TikTok Set to Help Users Curtail Their Excessive Usage of the App

Image: TikTok | Vox

As the pressure mounts on social media companies to help users maintain a balanced life on social media, TikTok has taken the bold step of how they would help users. The social media giant planned to launch new updates that would compel users to rest for a while after spending a certain amount of time browsing.

You would recall that the government and pressure groups advised social media companies to do everything they could to help users' well-being in the digital age. Also, lawmakers and advocates tighten the pressure as they insist the firms should take the responsibility of helping users stay healthy on their platform by minimizing the time spent staring at the screen. This they did late last year during a meeting with senators, and TikTok, YouTube, and Snap executives were in attendance.

Within these coming weeks, TikTok shall roll the options out, and users can set time limits on how much time they like to spend using the app. After the set time, they would get a reminder from TikTok to rest for a while. Before now, TikTok has installed a notification system that alerts users of a certain threshold they have spent online. For example, you will be alerted if you stay up to 40, 60, 90, or 120 minutes on the app in a day. That was TikTok's way of trying to ensure people do not spend the whole day on the app.

However, public pressure called for more from Social Media companies, leading the company to take the decision. The new prompt would help users cut excessive social media usage to a large extent. According to TikTok, the break reminders help users feel more mindful and balanced on TikTok. As released on their blog, the users can set the time they choose to take a break from endless scrolling.

TikTok's plan is to inform the users how much time they have spent, which would, in a way, make them be alarmed about how much time they have wasted on the app. They set to achieve this by releasing a new screen time dashboard that would give users full details of how much time they spend on TikTok. The details would include:

• Summaries of how much time they spent per day on the platform.
• The number of times they opened the app.
• Complete details of daytime and nighttime usage.

Besides daily, you can also choose a weekly breakdown of screen time usage. TikTok also took the step to help teenage users who fall between the ages of 13 and 17 by giving them "digital well-being prompts." The way it works is that the teen would get information from the platform when they have to spend more than 100 minutes on it in a day. The prompts are set to remind them of the app's screen time tool the next time they open it.

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