How to set time limits on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to cap your social media use
FACEBOOK, Instagram and YouTube have announced they will introduce a tool that limits how much time people spend on their sites.
Here's everything you need to know about the new feature.
How the time limit tool works
There are actually three new functions but all help people spend less time on the sites.
They are:
- an activity dashboard so you can check your daily times as well as your average time
- a reminder alert that pops up when you hit your self-imposed time limit (but it doesn't prevent you from continuing to use it)
- an option to mute your notifications for a set period of time
How to find the new tools
Go to the settings page on either app and select either Your Time on Facebook or Your Activity.
At the top is a dashboard showing average time spent on the app you are using.
Underneath is the option to set up a daily reminder that will send an alert when you have reached the time you have allowed yourself.
What do the critics say?
There have been calls that the new features do not go far enough.
Grant Blank, from the Oxford Internet Institute told the : "I wouldn't say it's a radical change or that it's going to really change a lot about the way that most people use Facebook or Instagram.
"It strikes me as a way to balance their corporate interest of keeping people spending as much time as possible on Facebook, while still being responsive to people who find the continual notifications to be disturbing or distracting."
In December 2017 discussing the negative effects of spending too much time on social media.
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How to set a time limit on YouTube?
- Open the YouTube app, tap on the profile picture.
- Go to the settings menu.
- Open General and tap on Remind me to take a break option.
- From the pop-up menu, scroll to set a time limit. The minimum limit is 5 minutes and the maximum goes up to 23 hours 55 minutes.
- Tap 'Ok' after setting the optimal watch time limit.