Social media giants Facebook and Twitter are realising a new time limit tool, in the hope of reducing people’s time spent on the apps.
The detrimental effects that social media has on our mental health has been a topic of conversation for some time. Some studies believe that the overuse of social media and mobile phone usage could affect our emotional well-being, and cause mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become platforms for users to ‘show off’ their life; whether this means posting a picture of where they are on holiday or a new designer handbag, these posts can often trigger emotions of envy and self-dissatisfaction in others that are viewing the post. Similarly, scrolling through social media at night can have damaging effects on our sleep. A study from The Lancest Psychiatry found individuals who are unable to sleep due to spending too much time on social media at night are more likely to suffer from depression and bipolar disorder.
What will the tool do?
The tool will simply monitor how much time users spend on the app, set reminders for when they have reached their allotted time and mute notifications.
The potential benefits:
- Improve overall happiness
- Increase spare time
- Improve sleep
- Conquer FOMO (fear of missing out)
Will this really work?
Personally, I think these tools are not effective enough. These tools can be accessed on the settings page of each app, and there are settings such as “Mute Push Notifications” where the app won’t alert users about new notifications, but, you will be able to see them in your notifications tab and you will still get an email notification. Another setting is being able to set a “Daily Reminder”, where the app will tell you when your time is up and you need to stop scrolling. However, it is not compulsory to have this set and it can be switched off at any time.
The tools and time limit settings do not seem drastic enough, as the user still has the option to turn them on and off as they wish. I think for something like this to work the app needs to be completely inaccessible for the amount of time chosen, and the user should not have the option to turn time limit off.
However, I do believe that completely restricting users of social media sites wouldn’t go down well, and it’s simply not feasible in this digital age to stop people from doing something that has become a natural part of our daily lives.
What does this mean for brands and marketers?
If people stopped using social media, or even cut down their usage in half I think it could have drastic effects on the effectiveness of social media marketing and in turn the success of brands.
Some brands depend on social media sites to sell their product/service, and if usage for these sites slumped, then potentially so would their sales.
However, it’s possible that if users were to stop using social media as much, then brands would be encouraged to post content that was of the highest quality, and people will instantly engage with when they do have a scroll through their feed. Buffer Social introduce the term “Content Shock” which is where there is “more content on social media than people can consume”, and therefore if the content doesn’t look interesting enough people will ignore it.
Ultimately, I think that social media is such an integral part of our lives, and no time limit tool will stop individuals from Tweeting, Instagramming or Facebooking.
What are your thoughts? Tweet us at @VizulateDigital
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