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08th Dec 2021

Everything you need to know about Instagram’s new ‘take a break’ feature

Ellen Fitzpatrick

There’s always something new.

Technology is always evolving and this time, Instagram is the latest to come up with a new feature.

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has announced new safety and well-being features to improve the app for teenagers, parents and guardians.

There is now set to be a “Take A Break” feature on the app that will now ask users to step away from the app after a certain amount of time scrolling.

The social media company believes that the new feature will “empower people to make informed decisions about how they’re spending their time.”

All you have to do is turn on the new feature and the app does the rest of the work, notifying you when you should stop scrolling for a while and suggesting that you should set reminders to take more frequent breaks.

“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,” Mosseri said in a blog post.

The feature is set to launch in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand but as it is optional, users get to decide if they want to avail of it.

 

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A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)


“We have a responsibility to make sure people, young people especially, feel supported on Instagram,” Mosseri added in an Instagram post announcing the features.

Meta spokesperson, Nick Clegg, first hinted that the feature would appear in October, but it has since been pushed back.

Facebook and Instagram have both had time limit reminders as features since 2018, so the main difference with this new one is the prompt that shows on screen.