How to Set Screen Time Breaks and Limits on TikTok

I’ve met plenty of people who use TikTok, but I have yet to meet one person who considers it a really positive influence on their lives. Sure, you can use it to promote your small business or try to build a career as an influencer, and yeah, it can be fun to scroll away some free time with funny videos. But TikTok can be literally addictive, and users are definitely feeling the effects of that addiction. Luckily, TikTok itself now includes two tools to help you limit your time on the app and reorient yourself to the real world: screen time breaks, and screen time limits. Read on for instructions on how to turn them on!

Why is TikTok Addictive?

TikTok is designed to immediately pull you in and keep you there. Its home screen has a double feed, with people you follow in one feed and videos that are suggested for you in the other. This means that you can toggle back and forth between these feeds endlessly, with yet more videos always waiting for you.

Plus, there are documented cognitive effects of using social media like TikTok. According to a study based out of Brown University, the app gives you hits of the feel-good chemical dopamine every time you use it. The study states that:

Dopamine release is a key part of the positive feedback loop that drives reward-based learning; increased dopaminergic activity in the brain in response to receiving a ‘like’ encourages future social media use and continued content publication in hopes that the pleasurable experience will re-occur.

In other words, the more likes you get on a video, the better you feel. What’s more, the app makes you lose your sense of time while you’re scrolling through it:

Like other social media platforms, the infinite scroll and variable reward pattern of TikTok likely increase the addictive quality of the app as they may induce a flow-like state for users that is characterized by a high degree of focus and productivity at the task at hand, whether that be a game, one’s social media feed, or another virtual activity. Once immersed in the flow-like state, users may experience a distorted sense of time in which they do not realize how much time has passed.

Oof. Flow states are for fulfilling creative work, not endless scrolling! Good thing you can now pull yourself out of it. Here’s what you need to know to start regulating your TikTok time.

Here’s How to Set Your Screen Time Limits

The first feature TikTok has introduced to break your addiction to the app is daily screen time. This feature notifies you if you’ve spent 40, 60, 90, or 120 minutes using the app each day. Once you hit the time that you’ve set, then you need to enter a passcode to keep using the app. While you certainly could put in the passcode and keep going for another 8 hours, the interruption (and the shock of how much time you’ve spent on it) may be enough to get you off the app for the day.

Here’s how to set a daily screen time limit:

1. From the home screen, tap profile in the lower left.
2. On your profile page, tap the three horizontal bars in the very top right.
3. Tap settings and privacy.
4. On the settings and privacy page, scroll down until you get to Digital Wellbeing and tap it.
5. At the top of the menu, tap Daily screen time.
6. On this screen, you can set the amount of time you want to limit yourself to by tapping Daily time and changing the amount of time. When you’ve set the amount of time you want, tap Turn on in the red bar at the bottom of the screen.

You can always change the daily screen time limit by going back to the menu and changing the settings, or turning the feature off.

Here’s How to Set Your Screen Time Breaks

The second feature TikTok has introduced is Screen time breaks, which reminds you to periodically take a break. Here’s how to set it up.

1. From the home screen, tap profile in the lower left.
2. On your profile page, tap the three horizontal bars in the very top right.
3. Tap settings and privacy.
4. On the settings and privacy page, scroll down until you get to Digital Wellbeing and tap it.
5. In the Digital Wellbeing menu, tap Screen time breaks.
6. Another menu will pop up, asking you if you want a reminder after 10, 20, 30, or another number of minutes of using the app. Just tap the circle next to the option you want and the app will save your selection.

Like the screen time limits, you can always change your break reminder or turn it off.

There you have it! Now go outside, smell the roses, and grab some footage of yourself doing it for your next post.

(Image: Alex Green via Pexels)