TikTok to Introduce Meditation Feature for Teens Amid Lawsuits
TikTok recently announced its plan to roll out a meditation feature specifically for teenage users. This comes as the platform faces multiple lawsuits that claim its addictive features and harmful content are detrimental to young people’s mental health.
The meditation tools will be automatically activated for all users under 18. According to a press release from the company, if a teenager uses the app after 10 PM, their For You Feed will be interrupted by guided meditation aimed at promoting better sleep. If users choose to keep scrolling, they’ll encounter another full-screen prompt reminding them to take a break.
Meanwhile, adult users will have the option to enable this feature through their screen time settings.
This new development is similar to another initiative TikTok is testing, which temporarily suspends feeds for teens and plays calming music and videos to encourage users to take breaks.
Furthermore, TikTok has pledged $2.3 million in advertising credits to 31 mental health organizations around the globe.
This initiative arrives at a challenging time for TikTok, facing allegations of intentionally being addictive and misusing minors’ personal information, along with criticism from politicians and mental health advocates.
In October, a coalition of 14 attorneys general, led by representatives from New York and California, filed a lawsuit against the platform. They accused TikTok of harming the mental health of young users and collecting personal data without their consent.
Officials, including former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, have indicated that the app may contribute significantly to rising levels of depression and anxiety among teenagers in the U.S.
In response to these claims, TikTok has denied the accusations, asserting that it has implemented safeguards for younger users and has collaborated with the Attorney General’s office over the years.
The platform requires users to be at least 13 years old to open an account. However, in August, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission filed a civil lawsuit alleging that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, collected personal information from children who were beneath this age limit.
An earlier lawsuit highlighted that the app lacked adequate protocols for identifying and removing accounts created by younger users.
Representatives from TikTok and ByteDance did not reply to requests for comment on these issues.
For quite a while now, the app has been in the crosshairs of national security concerns, especially during former President Trump’s administration, which attempted to ban TikTok back in 2020.
This year, TikTok nearly went offline when a law aimed at banning the platform unless it sold its shares to a U.S. company was upheld. The deadline for adhering to the ban has been delayed multiple times, with the latest extension running until June.
