Through a new publication in your Web, Meta announced that it will be rolling out some improvements to Instagram. Going into a little more detail, he comments that these novelties will be focused on parents and adolescents; and in offering tools and resources to fight against harmful habits within the application.
To do this, they have announced a function that will allow teens to manage what content they watch and for how long they do. In this way, Instagram intends to give a “push” to those who are trapped in the same type of publication within the social network.
With a notification similar to “Take a break”; the company aims to urge adolescents to stop recurrently consulting certain types of publications. As detailed by the company, it is a feature that could help teenagers “discover something new and exclude certain types of topics that could be associated with the comparison of appearance.”
However, it seems that this novelty will not be available everywhere. The company indicated that, initially, it will reach Canada, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand.
How this new Instagram feature works
The description given by the company is quite simple. When Instagram detects a repetitive pattern in the posts consulted by users, will display a notification recommending what to watch next. Along with it, they will have the possibility to see other types of content that they could also find interesting.
It should be noted that the images recommended by the platform they will not be related to the content that already appeared in the Explore section of the app. Thus, you can be sure that you will not fall into the same circle again, at least in principle.
We want to make sure people feel good about their time on Instagram… Here’s a way to slightly encourage that. It does not matter what topic you are delving into, if you do it especially, we will let you know and we will suggest other topics.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram at CBS Mornings
A function with proven effectiveness
We are usually not too big fans of these types of options on Instagram. Not because they are not useful, but because the app always finds a way to turn it around so that they are useless. The take a break feature, for example, resets your watch every time you exit the app. That way, if you’ve gone to reply to a message, you’ll have a fresh start, so you’ll never see the reminder.
However, if this function is well implemented, it could end up being very useful. In fact, a study published in ResearchGate shows his benefits by creating friction to the user experience.
The results of this research reveal that 58.2% of those surveyed found these reminders quite useful. Thus, we know that they “agreed or strongly agreed that ‘nudges’ improved their social media experience by helping them be more mindful of their time on the platform.”
Reels and parental controls will also receive updates
Furthermore, the company has ensured that will carry the function of Take a break to the reels of your platform. In addition, they plan to do it in a more interactive way. Like the previous feature, this feature will initially be tested in the UK, US, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
It is expected that later this summer, both features are available in many more countries.
Among other news, Instagram now allows parents to send requests to their teens to gain access to parental controls.
On the other hand, parents will now be able to see information about the publications reported by their children. Likewise, they will also be able to observe the time they have spent on Instagram.
