Following severe scrutiny from Congress, Facebook has announced a series of measures to reduce teens’ screen time on Instagram.
Facebook is still under direct fire, and it has reacted. After a series of complaints filed by a former employee of the company before a subcommittee of the United States Senate, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network announced a series of implementations on Instagram to reduce the screen time that adolescents spend in front of the popular application
It has been Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Facebook. He has advanced the social network strategy in the face of the complaints published by The Wall Street Journal, which referred to the omissions of the company at the beginning of the emotional problems that the content in the network generated in girls and adolescents.
“We are going to present something that I think will make a considerable difference, which is where our systems see that the adolescent is watching the same content over and over again and it is content that may not be conducive to their well-being, we will push them to look at other content,” said the executive in an interview with CNN.
.@DanaBashCNN presses Facebook Vice President of
Global Affairs Nick Clegg on tens of thousands of pages of internal research and documents, which were released by a whistleblower, indicating the company
was aware of various problems caused by its platforms. #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/HrFAZw4cvy— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) October 10, 2021
The company’s new direction will aim to recommend times out of Instagram when the phone detects a high screen time or a greater concentration on certain types of content.
“We’re introducing something called ‘take a break,’ where we’ll ask teens to just take a break from using Instagram,” Clegg said in the interview.
Instagram Kids on pause, but more control to teenagers
Clegg noted in the conversation that Facebook recently halted its plans to develop “Instagram Kids,” a version aimed at children under 13, and was introducing new optional controls for adults to monitor teens in its ecosystem:
“We cannot change human nature,” Clegg added. “You will always compare yourself to others, especially those who are more fortunate than you, but what we can do is change our product, and that is exactly what we are doing.”.