What are TikTok's new screen-time guidelines? Will it affect teenagers?
Teenagers today face problems far larger than their social media usage. Restrictions feed into a moral panic without addressing the root cause of their anxiety. This time it’s about TikTok’s screen-time-related restrictions.
The explosion of social media in the past two decades has contributed to a mental health crisis among young people. Depression rates are surging, and so are attempts of suicide. Research also has shown that limiting screen time can make young people feel better about themselves. But is it true?
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What are TikTok's latest restrictions?
TikTok recently announced that users below the age of 18 would be subject to a limit of one hour per day as part of its new suite of tools designed to limit kids’ exposure to the app. TikTok will now also begin to compile and send users a weekly screen time recap, giving them stats about their usage relative to previous weeks. A user wrote on Twitter, "TikTok sets one-hour daily screen time limit for under-18s."
TikTok sets one-hour daily screen time limit for under-18s.
— World of Engineering (@engineers_feed) March 2, 2023
The app has also introduced a new “family pairing” tool that will allow parents to monitor their children’s screen time and even implement custom content and usage restrictions. Not only this, the app will send every teen account a weekly recap of their screen time, and it will also prompt teen users who spend more than 100 minutes on the app to set a daily limit.
The concern of parents
Children start living significant portions of their lives apart from their parents as soon as they are old enough to attend school, and for working families, much before that. For parents, these times when their children are out of sight are incredibly mysterious. However, not all of these new limitations will be rigidly enforced. Users between the ages of 13 and 17 will have a variety of internal choices to get around the restriction or even set their own. A user wrote, "TikTok generation really does make one extra concerned about the future of society - more screen time, shorter attention spans, more narcissistic behavior and obsessions with internet clout…."
TikTok generation really does make one extra concerned about the future of society - more screen time, shorter attention spans, more narcissistic behavior and obsessions with internet clout….
— Redux (@ReduxTV) March 24, 2023
In other words, it's doubtful that TikTok's new safeguards will have a significant impact on teen app usage. Their actions are likely to reinforce the widespread societal perception that screen time alone is the issue, which is exactly what they are intended to do. Parents are worried about their kids’ mental health, and they’re worried that social media is making it worse. They see their children staring at screens, at worlds full of specialized languages, and secret social codes, which is thereby making them more concerned.