Instagram's upcoming "Take a Break" feature could encourage you to use the app (and your phone) less

Instagram recently started to test a feature called "Take a Break," in an effort to combat doomscrolling by reminding users, (as the name suggests), to take a break from the app at regular intervals. Why exactly does the social media giant want people to use its platform less often instead of more?

The answer is doomscrolling, an increasingly common pattern of behaviour among social media users, where you continuously scroll through the newsfeed, with no real aim. By adding in periodic breaks at strategic points of time, the user experience on platforms like Insta could actually improve, with users able to focus on other things in life and prioritize in-app content that's actually relevant and interesting to them, instead of just endlessly scrolling.  

"Take a Break" is slated to be an opt-in feature, meaning that it won't be enabled on Instagram by default. While testing is currently ongoing, Insta head Adam Mosseri announced (on Twitter, somewhat ironically), that the feature will be rolled out to all users by December.