Instagram and Facebook are implementing a time limit setting

Social media is a major part of today's society, with the leading platform in Facebook reporting 2.23 billion monthly active users in 2018. Now the social media giant, along with Instagram, is set to implement a new tool that will help users monitor how much time they spend on the platform.

Facebook revealed the announcement in a blogpost that outlined new tools that will allow users to see how much time they spend on the social media platorms and set a time limit for daily usage. The new tools will also allow users to mute notifications for a selected period of time.

Facebook’s David Ginsberg and Instagram’s Ameet Ranadive had this to say on the new update: “We developed these tools based on collaboration and inspiration from leading mental health experts and organisations, academics, our own extensive research and feedback from our community.

“We want the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram to be intentional, positive and inspiring. Our hope is that these tools give people more control over the time they spend on our platforms and also foster conversations between parents and teens about the online habits that are right for them."

To access the tools, go to the settings page on either app. On Instagram tap “Your Activity", and on Facebook, tap “Your Time on Facebook". View screen grabs of the new feature below.

In other news, Instagram recently added a song detection feature, introducing "music stickers" for its popular Stories function which allows users to search and add songs to Story posts thanks to licensing deals recently acquired through Facebook.

Harrison is Mixmag's East Coast Editor. Follow him on Twitter here