According to TikTok every account that has a user under the age of 18 will have a default daily 60-minute time limit within the next couple of weeks. The changes were brought up during the time when concerns started arising with different governments about the app’s security.

U.S. families have been struggling on limiting the amount of time their children are on the Chinese-Owned video app. According to the Pew Research Center about two-thirds of American teens use TikTok.

A junior at ERHS, Victoria Reyes, gives her opinion.

“I think the time should be limited because I feel like it takes a lot of time out of everyone’s day,” Reyes said. “Even for me, I’m on it for a long time and it is most of my screen time on my phone. I see a lot of kids in my family that are on TikTok, and that is kind of bad. I think that 60 minutes is a fair amount of time.”

The head of trust and security at TikTok shared in a blog post that when the 60-minute time limit is over, minors will be prompted to enter a password and make an “active decision” to keep watching. For minors under 13 years of age, a parent or guardian will have to set or enter a passcode to allow their child to have 30 minutes of extra time, once the 60-minute limit is reached.

Alise Dela-Paul, an ERHS Senior says, “I think it is a good idea in some aspects, I can understand how some kids won’t like it because they would want the freedom for them to choose how long they have. Also, we don’t exactly know the long-term effects of being in front of a screen for hours. So maybe it is for the best to have a limit.”

This is being put in place partially because of the long-term concerns about what minors are being exposed to on social media and the potential harm it may cause. A report was released late last year that suggests TikTok’s processes are promoting videos about self-harm and eating disorders to vulnerable teens.

The process of social media works by identifying topics of interest to a specific person. They are then sent more of the same as a way to maximize time on their site.

TikTok also said that they are going to start promoting teens to set a daily screen time limit if they don’t already do it. They will send a weekly inbox notification with a screen time recap.