Have you ever caught yourself scrolling endlessly on TikTok all night?
We’ve all been there and to combat this, the platform has introduced new tools to help safeguard their users and improve their wellbeing.
Fears about the impact of social media on mental health are not at all a revolutionary discovery, however the growing popularity of video sharing site TikTok has sparked a new addiction in the younger generation.
New TikTok Tools
To begin with, they have added a new ‘Scheduled Breaks’ option, that will enable viewers to enforce break reminders in 10, 20, or 30 minute breaks.
By doing so, this is reminding (especially young users of the app) how much time they are spending scrolling to avoid eating away into their free time.
As the majority of users on the app are aged 16-24, the platform has spoken out and stated:
“We’ll also be introducing weekly digital well-being prompts for younger members of our community. When someone aged between 13 and 17 has used the app for more than 100 minutes in a single day, we will remind them of our screen time limit tool the next time they open the app.”
The platform has released a new screen time dashboard, which provides users with an overview of how much time they spend on the platform.
This includes insights into:
- Daily time frames of how long they have spent on their
- How many times they have opened the app
- Day & nightime activity logs
- A weekly notification (optional) to review this dashboard
Furthermore, TikTok is indeed rolling out a new digital well-being guide to highlight the potential harms of excessive consumption.
It is critical to understand what constitutes addiction in order to determine whether TikTok is addictive for you.
According to an article on Medium, the platform “has a lot of information. Having access to relevant information can improve decision making. This is why new and relevant information are rewards for our brain.”
This process is continually reinforced by providing us with more appropriately suggested videos via the algorithm.
Although the application has been a pioneer at driving engagement and fuelling many creators to unmatched levels of success, when deciding how to share your creativity and use your time, it is critical to consider the potential consequences of doing so.
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