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The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron has announced that he wants to “take back control of screens” for minors and has therefore brought together a committee of experts whose recommendations will be made at the end of March. In the fight against the impact of screens, social networks are frequently criticized. These platforms have already introduced features aimed at assisting young people and their parents in managing their online activity.
TikTok and Family Connection mode
TikTok has introduced a limit of 60 minutes per day for users under 18 years old. After this time, a password is required to continue using the app, encouraging young users to think about their time spent online. For accounts under 16, TikTok prohibits notifications after 9 p.m. (10 p.m. for 16-17 year olds), thus promoting better sleep habits.
Family Connection mode also allows parents to set their children’s maximum daily screen time themselves, depending on the day of the week. Parents will be able to access a detailed report of their child’s use of the app including information such as total time spent on the app, how often the teen opens TikTok, as well as the distribution of time spent between day and night.
Parents can now mute their teens’ notifications after a certain time. TikTok is also working on a tool that allows parents to filter videos based on keywords.
Instagram and the “Late Notification” function
Instagram recently launched a new tool aimed at encouraging teens to reduce their use of the platform at night. The “Late Notification” function is designed to automatically intervene on the accounts of minor users who are active between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. If they spend more than ten minutes browsing Reels or using direct messaging during this time slot, a notification will encourage them to leave the application. This initiative complements the “Take a Break” tool introduced in 2022, which reminds users to take regular breaks.
In addition to this new feature, Instagram already offers several tools to help teenagers and their parents manage the time spent on the platform:
- Time Management: allows users to see the average time they spend on Instagram and set a daily limit.
- Take a break : a reminder to encourage users to take a break after a predetermined amount of time on the app.
- Parental Supervision Tools: These tools offer parents and guardians the ability to monitor their teens’ activity on Instagram. They allow you to control the time spent on the application, set daily limits, schedule breaks, track subscriptions, and receive information on reports made by the adolescent.
- Silent mode : disables notifications and indicates “Silent” as online status, sending automatic replies to received direct messages. The schedules for this mode are customizable and a summary of missed notifications is available after deactivating it.
Facebook easily configurable
Facebook, part of the Meta group, offers similar features to Instagram, including a silent mode and the ability to take breaks from time to time. Users can set daily time reminders as well as the ability to mute notifications.
X and Snapchat
X, formerly Twitter, and Snapchat have not implemented tools directly on their application. For stricter screen time management, users should adjust settings directly on their smartphone.