Instagram launches ‘quiet mode’ feature, equivalent to Do Not Disturb 

Anyone who uses smart devices and social media will tell you how useful the ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature really is. However, so far, popular social media service Instagram did not have this feature. Recently, it launched its own version of the ‘Do Not Disturb’ or ‘DND’ feature called ‘quiet mode.’  

For now, this brand-new feature will be available for users in the USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is meant for one and all. However, Instagram’s owner Meta specifically designed it for youngsters who often suffer from Instagram addiction. This ‘quiet mode’ is meant to help them take a break from browsing on the platform and concentrate on their academics or other extracurricular activities. Officials believe that this will especially help the school going teenagers reduce their screen time before bedtime.  

In fact, to make matters interesting, Instagram has added a feature alongside this ‘quiet mode’ that will alert the young users whenever they spend too much time on the app during the night hours.  

Once the feature is activated on anyone’s account, it will pause all notifications from likes and comments to live, auto-respond to texts saying, “currently unavailable” and even alter the activity status to “in quiet mode.” However, the feature can be turned off at any given time and the users will once again receive a summary of all the actions they have missed during their absence.  

Having rolled out this much-needed feature, Meta intends to help people “set boundaries with friends and followers.” Besides this much-appreciated feature, Meta has also released other features on Instagram to personalise recommendations and added parental controls. For instance, users can now tag posts that show up on their “Explore” tab as “not interested” (just like in Facebook) to avoid seeing similar content in the future. They can also block certain words, emojis and hashtag recommendations using the same option.  

In contrast, parents can now get alerts whenever their child changes a setting while also keeping a check on the blocked accounts in their handles. Apart from offering users more control over their digital footprints, this step is also being seen as a way to tackle social media’s toxic impact on New-age kids. Experts have suggested that this measure comes at a much-needed hour when the amount of screen time has risen significantly.  

In fact, in the last month of 2022, Instagram had also launched another similarly useful feature called ‘nudge’ to notify teenagers about spending too much time on a specific topic to avoid the danger of bad influences. By the first quarter of 2023, this feature will be available worldwide, including India.