TikTok will now show teenagers guided meditation sessions if they’re scrolling past 10pm.
It is part of the company’s attempt to mitigate some of the mental health problems associated with social media, as Big Tech faces increasing pressure to prioritise young people.
Now, if a teenager uses TikTok after 10pm, their feed will be interrupted by a meditation exercise aimed at promoting better sleep.
If they choose to ignore that prompt, TikTok will later show a second, full-screen prompt that is harder to dismiss.
It will also be available to adults using the short video app, but will be switched on by default for under-18s.
When testing the feature, 98% of teenagers kept the meditation experience switched on, according to TikTok.
The company also announced an initiative to give advertising space to mental health charities on the app.
There are growing calls for companies like TikTok to better protect their young users.
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In the UK, companies will be fined or even banned from July if they don’t take measures to stop harmful content appearing on young people’s social media feeds.
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Under Ofcom’s new rules, they will also have to make it easier for young people to report content or complain and sites that show pornography or self-harm content will have to properly verify their users’ ages.
In Australia, under-16s are going to be banned from using social media from December.
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“We want our kids to have a childhood and parents to know we have their backs,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the ban was approved by lawmakers.
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Meta and Snapchat also introduced new measures to protect young people online in recent months, with Meta introducing restricted Teen accounts and Snapchat making it harder for young people to be contacted by adults on their app.
