Oh cool, you can see how much time you waste on Instagram now
Last year, Instagram was rated as the most damaging social network for one's mental wellbeing.
It's unsurprising all those vanity and #influencer posts weren't really doing us any favours, and now the app is rolling out a way to track your usage, and to limit it if need be.
Called Your Activity, the dashboard is accessible in the top right menu, and you can see how much time you've spent on the app on average, as well how much you're using it each day.
There's also options to restrict your usage, in the vein of Apple's Screen Time and Google's Digital Wellbeing, where you can set a daily time limit and have Instagram notify you if you've spent too much time in the app.
Once your time is up, a dialog box will appear telling you that you've hit your limit, with the option to hit OK or edit your reminder so you can continue zombie scrolling.
The feature was first spotted in June, and a month later it was confirmed that the dashboard would be coming to Facebook and Instagram.
For the moment, it appears Instagram's Your Activity doesn't offer the granularity of Apple's Screen Time.
On Screen Time, you can look at what times of the day you're using the app, and how long for. Plus, the feature can send you a five minute warning prior to hitting your daily limit, and tells you how many notifications you've received that day.
With that said, it's unclear if such insights and notifications have a profound effect on curbing one's social media usage. For that, you might just need to rely on old-fashioned willpower.
Topics Instagram Social Media
