The social network has just launched a new feature to encourage young users to spend less time on its application at night.
After TikTok, it's Instagram's turn to encourage teenagers to go to bed. Meta, the social network's parent company, announced on Thursday the launch of a new feature designed to remind people to go to sleep at night. These reminders appear when they have spent more than 10 minutes in Reels or private messages.
Specifically, teens receive a notification inviting them to take a break from using Instagram, accompanied by the message “It's getting late. Consider closing Instagram for the night.” Since these reminders appear after 10 p.m., they cannot be disabled, Instagram told TechCrunch. In other words, young users will inevitably see them, but they can always ignore them and continue using the social network.
A question of protection
These reminders complement other features introduced in recent years to encourage teens to spend less time on Instagram. The app already asks you to take a break from use every 10, 20 or 30 minutes. Last year, the platform also introduced a “Silent Mode,” which allows you to turn off notifications and let others know that you will be unavailable for a certain amount of time when you want to focus on something.
To protect them from sensitive content, Meta also announced last week that it would further restrict minors' access to such content on Facebook and Instagram. The company wants to show that it is committed to protecting minors while at the same time facing pressure from regulators, particularly in the US. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is due to testify before the US Senate on child safety on January 31, as are the leaders of X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Snapchat and Discord.
Meta's internal documents released Wednesday are unlikely to help his case. From 2020 and 2021, it appears that the company was aware that its platforms allowed sexual predators to have contact with minors. They were revealed as part of a lawsuit filed in December by New Mexico that accuses the company of failing to protect children on Instagram.
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