TikTok and its 60-Minute Time Limit Coming in the Next Few Weeks

As a worldwide app used for sharing videos online, TikTok has about 1.53 billion users as of 2023, and 1 billion of those users are monthly active users. The United States has the most users in the world, racking up about 113 million users engaging with TikTok. Indonesia is following in a close second, with around 110 million users. TikTok is owned by 18% of global internet users, and 25% of those are 10 to 19 years old.

TikTok has announced that in the next few weeks, they are going to implement a 60-minute time limit for users under the age of 18. TikTok stated that this was because they want young users to have more control over how much time they use on the app. They also announced that they did this so that young users would be notified of their consumption of the app 40% sooner than before this update. In addition, all users under 18 will have a message sent to their inbox stating a roundup of their app consumption for that week. Finally, TikTok Newsroom stated, “This builds on a prompt we rolled out last year to encourage teens to enable screen time management; our tests found this app

roach helped increase the use of our screen time tools by 234%.”

There are also many signs that people are spending too much time on their electronic devices or social media. One of them is being distracted and not having the ability to focus on things. Another sign of “addiction” is feeling tired or sleepy. Research has shown that two hours of exposure to blue light will significantly decrease melatonin production. Melatonin is a hormone that the brain produces in response to darkness. This is a problem because insufficient melatonin levels can lead to fatigue and lack of energy. Finally, electronic addiction can also lead you to feeling unusually emotional or upset. This can be caused by social media, which can expose people to videos that fuel “body dissatisfaction, appearance-related anxiety, exercise addiction, and more. These videos can distort our self-image,” (WAFF48 “How TikTok is affecting your brain and mental health.”)

After being asked what he thinks his average time on TikTok was per day, 7th grader Lian Buban answered “I think that I spend about 3 hours per day on TikTok.” When asked why he downloaded TikTok, Lian responded, “I got TikTok because it was during the pandemic and there was not a lot to do. Another reason why was because it is a very popular app and “…a lot of people downloaded it, and I wanted to see what the hype was all about.” This shows that many people got it just because it was popular, and now they love the app, maybe a little too much.

As you can see, TikTok is a top-rated app and they have many reasons to implement this time limit. Young users’ screen time will drastically decrease, which can help them participate in more real-life activities and be more social. This can then help improve their abilities in some areas and get good jobs or positions later in life. If everyone just manages their time on electronics even little by little, then we can have a better society in general later on in the future.