Teenage YouTube users across the world will now get automatic reminders to go to bed and take a break from their screens.
YouTube announced this week it was expanding such reminders to minors across the globe, ensuring they are full-screen and toggled-on by default. The feature first debuted in the U.S. seven years ago, and went automatic for minors in 2023. So-called “bedtime” notifications have grown in popularity, buoyed in large part by YouTube and TikTok.
But it’s unclear how effective the notifications are in the first place. After all, YouTube users only have to click to close out the banner; on TikTok, it’s even easier to keep swiping past the text.
“It will be effective for a small proportion of people, but the onus is still on the user to turn it off,” says Jon-Patrick Allem, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Rutgers School of Public Health. “These are all cosmetic things that may work for some people, but aren’t really going to shift user behavior.”
The rise of ‘stop scrolling’ signs
YouTube first introduced their overuse warnings back in 2018. At first, it was a simple opt-in “take a break” notification. By 2020, YouTube revealed that they’d sent more than three billion warnings, and added a “bedtime reminder” to their suite. This is the same year that TikTok also premiered their screentime management ads, headed by popular creators like Alan Chikin Chow and Gabe Erwin.
A few years later, parents amplified concerns about their children’s social media usage. More and more data flooded the web about a teen mental health crisis, with an uptick in depression and anxiety. YouTube responded in 2023 by making their “take a break” and “bedtime” reminders more prominent on the screen, and making them mandatory for all American users under 18. TikTok debuted their own “sleep reminder” and silenced push notifications for users under 18 after 10 p.m.
Now, YouTube’s changes are global. In a LinkedIn post, Pedro Pina, YouTube’s head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, wrote that the program ensures teens’ “time on the platform is well spent.” (YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.) But these reminders are still just suggestions: Rutgers’s Allem says that users see them as “recommendations for best options,” advice that they’re unlikely to take.
“There is no consequence if an individual acts or doesn’t act on this prompt,” he says. “It would probably be just as easy as moving on from the post like anything else you weren’t interested in. The one second that you take determining this isn’t interesting so you keep scrolling, would that really be impactful?”
What does it take for us to actually log off?
Beyond some limited content moderation, these warnings are the furthest major social media companies have gone to protect teens from addiction and overuse. But, in the wake of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and 2024’s great upheaval around internet mental health, every pundit has their own ideas for further steps. The Surgeon General recommended cigarette-style warning labels; the State of New York demanded companies tamp down on their recommendation algorithms for minors.
Allem rattles off a list of changes that would be more effective at stopping social media overuse. They could mandate lock-outs for minors during nighttime hours. They could force users to pay for increased hours using their apps. Or, the apps could be redesigned all together.
“There’s no natural stopping point for platforms designed with infinite scroll online,” Allem says. “We could consider default settings that were programmed to limit use, rather than allowing for unlimited use.”
But none of these changers are likely to happen anytime soon. “All of this can be done quite easily,” Allem says. “It isn’t done because it will tap into and reduce growth and profit.”
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