Back in August 2018, Facebook and Instagram announced that they would introduce activity dashboards that tracked how much time users spent inside the apps.
In an update, Instagram finally brings the feature to users, in the form of 'Your Activity' which can be found inside the hamburger icon on the upper-right corner of users' profile page.
It’s available as a dashboard, and shows users the time you’ve spent in the app over the last week, along with an estimate of the average time spent every day.
With the insight, Instagram allows those users to:
- Set reminders to encourage users to switch off after they’ve been in the app a certain amount of time. Users need to 'Set Daily Reminder’ in the ‘Manage Your Time’ menu to set their daily limit.
- Temporarily mute push notifications. To do this, go to the ‘Notification Settings’ menu in the ‘Manage Your Time’ section of the dashboard. There, users can select the time period they want Push Notifications to be muted for and whether or not they want notifications to vibrate.
The feature is indeed a welcome addition, considering that Instagram has had quite a bad history, with its contribution to users' social media addiction.
Back in 2017, a survey by the Royal Society for Public Health noted that Instagram was the worst social media platform for mental health. While the platform scored points for self-expression and self-identity, the survey found that the app was associated with high levels of anxiety, depression, bullying and FOMO (the fear of missing out).
With this feature, Instagram wants to give users more control over how they interact with social networks that may be harmful to their mental health and well-being if used excessively.
Social media companies have taken internet addiction more seriously, by introducing some means to limit their apps usage on their respective platforms.
For example, Apple has what it calls Screen Time on iOS, and Google has also released a Digital Wellness dashboard with Android 9.0.
Tech companies are thinking about helping users to better manage their time using apps, despite the attempt may hurt their business.
These attempts are great, and can certainly prevent more people becoming addicts. However, the hardest part of acknowledging the alert, is to actually closing the app and do something else for a change.
While tech companies can introduce things to limit the usage of their apps, by alerting their users. But still, the choice is up to the users.
Users can neglect the notification and continue using the app without any problem if they wish. Google, Apple or Instagram won't (cannot) do anything to stop them.
It's like a 'take it or leave it' situation. So again, the choice in on the hand of users if they want to obey their own restriction, or to continue becoming addicts.