Amid concerns over growing addiction to social media platforms especially among young people, Facebook is developing a tool that will allow users to track the amount of time they spend on the platform. Dubbed “Your Time on Facebook,” the feature shows users the time they have spent on the platform over the past seven days and sets a daily limit that it notifies them about once they hit it. “We’re always working on new ways to ensure people’s time on Facebook is well spent,” a spokesman said. Facebook-owned photo-sharing application Instagram is also getting a self-monitoring tool dubbed “usage insights.” The feature disables notifications once a user hits their daily limit. The new tools are the latest attempt by the scandal-rocked Facebook to win back users trust. The social networking site has taken heat from regulators across the world, after it emerged that it allowed controversial British data analytics company Cambridge Analytica to breach data belonging to about 87 million users, and sold more than 3,000 propaganda advertisements to a shadowy Russian firm ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. Brands, publishers Pushed to the wall, the company in January said it was introducing changes in its newsfeed to reduce posts by brands and publishers and ensure users find relevant content in order to help them have more “meaningful social interactions.” Weeks later, it announced that the changes introduced in 2017 on the kind of content consumed by its users had reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day — the equivalent of five per cent of the total time. However, concerns that the social network’s predatory data collection and sharing practices — the tactics used by Internet platforms — have remained, forcing device maker Apple to intervene earlier this month. In what appeared like a straight swipe at Facebook, Apple said it would soon roll out updates that will give users the ability to stop Facebook, Google and other platforms from collecting personal browsing data without their permission. According to the 2018 Global Digital report by HootSuite, the number of Internet users surpassed the four billion mark in 2017. The fastest growth happened in Africa, where users grew by 20 per cent, mainly boosted by increased mobile phone penetration and falling data costs. Agencies
