YouTube has introduced a new feature allowing parents to set a time limit on their children’s YouTube Shorts feed, ranging from 15 minutes to two hours, with an option for zero minutes coming soon. This update, announced on Wednesday, builds on the Shorts time limit feature YouTube launched in October and tailors it for under-18 accounts. Kids and teens cannot alter or disable the time limit setting on their own.
In addition, parents can set custom “Bedtime” and “Take a break” reminders for their children’s accounts, features that are also available to adult users. These new tools are being rolled out as part of YouTube’s ongoing efforts to safeguard minors’ accounts, following a push last year to identify and restrict accounts belonging to minors using AI age estimation, based on their activity and account age.
YouTube is also simplifying the process for parents to ensure their children are categorized correctly on the platform. An update to the YouTube sign-up page, which will be available in the coming weeks, will enable parents to manually set their child’s or teen’s age category when creating a new account and adjust the content accessible to the account.
These expanded parental controls reflect similar moves by other social media platforms. Last year, Meta introduced content restrictions on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, including a “PG-13” filter, while TikTok has had a similar under-18 time limit since 2020.
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