Regardless of how celebrities are disavowing the social media platform and calling for their fans to delete their profiles, Facebook is still one of the most popular social sites available. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, there is simply no denying how Facebook keep family in touch, and secondly, it is a good place for memes yo. Okay, that last one is a hit or miss – true memelords find their memes on Reddit. Regardless, the truth of the matter is that as much as some of us want to delete Facebook from our lives, there are valid reasons not to. Enter Facebook Quiet Mode.

Social media fatigue is a very real issue. While the world is focusing on how to keep people off of social media altogether, the social media platforms in question are trying to find the best compromises. Facebook Quiet Mode aims to “find the right balance” between continuous scrolling and refreshing, and quitting the social media platform completely.

In the wake of COVID-19 and the current state of the world, more people are staying home. This naturally means many industries have had to change the way they do things: office workers are now calling into work with Virtual Private Networks (VPNs); Voice Over Artists suddenly have to erect professional studios in their offices; developers now have to take part in daily conference meetings thus significantly reducing production rates across the board, and so on and so forth. “As we all adjust to new routines and staying home”, says Kang-Xing Jin, head of Health at Facebook, “setting boundaries for how you spend your time online can be helpful”. Putting those boundaries in place is a challenge, of course, when more and more social media platforms keep calling for your attention with notifications.

Facebook wants its new Quiet Mode to help “you focus on your family and friends, sleep without distraction, or manage how you spend your time at home”. According to Kang-Xing Jin, “[Facebook] has tools that can help”. It is also rather simple to implement (instructions below). All users need to do is toggle the Facebook Quiet Mode option, and the app should do the rest of the work for you. While Quiet Mode is enabled, the app will remind you that you need to find something else to do for its duration. According to Facebook, there are new shortcuts to notification settings and news feed preferences for users to make the most of their time on the app.

Facebook says users should have immediate access to Facebook Quiet Mode. As of the time of this writing, my app is still without it. I assume it is being rolled out slowly to accommodate for the sudden influx of social media users. With that said, getting the new toggle running should be a matter of a few steps, in the event your app is up to date:

  • Tap the hamburger menu button
  • Scroll down and tap Your Time On Facebook
  • Tap the slider next to Quiet Mode

Once there, you can set how long Facebook Quiet Mode should remain active for; when it should kick in, and it even has new toggles for Facebook to remind you of screen time limits.

While this feature is eerily similar to other screen time features many smartphone users have used in recent months, it is good to see prominent social media platforms and brands also push for less screen-on time. Now if we could get Twitter and Instagram (owned by Facebook) to get on board as well, all would be right with the world.

Sources: BGR, Lifehacker, TechCrunch, The Verge

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Junior Editor at Vamers. From Superman to Ironman; Bill Rizer to Sam Fisher and everything in-between, Edward loves it all. He is a Bachelor of Arts student and English Major specialising in Language and Literature. He is an avid writer and casual social networker with a flare for all things tech related.