As we all know, social media sites and apps can be huge time sucks. You jump on to wish someone a happy birthday and before you know it, you’ve wasted an hour of your workday browsing your feed.
You can use tools like Screen Time to limit the time you spend on specific apps. But Instagram brings their own built-in tool to the app. This tool doesn’t technically limit the time you spend on Instagram but reminds you that you’ve been using it long enough.
Here, we’ll show you how to receive a daily reminder to limit your time on Instagram. But first, we’ll fill you in on how to see the amount of time you’re actually spending with the app each day.
View your Instagram activity
Whenever you use the Instagram app on iPhone, the time you spend with the app is logged. To view your activity, open the app and follow these steps.
1) Go to your profile with the tab at the bottom.
2) Tap the Menu icon on the top right.
3) Select Your Activity.
4) Tap the Time tab at the top.
On the activity screen, you’ll see a nice column chart that displays your average time on Instagram each day. You’ll see an overall average at the top and can tap and hold a particular day to see the amount of time for that day.
Set your Instagram daily reminder
Right on the Instagram activity screen, you’ll see the option for Set Daily Reminder. If you’ve already exited the screen, head back using the steps above.
Tap Set Daily Reminder and enter the amount of time you want to spend on Instagram before receiving the alert. Tap Set Reminder.
When you’re actively using Instagram, your notification will alert you at the time you specified. You can then tap OK or Edit Reminder.
Obviously, if you tap OK to acknowledge that you’ve reached your daily limit, you should close the app and move onto another activity. Just like with Screen Time limits, this reminder is only helpful if you adhere to it. But if you don’t feel that you’ve allowed yourself enough time, tap Edit Reminder and choose a new alert time.
If you want to change that time outside of receiving the alert, head back to the same spot in Your Activity where you set it up. Tap Edit Reminder, pick a new time, and tap Set Reminder. You can also tap Cancel Reminder to remove the alert completely.
Wrapping it up
If you’re serious about reducing the time you spend on Instagram or simply making sure you don’t waste hours of your day, check out the daily reminder. And again, use your willpower when that alert pops up. Tap OK and close the app for the day.
What do you think about the Instagram daily reminder? Is this a feature you’ll try or do you already make sure you don’t spend too much time with the app? Let us know!