TikTok has announced that accounts held by users below 18 will automatically be set to a 60-minute daily screen time limit.

While the setting can be overridden, it will require the use of a passcode to extend the use past the 60 minute mark, “requiring them to make an active decision to extend that time”.

Children under 13 will require a parent or guardian to enter an existing passcode, which will enable an extra 30 minutes of additional watch time.

TikTok consulted with the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital to arrive at the magic one-hour mark.

“Being more aware of how we spend our time can help us be more intentional about the decisions we make,” Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust and Safety, TikTok explains.

“So we’re also prompting teens to set a daily screen time limit if they opt out of the 60-minute default and spend more than 100 minutes on TikTok in a day.

“This builds on a prompt we rolled out last year to encourage teens to enable screen time management; our tests found this helped increase the use of our screen time tools by 234 per cent.

In addition, every teen account will be sent a weekly inbox notification with a recap of their screen time.