Instagram quietly bumps up the minimum daily time limit

For the last couple years, Instagram and Facebook have offered ways to see how long you spend using the apps each day as well as an option to set a daily usage time limit. Now, it seems Instagram has increased the minimum daily time limit setting to 30 minutes, up from 10 or 15 minutes.

An Instagram user told TechCrunch that the app asked them to “set a new value” for their daily time limit, though noted that they could retain their existing setting. “The available values for daily time limits are changing as part of an app update,” a pop-up read. The Instagram app currently offers me a minimum time limit of 30 minutes. Engadget has asked Meta for clarification on when and why it made the change.

The settings in the Facebook app are more granular. Users can choose any time limit in increments of five minutes. When a user reaches their chosen time limit in either app, a notification pops up to tell them, though they can ignore it.  

At the time it rolled out the feature, Meta said the idea was to give people more control over the length of time they spend on its apps and …read more