Facebook addresses issues of addiction and the ‘lack of kindness’ online
The company says it is taking its responsibility about how people use its products seriously, and wants ‘positive and inspiring’ interactions with its products
San Francisco — Facebook, during all its years of expansion, has been focused on one thing above all else: getting people to spend more time on it. Now, as tech giants face increasing criticism over the addictive nature of their products, the company is releasing features that do the opposite. Facebook and Instagram, its photo-sharing app, will add controls to help people measure how much time they’re spending on the sites so they can dial it back if they want to. Users can also mute notifications on the apps for a certain period of time, or sign up to get an alert when they’ve been scrolling for too long. "It’s not just about the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram but how they spend that time," Facebook said in a blog post on Wednesday. ‘‘It’s our responsibility to talk openly about how time online impacts people — and we take that responsibility seriously." Most companies haven’t focused on that issue until recently, following concerns from mental-health experts and indus...
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