Social networking app, Instagram, has announced a new feature that will encourage users to spend some time away from the platform after they've been scrolling for a certain period. It is hoped this new safety feature will improve the app for teens, parents and guardians.
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Take A Break
The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri said the 'Take A Break’‘ feature works when users turn it on in ‘settings’. Once on, the app will notify you to take a break from scrolling after a period of that you would have selected while turning the feature on.
The full-screen alert will suggest that you take a deep breath, write something down, check a to-do list or listen to a song. In a blog post, Mosseri said the feature seeks to:
empower people to make informed decisions about how they’re spending their time. If someone has been scrolling for a certain amount of time, we’ll ask them to take a break from Instagram and suggest that they set reminders to take more breaks in the future.
Stricter Approach
The feature will first come to users in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and to all users in subsequent months. Mosseri said:
While available to everyone, I think this tool is particularly important for teens to more fully understand what information they've shared on Instagram, what is visible to others, and to have an easier way to manage their digital footprint.
The company also said it will be more strict in regulating the type of content that is recommended to teenage users of the app.
The post goes on to say that this demographic of users would be nudged toward different topics if they've been dwelling on something — any type of content — for too long. Mosseri said in the statement:
We’ll be taking a stricter approach to what we recommend to teens on the app, we’ll stop people from tagging or mentioning teens that don’t follow them, we’ll be nudging teens towards different topics if they’ve been dwelling on one topic for a long time.
