TikTok Gives Parents More Control Over Teens’ Screen Time

Trending video sharing platform TikTok has announced its decision to introduce new features catered towards parents of teenaged users on the app, as per a report by TechCrunch.

The updates, which seek to ensure a secure environment for teenagers, include the option to view both following and followers lists for the account they are operating, as well as a timer that allows parents to block off their teen from accessing the app at specific hours of the day.

How does it work

Through the app’s Family Pairing feature, parents will be able to access the teen’s following and followers lists, as well as who they have blocked. The company says this will allow teen users to develop digital literacy skills, the report noted.

Interestingly, it pointed out that a teen – when they encounter a piece of content they believe to be in violation of TikTok’s rules – will be able to flag aberrations to their parents even if the latter is not using Family Pairing.

The Time Away feature on the other hand allows parents to block access to the app during any particular time of the day, such as school hours, at night etc. Parents will also be able to set a schedule for a recurrent timer that will automatically block off the teen’s access to TikTok at a specific time.

The company has additionally announced a “wind-down” feature that displays a message reminding teen users to turn off their devices at night.

Henceforth, whenever a teen user under the age of 16 uses TikTok past 10 pm, their For You feed will display a message with relaxing music requesting them to be mindful of the time. If they dismiss the message, the pop-up will appear for a second time.

Lessons in order?

The issue assumes prominence when taking into account fellow social media companies’ struggle with questionable content, like Meta’s longstanding struggles with safety on its platforms, with the latest fiasco involving a sudden appearance of violence and gore-related reels on Instagram that led to the company apologising for the mishap; or YouTube’s algorithm reportedly suggesting teens content related to eating disorders.

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Notably, this has not been an isolated incident, with ample coverage of young users facing issues such as sextortion, mental health conditions, and a general demand for changes catered towards teens on its platform being demanded by users and administrations around the world for a while now – something the company now plans to tackle with its teen-only accounts that debuted in the US and were recently rolled out in India as well.

However, it would be worthwhile to note at this point that TikTok saw a slew of similar allegations, and even lawsuits, in the past that accused the platform of having harmful mental health effects on teens.

While there have been occasional extreme scenarios related to TikTok use that made headlines, this is arguably one of the few instances in which the platform announced dedicated efforts to address teen user specific issues and assign parents power over children’s activities – in what can be looked at as a direction that other platforms might follow in times to come.

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