already restricts children under 14 to just 40 minutes of app activity per day. While the new features for the global markets are nowhere near as strict, it is still a welcome step and one that can help people reduce their smartphone addiction to some extent.
