
If Instagram was serious about addressing mental health, it could designate a time to show users a reminder within its app, and then offer controls that would allow users to turn it off or adjust the duration. But last year, Instagram regressed and decided to use the space below the “You’re All Caught Up” notice to push suggested posts and ads in an attempt to keep users engaged even after they had reached a stopping point.

In 2018, Instagram rolled out a “You’re All Caught Up” notice that appeared when you reached the end of all the new content from the past two days on your Instagram Feed. This is not the first time Instagram has pulled such a stunt. I’m excited to dig into the results & hopefully launch this sometime in December. Instagram, in other words, appears to want credit for building mental health features without actually going so far as to make any universal changes that would impact its app usage. In addition, it’s unclear if users will adopt the feature, given that iOS and Android’s built-in screen time controls already allow device owners to set limits on the time spent in mobile apps either on an individual basis or by category, like “social.” He said the idea with the feature was to encourage users to stop looking at the app after they had been browsing for too long, and cited it as one of the many ways the company was working to improve the experiences of young people using its platform.īut similar to Instagram’s experiment with removing Like counts from posts, which it also ultimately decided to make an opt-in feature, these new “break” reminders won’t likely impact platform usage, as they’re not being made the default experience. Meta’s (previously, Facebook’s) Global Head of Security Antigone Davis also referenced Instagram’s “Take a Break” reminders when the company was grilled in a Senate hearing over teen mental health back in September. He referenced Instagram’s plans to build in “nudges” and “reminders,” like “Take a Break,” as an example of how Instagram was addressing issues related to its product’s impact on users’ mental health. Mosseri, for instance, mentioned the coming addition when commenting on Instagram’s decision to pause the development of a version of its service for younger users, Instagram for Kids.


The company had previously said it was looking into “Take a Break” reminders. As an opt-in feature, however, the reminders may have a limited impact, as users would have to be motivated to set up the new control for themselves. It does not store any personal data.Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced today the company has begun testing a new feature this week called “Take a Break,” which will allow users to remind themselves to take a break from using the app after either 10, 20 or 30 minutes, depending on their preferences. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.

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