META Meta Platforms Inc

By Katherine Bindley 

When considering how much time we spend on our phones, it's hard to think of two apps that can be more of a mindless time suck than Instagram and its big brother, Facebook.

As part of a larger trend of tech companies helping to wean us off their more-addictive products, Facebook Inc. has announced new tools that tell us more about how much time we're spending in its apps and give us a nudge when it's time for a break.

This doesn't come as a surprise. The company has publicly acknowledged that some social-media use can be harmful. In a January post, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg made it his 2018 goal to "fix" Facebook's problems, "whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent." Pressure on Facebook to clean things up rose again after the disclosure that analytics firm Cambridge Analytica improperly handled data on tens of millions of users.

This initiative is part of the reason Facebook's outsize revenue growth has slowed. After reporting its quarterly earnings last week and warning of additional challenges ahead, the company's stock took a hit.

The company says it created the tools with the help of "leading mental health experts and organizations, academics, our own extensive research and feedback from our community." Its stated goal: It wants the time people spend on its platforms to be "intentional, positive and inspiring."

The features, which are "rolling out soon," according to the company, will all be part of an activity board located within the settings pages of both the Facebook and Instagram apps. Here's what you'll see, and how you'll use them:

Time Tally

At the top of your activity board, you'll see a number showing you the average amount of time per day that you've spent in the app over the past week. Below that, there will be a bar chart broken down by day of the week to show you the individual counts for each day. Just note: That tally will only reflect the time you spend on the specific device you're using, and only in the app -- it won't include time you spend on the Facebook or Instagram website. So if you divide your Facebook time between your smartphone, laptop and tablet, you won't get a complete picture.

When your app updates with the new tools, have a look at those numbers, consider how you feel about them, and then set a goal if you think you need to cut back. On the other hand, if the numbers don't bother you, you probably won't need this next tool...

The Cut Off

Right under your time tally is the option to "Manage Your Time." You punch in how much time per day you'd like to spend in the apps. If you hit your limit, you'll get a pop-up message saying so.

Of course, it's only a reminder, not a hard limit: When the alert pops up, you can ignore it (by tapping "OK") and just keep scrolling.

Mute Notifications

Even though I long ago disabled most of my Facebook notifications (did I really want to be sucked back into the app just because 24 strangers typed "Congrats!" on the same new-baby post that I did?), this next feature piqued my interest: a mute button for notifications.

Facebook and Instagram will soon allow to you choose from pre-set time intervals during which you won't be bothered by their notifications.

Unfortunately, Facebook's screenshots show that your options only include a time range between 15 minutes and 8 hours. (If you want some refreshers on how to go nuclear when it comes to notifications, we've got you covered.)

More Ways to Control

With the arrival of Apple's iOS 12 this fall, iPhone users will have other ways to manage their app usage, including Facebook and Instagram. Likewise, an upcoming version of Android, dubbed "P," will feature Google's new Digital Wellbeing tools. Both provide graphs of time spent in smartphone apps, more granular notification controls, and alerts when you use an app longer than you wanted to.

Providing these tools is not the same as making their use mandatory, however. Just like anything else, what matters is people actually taking them up and using them, which is as much on us as it is on the designers who need to make them simple and intuitive. To that end, we'll certainly review all of these tools when they go live.

Write to Katherine Bindley at Katie.Bindley@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 01, 2018 12:34 ET (16:34 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.