It is the “fashionable” social network.
TikTok, although officially limited to those over 13, appeals to millions of (very) young people around the world thanks to its endless stream of short videos.
However, it is not without danger, as the platform can become addictive.
“Parents have a duty to take an interest in what their children are doing on social networks, like when they ask them how things are going at school”, recalls Samuel Comblez, psychologist and director of operations of the association e -Childhood/3018.
Several good practices are also to be put in place in order to supervise your child's activity on this platform… as for other social networks.
Respect the age limit.
In theory, TikTok is restricted to users over the age of 13.
To register, those who are younger must therefore lie about their age.
In order to prevent your child from downloading it on their phone or tablet, you can activate parental controls directly on the application store (Play Store for Android, App Store for iPhone)
.
Thus, it will be impossible for your child to download without authorization the applications which are officially prohibited to him, like TikTok.
Determine the time spent on the application.
You agree that your child uses TikTok, but you do not want him to spend all his time there?
You can limit his use of it.
On Android, the "digital well-being and parental control" feature allows you to set the maximum number of minutes spent for each application.
After that, it will no longer be possible to access it.
On iPhone, the same principle exists with the “screen time” setting.
Maintain the dialogue.
We should also not hesitate to talk about the content consulted in order to offer an educational counter-discourse.
"This allows them to keep a little control and a point of balance on their vision of the world but also for the adult to reassure themselves and to play down the impact of the videos", emphasizes Samuel Comblez of e-Enfance/3018.
Switch to private account.
To prevent your child from coming into contact with people they don't know, adjust their account settings to private to manage who subscribes.
Similarly, only your child's subscribers will be able to see their content.
Be aware that messaging is disabled for users under 15.
Go to his "for you" feed from time to time to see what videos are available to him.
Link your own account.
TikTok has implemented a “family connection” mode, which allows the parents’ account to be “paired” with that of the children.
It is possible to limit the time spent on the application, to block the display of certain content or even of the search bar, in order to avoid the child having to search for content which he has heard about at school, for example, to make their account invisible or to block private messages.