Officially Take a Break From Instagram – Try Out a New Feature

The “Take a Break” function has been recently introduced to Instagram. It supposedly should help the users to restore energy and focus, by setting a reminder to put away your phone for either 10, 20, or 30 minutes.

As has been shown in the trial video, the option will provide you with a message to take a break from scrolling and also recommend some other activities you can engage in. This feature was invented to help more users manage their time on Instagram thoughtfully and prevent you from getting stuck in an endless loop of your news feed.

It is not the first of Meta’s wellbeing instruments, as a similar function has been presented on Facebook– “Quiet Mode”. It silences notifications from the app, so you won’t get as distracted. You can also selectively mute some people on your feed if you feel like they start spoiling your time on the platform.

After an unpleasant “Facebook Files” leak, which showed statistics of Instagram’s impact on a younger audience, Mick Clegg, Meta’s spokesman, mentioned, that this option’s main goal would be to help teenagers avoid harmful content and reduce the addictive time-spending on social media. He said in the interview, that Instagram’s team wanted to introduce something, which would make a considerable difference.

Although, technically, this feature doesn’t really add anything to the app, as both Instagram and Facebook have already had scheduled time reminders since 2018.

A lot of people find this new introduction questionable, considering that Instagram already has this function, it seems more important to convince users to take such a decision and restrict their time on the app. Hopefully, this campaign is not just a response from the PR team to the accusations from the media.

Will you use this “Take a Break” feature? Do you think it can actually help people manage their time? Share your opinion in the comments below.