Instagram has beefed up its usability features in recent years by giving parents additional control over their sons' and daughters' accounts, while also allowing users to set limits on how long the app can be used on a daily basis.
As reported by TechCrunch, the company has doubled its usage options from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, before you're greeted with a screen that limits you from continuing to use the app for the rest of the day.
Although it was speculated that this was due to new efforts by Meta, Instagram's parent company, to increase the time users spend on the app due to declining revenue, Instagram pushed back, explaining that the reason for the increase in time was to give users more time to manage their notifications.
However, while the feature may be difficult to find by going to Profile > Activity > Time Spent > Set Time Limit, there are other alternatives that could help limit your social media apps at any time on your device.
Analysis: there are better alternatives to control your consumption
If you have an iPhone, you can use ScreenTime, a built-in iOS feature that allows you to limit any apps you have installed on your device. It can be limited to a certain time of day or a time limit can be set. If you have multiple Apple devices under the same AppleID account, you can apply these limits to all of your devices, thanks to iCloud.
But that's limited to your apps: ScreenTime doesn't currently let you extend your usage limits to the websites you visit. Apps like Ochi will be able to do this and will filter out certain sites if you try to go to a social media site, for example.
Android has its own version of what's called digital wellbeing. It can do the same functions as ScreenTime where you can set daily time limits for any installed apps except website addresses.
These can easily replace Instagram usage features as they are arguably harder to find.
We changed the "daily limit" options to avoid sending multiple notifications at the same time. More on "Take A Break" here: https://t.co/5kj0RInU0521February 2022, XNUMX
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Sometimes you may spot a moment when you are scrolling through your feed and it tells you that you have reviewed all the most recent posts. But for usage limit options, it is still hidden.
While increasing screen times makes sense, on the one hand, there's no reason why Instagram should offer another option to set a custom screen time for all users, and in an area of the app where it's easier to spot.
But while the minimum is 30 minutes for the app, there's no reason you can't use ScreenTime, Digital Wellbeing, and third-party options like Ochi to set your own time, regardless.