Add Facebook and Instagram to the growing list of tech giants rolling out features to cut back on your screen time. The two apps — Instagram with a billion-plus users, and Facebook with twice that many — are rolling out new “time well spent” features meant to help people fight smartphone addiction. Now you’ll be able to see how much time you spend within each app, snooze notifications for up to eight hours, and even set a timer that will alert you after you’ve spent a certain amount of time using the app on a given day. “As long as you believe that we’re developing products that people love, and that they use them frequently because they’re deriving value out of them, not because they’re addicted to it, then we’re doing our job,” Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told Recode in an interview. “Okay, if that’s our mission, then the question is, ‘can we provide people tools so that they can be in control?’” The new features are similar to what Apple announced for iOS in early June, and what Google unveiled for Android in May. It gives users a way to monitor and cut down their screen time — assuming they actually want to monitor and cut down on their screen time. The features are there, but people still have to actively choose to use them. With Apple and Google, these “time well spent” features make more sense. Those companies are selling phones and operating systems. It doesn’t matter so… [Read full story]
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