Pinterest is testing a new tooltip that warns children to log out of the app during school hours, The Verge reports. The pop-up warning urges minors in the US and Canada to stop using the app and turn off notifications for the rest of the day. “Focus is a beautiful thing,” the tip reads. “Stay in the moment by putting Pinterest away.”
This offer only appears for children between the ages of 13 and 17 and only between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on weekdays. This is a large-scale test, so Pinterest claims it will reach “millions” of minors. The platform claims to be the first tech company to introduce such a “proactive” feature to help kids develop healthy online habits. This may be true in the world of social media, but any die-hard Nintendo fan will remember the incessant prompts to take breaks during the Wii, DS, and 3DS era.
Pinterest CEO Bill Read also announced that the company supports the policy of freeing schools from phones. Some European countries have banned phones in schools in recent years. In the United States, New York State is close to implementing a statewide ban, informally referred to as a “call-to-ring” restriction. Several other states are in the process of developing their own bans.
As part of the initiative, Pinterest is providing a $1 million grant to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) to “support school leaders in creating healthy digital cultures in their schools.” The money will go to fund working groups in dozens of states to help develop policies that “improve students’ digital well-being.”
