Q&A: Do screen time limits work?

Do setting those time limits on social media apps actually work? I’m thinking about setting one for Instagram, but I feel like I’ll just ignore the pop-up when it tells me that my time is up.

Options to set time limits are social media companies’ latest Hail Mary to promote users’ well-being on their platforms, with TikTok setting a default daily limit at 60 minutes for users under 18, and most platforms now allowing users to opt-in to limits ranging from 15 minutes to a few hours. Typically, after the user reaches their chosen time limit, they’re notified with a prompt, which they can choose to heed (and close out of the app) or ignore (and keep scrolling). These types of time limits can also be set directly via iPhone’s Screen Time or Android’s Digital Well-Being tools.

So, do they work? According to the research…meh.