Facebook has finally launched the feature that would let users keep a tab on the time they have spent on social networking app. With the new ‘Your Time on Facebook’ tool, users can set the time they want to spend on the app with notifications flying out once that limit is reached.
This way, users will have an idea of the amount of time they spend on Facebook using a particular device for the duration of a week. This should help users deal with what has come to be known as Facebook addiction after many users have been found to spend most of their time on the social networking app.
Apart from letting users know they have actually breached their time limits, the notification also comes with shortcuts that lead to the notification, news feed, and the friend request page. Unfortunately, such shortcuts seem to go quite contrary to what the tool stands for in the first place. Since its very purpose is to make users give up Facebook and get back to the real world, including links to news feed and friend request setting does not seem to be a great idea to make people to actually get out of the app, if not drop their phone entirely, for the time being at least.
In any case, the setting can be reached via More tab > Settings & Privacy > Your Time on Facebook. At best, what the tool does is it acts as a reminder of sorts so that users get to know they have exhausted their limit on the app. It, in fact, acts as a disruption at best though users can easily get back to what they were up to without much of a fuss. In other words, the tool puts the onus on the users whether they need to get back to the real world or continue with Facebook.
Worth mentioning, Android and iOS too make out how much time they have spent on their devices named Digital Wellness and Screen Time respectively. However, its Android’s Digital Wellness that allows for the most strict implementation given that it can even grey out certain app after the lapse of a given time and which can be revoked again only after delving deep into the Settings sections.
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Nonetheless, it shouldn’t be surprising Facebook having implemented a rather weak control mechanism considering that its very aim is to make users spend as much time on the site as is possible, something that is also linked to the massive ad revenue that the company generates.
