Instagram alert! You can ‘Take a Break,’ kids

Picture this, kids: A break from Instagram.

The app officially introduced its new “Take a Break” alert on Tuesday in an effort to “keep young people safe,” the head of the company announced.

The photo-sharing platform will now ask teenage users to log off temporarily if they’ve been scrolling on the app for too long as part of a push to promote healthy social media habits.

“To make sure that teens are aware of this feature, we’ll show them notifications suggesting they turn these reminders on,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in a blog post Tuesday.

“We’re encouraged to see that teens are using Take a Break. Early test results show that once teens set the reminders, more than 90% of them keep them on.”

The function launched in the United States on Tuesday, along with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland. “Take A Break” will be globally available next year.

The launch comes amid increased scrutiny following a testimony by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook executive, who said data kept by the company indicates Instagram use can cause mental health issues among young people.

Instagram is owned by Meta, the conglomerate formerly known as Facebook.

On Tuesday, Instagram also outlined plans for new tools, coming in March, that will allow parents to track how often their children use the app, and to set time limits.

“We’ll also give teens a new option to notify their parents if they report someone, giving their parents the opportunity to talk about it with them,” Mosseri said. “This is the first version of these tools; we’ll continue to add more options over time.”

Instagram is also developing features to stop people from tagging or mentioning teens that don’t follow them, nudge young users to other things if they have been focused on one topic for a while and be stricter about what posts, hashtags and accounts it recommends. The steps are part of an effort to reduce potentially harmful or sensitive content.