Aware of the accusations against them, particularly of young people who find themselves addicted, social networks are increasingly looking to introduce tools to help users to better manage their time spent online. And they aren’t shy about communicating on these developments, in a bid to help restore their image.
Here are the features that have already been rolled out.
Instagram and Facebook
Instagram has decided to focus on the “right to disconnect”. With its “quiet mode”, the Meta group social network gives its users the ability to mute notifications.
Once the mode is activated, users will not receive alerts from the platform or direct messages from other users, to whom an automatic response will be sent. A summary of missed notifications will be revealed to users when they deactivate quiet mode.
Instagram also noted that teen accounts will receive a prompt to activate this mode when they spend “a specific amount of time on Instagram late at night”. For now, this feature is only available in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But it is expected to be rolled out in other countries.
Instagram also offers users the ability to set a daily screentime limit. To do so, users must click on the drop-down menu present on their profile, then on the “Your activity” tab, followed by “Time spent”.
From there, users can click on the “Set daily time limit” category. They will be able to set a reminder to close the application when they reach a set amount of daily screen time. There are five choices: 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours. The feature is disabled by default.
The social network also allows users to set reminders to take breaks for every 10, 20 or 30 minutes spent online without interruption.
Finally, the Meta group lets users activate and even program the quiet mode and daily time reminders on Facebook. Users of this platform can set a reminder if they were to exceed a minimum of five minutes, all the way to 23 hours and 55 minutes.
Snapchat
While Snapchat may not have yet implemented an option for users to limit their time spent online,it allows them to manage what notifications they receive. By going to their profile settings, the user can then click on the “Notifications” tab and choose to disable them.
To go further, users will have to go directly through their smartphone settings to establish a screentime limit that results in specific apps shutting down once that time is exceeded.
TikTok
The Chinese social network made a major move recently by announcing a 60-minute daily screentime limit for those under 18. After this time, users will have to enter a password to continue using the application, essentially requiring them to discuss it with their parents and get their approval.
Like its competitors, TikTok allows users to disable notifications, and parents can adjust the settings themselves. TikTok already had a system in place for users under age 16 to stop receiving notifications after 9pm, and those 16-17 years old to not receive alerts after 10pm.
In addition to these features, the platform has unveiled “sleep reminders”: an option allowing users to indicate their bedtime directly on the app. They will then receive an alert when it’s time to close the app to go to bed.