Users can now see if they’re addicted to social media
Starting Wednesday, Facebook and Instagram users will be able to track how much time they spend on the applications.
This includes data about the time spent daily and weekly, an option to stop push notifications for specific timeframes, and a self-implemented cutoff time for social media usage. These features combine to help people better understand and manage their time spent on these social platforms.
Facebook director of research David Ginsberg reports that this will complement their News Feed changes in January, which optimized the posts on people’s news feeds. He stated, “This is about giving people the tools and the insights for them to decide for themselves what they want to be doing.”
The social media giant wants to optimize people’s usage while simultaneously limiting it. They want them to only see content that is meaningful to their lives, which can be challenging to regulate when the Internet has an infinite amount of content. Facebook head of communications Gretchen Sloan explains,
As we learn more about how people’s relationship with media technologies impact their well-being, we’re looking for ways to help give people more control. We want people’s time [online] to be intentional and meaningful — that’s actually good for the business. I don’t know how people will react when they see the time that they spent. It’ll be interesting to learn that.
Apple and Google are two other tech companies who have sought similar developments. Nowadays, people spend an abundance of time on social media, and these companies hope to curb that to the best of their abilities.
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