Facebook adds silent mode to give users control over activity

Facebook introduces Quiet Mode, a feature that allows users to set times that indicate when the app should be ‘quiet’. When silent mode is active, most notifications are blocked and users cannot just use the app.

With Quiet Mode, Facebook wants to help people limit their time on the app. According to a blog post, users would have difficulty limiting their time online due to the coronavirus. This would be because of new routines and staying at home that people are now dealing with. With Quiet Mode, these people can organize their days better and focus on family, friends, sleep or work, Facebook says.

Users can find the function in the Your Time on Facebook dashboard, writes The Verge, among others. Here users can specify between what times and on which days the silent mode should be active. When users open the app while Quiet Mode is active, they will receive a full-screen notification stating that the feature is active and for how long it will remain active. Users can then choose to disable silent mode and still use the app. Also ‘most’ push notifications are blocked during these times. According to Facebook, the company is legally obliged to forward certain notifications, such as those about privacy updates.

In addition to Quiet Mode, the Your Time on Facebook dashboard is getting more changes. For example, users will soon be able to see their weekly use here and, for example, see whether they have used the app more or less in the past week. Here Facebook will also display whether the user has been active on the platform during the day or at night and there is a counter that shows how often the user has been on the platform. The Quiet Mode update is now being phased out to iOS users. Android users will receive the update from May.