Millions of people every day are glued to their Instagram accounts, constantly stimulating their minds with a variety of diverse imagery. However, the social media outlet is aware that this can take a toll on its users and is finally doing something about it.
Instagram has put together a new feature that basically informs the user when they have seen all the new posts that are possible to see. Specifically, they will get a notification informing them when they have seen “all new posts from the past 48 hours.”
The aim of this new feature is to prevent users from suffering from compulsive online browsing and to improve the use of time in relation to social media. “We’ve heard that it can be difficult to keep track of your seen posts,” Instagram said.
Kevin Systrom, the CEO of Instagram, tweeted the following: “We’re building tools that will help the IG community know more about the time they spend on Instagram – any time should be positive and intentional.”
“Understanding how time online impacts people is important, and it’s the responsibility of all companies to be honest about this,” he continued. “We want to be part of the solution. I take that responsibility seriously.”
After intense speculation that Instagram was devising a new feature under the name “Usage Insights,” users’ assumptions that a time-management feature was being put together ended up being true after all.
In fact, one computer science student from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth noticed the clues in the social media outlet’s code. Jane Manchun Wong discovered a piece of code, with the terms “slideout_menu_time_spent” and “Usage Insights” inside.
Wong tweeted the following, upon discovering the piece of code: “Be self-aware or be prepared to be ashamed for Instagram addiction.” Other social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter are also considering ways to combat compulsive online browsing.