Video-sharing app TikTok said Wednesday that it would be implementing several features to reign in the amount of time young people spend on their phones, including an automatic 60-minute screen time limit for all users under the age of 18.

Teens that reach this limit will be asked to enter a passcode to continue using the app. They can disable the feature through TikTok's settings, but the app will then prompt them to reset their limit if they spend "more than 100 minutes on TikTok in a day."

TikTok said that for users under 13, a parent or guardian will have to set or enter an existing passcode to allow 30 additional minutes of viewing time once the initial 60-minute threshold is reached.

These features force teens to make an "active decision" when scrolling through the app, said TikTok. The company consulted current academic research and experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital when deciding how long the time restriction should be, it added in its press release.

Teens, and parents who link to their child's account, will also be sent an inbox notification each week that recaps their screen time, allowing users and their families to be aware of how much time they spend on the app.

"While there's no collectively-endorsed position on how much screen time is 'too much', or even the impact of screen time more broadly, we recognize that teens typically require extra support as they start to explore the online world independently," Cormac Keenan, Head of Trust and Safety at TikTok, said in the release.

TikTok is incredibly popular among young people, especially in the U.S., with the Pew Research Center finding last year that 67% of American teenagers used the app, with 16% of all teens saying they used it "constantly."

The announcement comes as TikTok wades its way through another wave of criticism, facing scrutiny centered on the security of user's data. Governments in both the U.S. and Canada have placed restrictions on TikTok's installation on official devices and the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Council have taken similar actions.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before the House Energy and Commerce committee later this month as tensions have grown over unanswered questions from the app's Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

The government's curiosity about TikTok has been growing for years, since ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in 2017, peaking when former President Trump openly considered all-out banning the app.

TikTok has not said when the new features will be implemented. The changes can largely be considered in-app implementations of existing features available for iOS and Android users, but they do represent a willingness for the company to address concerns.

"Every teen is different, and so is every family. That's why we remain focused on reaching parents with the information they need about TikTok," said Keenan.

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