Just a month ago the editorsggtalked about Instagram's plans to introduce a persistent reminder feature
“Take a break” – exactlythere is a call for Instagram users to take a break from time to time. This, of course, applies to those who are highly dependent on continuous use of a social networking application for more than a few minutes. Despite the usefulness of the idea, there are some disadvantages that can make it less effective. In theory, these shortcomings should be ironed out before the feature is rolled out to all users.
Testing “Take a Break”
We started testing a new feature called “Take a Break” this week. This opt-in control enables you to receive break reminders in-app after a duration of your choosing.
I’m excited to dig into the results & hopefully launch this sometime in December. pic.twitter.com/WdSTjL6ZdH
- Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) November 10, 2021
Firstly, this feature is still optional, andusers need to activate it manually. The feature is disabled by default, but this is understandable since this is still a voluntary experiment. For this feature to be truly useful, Instagram will likely have to enable it by default when it rolls out. In addition, it is advisable to allow users to choose their own time limit in a more flexible manner. At the moment there are only three preset durations – 10, 20 and 30 minutes, as well as complete shutdown.
Instagram will probably have to be developed as well.a way that will actually force the user to take a break. In this test mode, you can simply shrug off the reminder and continue endless scrolling. Given human nature, this pretty much defeats the whole purpose of reminding users to take a break.
Source: @mosseri, theverge
Illustrations: Anastasia Gepp
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