TikTok will prompt teens to meditate after 10pm
It could encourage healthier screen habits and better sleep for teens.
Late-night TikTok scrolls have become a teen ritual: one more video, one more laugh, and before you know it, it's already 2am. Now, TikTok wants to break that cycle.
After testing quietly for a while, the popular social media app is officially rolling out a bedtime nudge—a full-screen meditation prompt that shows up when teens try to scroll past 10pm.
It’s not a hard stop, but it may be close. The first screen offers a guided wind-down exercise, which you can skip, but if you do, a second, harder-to-dismiss prompt will follow. The feature is turned on by default for users under 18, while adults can manually enable it through screen time settings.
According to TikTok, the feature, dubbed "Sleep Reminders," was successful during testing, with 98% of teens choosing to keep it on. The idea is to gently encourage younger users to log off and rest instead of spiralling into late-night content loops. That said, it remains to be seen how effective it will be in practice. Past efforts to limit teen screen time haven’t exactly stuck, leaked documents from a lawsuit showed teens still clocking about 107 minutes daily, even with a 60-minute screen time limit.
Louis Eriakha
TikTok isn’t the only one trying to tame teen screen habits. Last year, Meta introduced a similar system on Instagram that sends daily time-limit notifications to teen accounts once they hit 60 minutes of use. The timing makes sense, with growing global concern about tech’s impact on youth mental health, companies are under pressure to act. These wind-down prompts may not just be wellness tools; they could also be PR moves aimed at regulators.
And TikTok could use a positive PR moment. The company is still navigating political uncertainty in the U.S., where the government has extended its deadline to ban the app again as it waits on a final ruling. While talks of a sale or local partnership continue, nothing has been finalised.
This new feature is a step in the right direction for digital well-being, especially for teens. But whether it's enough to balance screen time or sway regulators is still up in the air.
Either way, TikTok is now doubling as both an entertainment hub and a digital bedtime coach.
Kelechi Edeh
