New Delhi: In a bid to help its users make informed decisions about spending time on the platform, Meta-owned Instagram on Friday launched a new feature called "Take a Break" in India and other countries. Take a Break is essentially a feature that will show up for Instagram users, as they have been scrolling for a certain amount of time and they will be asked to take a break from the platform and suggest that they set reminders to take more breaks in the future.
Instagram's Take a Break feature was first launched in the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and it is now available for all users globally, including India. The Instagram users will also be shown expert-backed tips to help them reflect and reset. To make sure that young people are aware of this feature, they will be shown notifications suggesting they turn these reminders on.
“The wellbeing of young people is important to us, and we’re focused on ensuring that the time spent on Instagram is intentional and people feel good about it. With this context, we’ve launched ‘Take a Break’, to meaningfully improve the experience on Instagram for young people, parents and guardians. We aim to continue our work to create a safe and supportive environment on Instagram, so young people can use it to explore their interests, and find community," Natasha Jog, Public Policy Manager, Instagram, Facebook India, said in a statement.
Instagram's new Take a Break reminder is build on Instagram’s existing time management tools including Daily Limit, which lets people know when they’ve reached the total amount of time they want to spend on Instagram each day, and offers the ability to mute notifications from Instagram. Moreover, Take a Break will be amplified via a campaign called "Break Zaroori Hai", in partnership with "We The Young". The campaign will last for a month and will highlight situations where young people could use this feature. "We The Young" is a community that will work with creators, mental health experts and other stakeholders to produce multilingual content that'll emphasise the need to make informed decisions about the time spent on the platform, and inform users on ways to incorporate the Take A Break feature with their social media routine.