How Old Do You Have to Be for TikTok?

TikTok, since its launch, its popularity has been growing tremendously. In October 2018, it was the most downloaded photo and video app in the Apple store, globally. As a report says, the app is available in more than 150 countries. And it has amassed over 1 billion active users monthly, with the US being the most popular country where it has been downloaded over 200 million times. The current data shows that almost 32.5% of TikTok users are aged from 10-19. But is this app safe for kids? And how old do you have to be for this app? Please read on, we will show you the answer.

How Old Do You Have to Be for TikTok?

To become a TikTok user, you must first pass through an age-gate to get you into the right TikTok experience. If you want to create a TikTok account, you must be at least 13 years old. And to give gifts to your favorite creators, 18 years old is necessary. If you’re under 13 years old, you’ll be placed into TikTok for teenager mode that has additional privacy and safety protections designed specifically for this audience.

How to Use TikTok?

To use TikTok, you need to create an account firstly then you will get access to its features.

Step 1. Download TikTok from App Store or Google Play.

Step 2. Open it, and click Sign up

Step 3. You could do an instant sign up with Facebook, Gmail, or Twitter, or add a standard username and password if you don't want any of those accounts connected. Start by choosing the sign-up option through the TikTok sign-up menu. Then follow the instruction to finish signing up.

While signing up, you could find that there isn’t any age verification system on TikTok. It will ask you to choose an age, but won’t verify it. So kids could avoid the teenager mode easily.

What Should Parents Be Concerned About?

TikTok has different kinds of content as it's a flourishing global hub of creativity and passion that also creates greater opportunities for businesses to grow their brands. The video-sharing app has attracted a lot of new users who use the platform to express their creativity and build a following. Since it's easy to create an account and access this app for everyone, TikTok may cause many adverse issues. It will give online predators a perfect platform, and produce lots of inappropriate videos. Under these circumstances, kids may receive inappropriate comments or messages from strangers.

1. Inappropriate Videos

With TikTok, you could find various kinds of videos such as cooking, dancing, lip-syncing, or tutorial videos. Some of them may be educational, while there are still some contents that are inappropriate for kids. On TikTok, there may be some channels set for kids and all of the videos they posted are cartoons, but the content is explicit that can bring about side effects to kids’ development.

2. Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying has become a hot topic nowadays. It’s not about fighting. It’s about causing mental harm with hate comments. This may cause depression under severe circumstances and make your kids not confident in themselves anymore.

Does TikTok Have Any Features to Protect Children from These Harms?

TikTok has noticed the potential side effect it may cause to kids already. It updated Teenager Mode and Family Pairing feature to protect kids from inappropriate content. You could find the feature here:

Step 1. Open TikTok, click Me at the bottom right of the screen to enter the Profile page

Step 2. Click Settings at the top right of the screen

Step 3. Tap Digital Wellbeing

Step 4. Turn on Family Safe Mode, then you will have access to manage your kids’ screen time on TikTok, limit who can send messages to your kids’ accounts, and even turn off the direct message feature completely.

Step 5. You can set the restricted mode for your kids’ accounts then your kids won't receive any inappropriate video.

Wondershare FamiSafe—How could it help?

FamiSafe is a powerful parental control app available on many types of devices including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Chromebook, and Kindle Fire. It can help you track kids' location, set screen time limits on their devices and other security precautions. Several features can help you set parental control on TikTok:

1. Screen Time

By creating a FamiSafe account and downloading the app on both you and your kids’ devices, you could set screen time remotely for your kids’ devices. Apart from setting a fixed screen time, you also could set daily or weekly scheduled screen time to help your kids better handle their spare time on tech devices. Like how much time they could spend on TikTok during the weekday and so on.

2. TikTok History

To protect your kids from inappropriate content, this feature could help a lot. You could monitor what videos your kids have browsed on TikTok remotely without the need to have access to your kids’ devices. Not only to check today’s TikTok browse the history, but also several days ago. You could check the history on one specific day. And apart from the video, you could check the channel your kids viewed.

3. Location History

Locating where your kids are is another fantastic feature of FamiSafe. It could help you check where your kids have been in the past 30 days and where they are at this moment. With this feature, you don’t need to worry that your kids may meet online partners privately. And it could ensure that your kids are at school instead of hanging out during weekdays.

In a nutshell, it doesn't matter what age you are or if you own a business or not, TikTok is a great place to watch or create fun videos and stay up to date on the latest trends. The TikTok app also has the potential to become the next big marketing and social networking platform. However, with all this data mentioned above, we can also conclude that TikTok is one of the applications that steal the most of the time from the youngest members of the household, along with Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch to a lesser extent. To protect children from the dangers of the Internet, parents are encouraged to use parental control apps like Wondershare FamiSafe.

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