TikTok Introduces Badges to Fight Doomscrolling

TikTok is rolling out more digital well-being tools with an overhauled activity monitoring dashboard and the launch of a set of in-app nudges to encourage individuals to take a break from their screens, as well as in-app alerts about content that could potentially violate its community standards, among other things. The update includes new features like an affirmation journal, a calming sound generator and guided breathing exercises in an overhauled screen-time management hub designed explicitly to help reduce doomscrolling.

What TikTok Is Unveiling in Its New Well-Being Update

A new health page consolidates several ideas in one place. Users can scroll through an affirmation journal with more than 120 positive prompts to set intentions, play ambient audio like rain or ocean waves using a background sound tool and run brief breathing exercises. The hub will also feature creators who offer advice on how to cut down on screen time, use parental controls and tune your For You feed, TikTok says.

Solyst, the company behind Music N Chat, wants to take a cue from Apple and expose these tools in exactly that context when someone is scrolling late at night or crosses above a daily threshold for time spent. In early tests, more people went to the enhanced well-being screen than the previous menu, and the affirmation journal was the most popular offering, TikTok said.

How the New Digital Well-Being Badges Work on TikTok

Missions that promote instead of impose — Mutz’s words for it. There is no overlap between these tasks and any existing ones. Users can earn rewards for:

• No late-night use during your sleep schedule
• Attempting the meditation and breathing exercises
• Setting a daily limit and staying under it
• Viewing the weekly screen time report
• Inviting friends to participate

TikTok says it consulted academic studies of teen behavior and digital well-being before implementing the system and found that overly restrictive controls can have a boomerang effect for young people. The badges are a nudge, and one that rewards rather than penalizes in order to create routines that stick.

Why Gamification Might Matter for Healthier App Use

Behavioral nudges are having a bit of a moment across consumer apps, and there’s reason to believe they can be helpful here. The American Psychological Association’s 2023 health advisory for adolescent social media use advises clear time boundaries and in-app reminders. The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on youth mental health also calls for platforms to design for healthier defaults, instead of relying on sheer willpower.

Gamification has a mixed track record, but it can increase adherence in wellness contexts when rewards are instantaneous and goals are achievable. Think of streaks in language learning or workout apps. Applied to social media, a badge for putting the phone down inverts the typical engagement loop: The “win” is logging off on purpose.

The Bigger Picture on Teen Use and Screen Time Habits

The worry about doomscrolling is not theoretical. The most recent census by Common Sense Media found that adolescents today spend up to nearly five hours per day on social media. Pew Research Center has found that a substantial proportion of U.S. teens say they use TikTok “almost constantly.” These are just the kinds of gluey feeds the experience also helps illustrate. Scrolling late at night in particular has been implicated as a risk factor for sleep disruption and stress, according to researchers.

TikTok’s move comes amid a broader push for safety across the industry. Instagram has broadened Take a Break and Quiet Mode; YouTube features bedtime reminders and screen time dashboards; Discord, the chat app, and OpenAI have introduced teen safety controls. TikTok itself introduced a set of new parental tools earlier this year, which let parents disable direct messaging, among other features; and allow them to block certain accounts and receive alerts when their teens publish public posts or stories.

Open Questions and What to Watch as Features Roll Out

Badges might work, but the efficacy depends on design details that matter: how visible the rewards are, whether goals are customized by age and if reminders fade away once habits have formed. Transparency will also be key. Clear explanations of what data is driving these tools, how long activity is preserved and what it’s used for could help build trust, especially as families balance safety with privacy.

Researchers outside the company would want to see results more compelling than whether people kept visiting the well-being screen — metrics like reduced late-night sessions, continued adherence to limits over weeks and better sleep or mood measures in opt-in studies. To the extent that the badges bend behavior without instilling a new sense of urgency to “collect them all,” they may actually be providing a sensible model for other platforms.

Getting Started with TikTok’s New Well-Being Features

Users can navigate the new hub in screen time settings, set a daily limit, schedule sleep hours and attempt a short breathing session or affirmation journal. Now if you scroll past bedtime, or bump up against your daily cap, the app will hit you with a shortcut to these tools. It’s a little flip in the incentive structure — and if it only helps cut out even just a few late-night doomscrolls, that would be nice.