Earlier this summer, Apple made the announcement, at their annual WWDC, the new iOS 12 update would introduce tools to help manage and monitor time spent on their devices and individual apps. Around the same time, Google made the same announcement for its new Android P operating system that tracks all of users’ usage time.

Over this past week, social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram are now also taking similar steps by implementing these same features into their apps to help users monitor the time they spend per day. The new time managing dashboard will allow users see the amount of time they’ve spent scrolling, set a reminder for when they reach their alloted time, and mute notications for a max. of 8 hours.

The move by Apple, Google, Facebook, and Instagram follows the increasing concerns of excessive screen time and social media use and how it can have a negative impact on mental health, especially in young people.

There is also criticism over this move by Facebook and their ultimate intentions and whether the new feature is more of a way to balance their corporate interest of keeping people spending as much time as possible on Facebook, while being still being responsive to a serious issue.

Our ‘digital well being’ will be an ongoing topic of discussion as we become ever more reliant on our devices day-to-day, and how to balance our usage time. The newly introduced time management dashboards on Apple and Google devices and within apps such as Facebook and Instagram may not entirely work for everyone but the awareness and visual representation could push some to make positive changes, if needed.

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