Instagram rolls its own version of ‘Do Not Disturb’ as ‘Quite Mode’

Instagram launched its own version of ‘Do not disturb’, with a new feature called ‘quiet mode’ for users in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Although it is available to all users, Meta designed it specifically for teens to take a break from scrolling and focus on their studies, especially at night.

The company added that it will alert teens spending too much time on the app at night.

Once enabled, the feature will pause all notifications, auto-reply to messages and update your activity status to ‘in quiet mode’. When turned off, the user will receive a summary of all the action they missed out on. Meta intends to help people “set boundaries with friends and followers” with this rollout. Meta aims to bring it to more countries in the future.

Instagram also added new tools for personalising recommendations, as well as expanded parental controls. Users can now mark posts on the ‘Explore’ tab as ‘not interested’ to avoid seeing similar content in the future, as well as block words, emojis, and hashtag recommendations. When their child changes a setting, parents can be notified, and they can also see blocked accounts on their child’s handle.

Teenagers’ screen time increased by 17% between 2019 and 2021, according to a Common Sense Media survey. According to the most recent Data.ai report, Instagram is the most popular social media app among Generation Z. The ‘quiet mode’ is the latest in a series of attempts by Meta to give users more control over their digital footprints, in the midst of criticism over social media’s harmful effects on young adults.

Instagram recently introduced ‘nudges,’ which alert teenagers who spend too much time on a specific topic – particularly comparing appearances – to change content, parental supervision tools to set time limits for kids, and recommendations of non-social media related activities for users to take a break from the app.

Instagram has also announced several safety tools to protect minors’ privacy, access to adult content and advertising.