Tap your time on facebook

Facebook has launched a new tool that shows you how long you spend browsing the Facebook app on your phone. It also lets you set a time limit, so that you will receive an automatic reminder if you have spent more than the allotted time each day. The feature is finally rolling out around the world, 15 weeks after the company had announced its ‘Your Time on Facebook’ tool.

Designed to help the users manage their social networking addiction, the dashboard reveals how many minutes one has spent on Facebook app on any particular device each day for the past week and on average. The company, announcing the feature, said in a blog post: “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.”

Here’s how to use the tool:

• Download the latest version of Facebook from iTunes or Google Play Store on Android.
• Open Facebook on your phone.
• Tap the menu button on the bottom-right corner.
• Scroll down and tap ‘Settings & Privacy'.
• Tap ‘Your Time on Facebook’.

One can also choose the ‘Set a Daily Reminder’ option, which sends an alert once the user has used Facebook more than the time limit he/she has set, plus access shortcuts to notifications, News Feed and Friend Request settings. Though this tool is new for the Facebook app, Apple and Google have already launched similar ones —  Apple’s tool is called Screen Time, launched for iPhones and iPads in iOS 12, and Google’s is called Digital Wellbeing, available on its Pixel phones.

With the launches of similar tools as part of the latest versions of iOS and Android, plus the rollout of ‘Your Activity’ tab on Instagram last week, digital well-being features are becoming available to a wide range of smartphone users. However, the real question is whether a mere availability of this tool will actually serve the purpose and help people regulate their social media use. Moreover, Facebook’s dashboard doesn’t integrate with Instagram’s, which would give people a clearer picture of their activity on the social networks. Also, one won’t have his/her desktop Facebooking or time spent on secondary mobile devices like tablets tabulated here either.