The United Kingdom wants to limit the time spent by children on social networks to combat the “addiction”
Child with your mobile phone. CREDIT LINE: Cuma Hatipoğlu / Panthermedia / Profimedia
The British government intends to limit the time spent by children on social networks to combat the “compulsive” time on the screen, the Secretary of Technology of the Great Britain announced.
Peter Kyle has been worried about the “total time that children spend on these applications” as well as the content they see.
After meetings with current employees and former technology companies, a two -hour platform limit is taken into account. He also discussed a prohibition of access at night or during school hours.
It is understood that, once the limit is reached, the children would block access to applications such as Tiktok or Snapchat, instead of reminding them only as long as they spent on the screen.
When the decision is made
An announcement about the time spent in front of the screen is expected this fall.
“I will make an ad about these things in the near future. But I look closely at the total time that children spend on these applications. I think some parents feel a little powerless about how they can make their children healthier online,” said Peter Kyle.
“I think some children feel that sometimes there is so much compulsive behavior in the interaction with applications that they need help just to take control over their online life and these are things I analyze very carefully. We talk a lot about a healthy offline childhood. We need to do the same online.
Kyle has added that he wants to prevent children from spending hours watching content that “is not illegal, but it is unhealthy, the excessive use of some of these applications.”
A survey on 1,000 children in Darlington, most of them between 14 and 15 years old, showed that 40% of them spent at least six hours a day online. One in five spent up to eight hours.
Tiktok, Pinterest, Meta and Snapchat have accounts for people under 16, with parental control, and some of them set reminders for the time in front of the screen.
Tiktok has a daily limit of 60 minutes to watch the screen for young people under 18, after which they have to enter a password to continue, as well as a stop reminder at 10:00 pm. The company says this is meant to support a healthy relationship with the time in front of the screen, notes Sky News.
