Facebook, Instagram roll out tools that allow you to manage the time you spend on the apps

Facebook and Instagram have decided to roll out new tools to help people manage their time on the apps. The tools include an activity dashboard, a daily reminder and a new way to limit notifications.

The company said it has developed the tools based on collaboration and inspiration from leading mental health experts and organisations, academics, its own extensive research and feedback from the community.

“We want the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram to be intentional, positive and inspiring. Our hope is that these tools give people more control over the time they spend on our platforms and also foster conversations between parents and teens about the online habits that are right for them,” Facebook said in a statement.

How to access the tools:

—Go to settings page on either app

—Tap “Your Activity” on Instagram and/or on Facebook, tap “Your Time on Facebook”

—At the top, you’ll see a dashboard showing your average time for that app on that device. Tap any bar to see your total time for that day.

Below the dashboard, you can set a daily reminder to give yourself an alert when you’ve reached the amount of time you want to spend on that app for that day. You can change or cancel the reminder at any time.

You can also tap on “Notification Settings” to quickly access the new “Mute Push Notifications” setting. This will limit your Facebook or Instagram notifications for a period of time when you need to focus.

Facebook has in the past also introduced new tools to help people use the apps in a productive way. Features like showing most relevant posts on Facebook or “You’re All Caught Up” message on Instagram can help people to restrict their time on the apps.

Earlier, YouTube had also rolled out updates which would remind its users to stop watching after binge-watching videos for a long period of time.