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Facebook may add 'your time' tool to fight social media addiction

Will a daily tally get you to take a break?

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marrianzhou
Marrian Zhou Staff Reporter
Marrian Zhou is a Beijing-born Californian living in New York City. She joined CNET as a staff reporter upon graduation from Columbia Journalism School. When Marrian is not reporting, she is probably binge watching, playing saxophone or eating hot pot.
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Facebook may add feature to help you manage your time spent on the social media platform.

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Tech addiction is a hot topic, and rumor has it  Facebook is working on a feature to help people re-engage with the real world.

The tech giant is testing a tool called "Your Time on Facebook" that could help users manage time spent on the social media platform, according to screenshots shared by serial tipster Jane Manchun Wong. The purported feature would let you see how many minutes you spend on the app each day, set a daily reminder for yourself and mute Facebook notifications. It's rumored to be a part of Facebook's "Time Well Spent" initiative.

The company said earlier this year that it's still figuring out how to best measure and understand how much time users spend on the Facebook app and "what people actually find meaningful." Core components to be interpreted will include messages, comments, shares and likes.

In January, Facebook said users are spending roughly 50 million fewer hours daily on the social media platform because of changes made to news feed. The initiative was meant to evaluate what kind of interaction is "healthy" or "uncivil" and promote more interaction with friends and family rather than with publishers.

Not only is the company reportedly adding features on its Facebook app to help users manage their time, it's also said to be testing a new Instagram tool called "Daily Reminder."

A Facebook spokeswoman said that the company doesn't have anything to share right now on the reported time-management tool.