Instagram’s ‘Take a Break’ Had Low Teen Uptake, Mosseri Testifies

Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified in Oakland that relatively few teens initially opted into Take a Break, a well-being feature meant to encourage users to step away after a set amount of scrolling. He said Instagram learned that many users did not turn it on and that the company made changes over several years to increase adoption. The testimony centered on how difficult it was to persuade teen users to activate a feature designed to reduce time spent on the app.

Mosseri said Instagram first tried sending teens notifications encouraging them to enable Take a Break reminders. That approach helped, he testified, but “not nearly as much” as Instagram had hoped. The company later made the feature on by default as part of Teen Accounts, a change that signals how opt-in safety tools can struggle when users must choose them manually.

The testimony came in Meta’s social media addiction trial, where a coalition of attorneys general led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta has accused Meta of exploiting young users for profit by designing platforms to keep them engaged. The states also allege Meta violated children’s privacy protections and misled the public about platform safety. For readers, the key issue is not just whether a safety feature exists, but whether teens actually use it and whether the company clearly communicates its performance.

An internal Meta document shown during testimony said Take a Break adoption had been “modest at 1.8%” in 2021. Instagram’s December 2021 public blog post said more than 90% of teens who set the reminders kept them on, but did not include that only 1.8% had activated the feature in the first place. When asked if the public post disclosed low adoption, Mosseri said no, adding that the company planned to iterate and raise the number over time.