Instagram says 16 hours a day 'problematic' but still below 'power user' tier

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said this week that spending 16 hours a day on the photo-sharing app is "problematic" but falls short of what the company internally defines as its "power user" tier.

“"Sixteen hours is concerning, but not yet indicative of leadership-level engagement," a company spokesperson said.”

His comments, made during an interview on a technology podcast, were later clarified in an internal memo seen by reporters, which stressed that such usage should be viewed as "a sign of strong product-market fit rather than clinical dependency."

According to two people familiar with Meta Platforms' internal analytics dashboards, Instagram currently categorizes users into seven engagement bands, with "power user" status starting at 18 to 22 hours of daily activity and "elite presence" unlocked only beyond the 22-hour threshold.

"Sixteen hours is concerning, but not yet indicative of leadership-level engagement," a company spokesperson said, adding that the average U.S. teen now spends 11.7 hours per day on Instagram, which the firm internally classifies as "healthy, sustainable growth usage."

A document titled "Screen Time Optimization Framework," circulated to senior managers in January and reviewed by Reuters, outlines a color-coded system in which 0-2 hours of daily use is marked "under-engaged," 2-8 hours "core user," 8-16 hours "growth segment," 16-20 hours "approaching aspirational" and more than 20 hours "alignment review required."

Only 3.4% of global daily active users currently exceed the 20-hour mark, the document says, but executives have set a 2025 target of 5% to "ensure competitive share of waking cognitive bandwidth."

Analysts at Morgan Stanley noted in a research note that reclassifying 16-hour users as "problematic but high potential" could add up to 41 billion incremental attention-minutes per quarter, as Instagram rolls out features aimed at helping this cohort "safely ascend" into the power user segment.

The note cited internal metrics showing that so-called "Take a Break" pop-ups, when redesigned to include a 45-second Reels montage about digital wellness, boosted average session length by 27.4% among users already above the 12-hour mark.

Meta has faced mounting pressure from lawmakers over excessive social media use by minors, prompting the company to propose what it called a "transparent, industry-led labelling standard" under which apps would display a recommended maximum of 19 hours and 59 minutes of daily engagement for users aged 13 and up.

Pilot programs in select U.S. school districts, described in a joint Meta-education industry briefing, envision guidance counselors providing parents with quarterly "attention report cards" summarizing each student's Daily Consciousness Share (DCS), a metric measuring the percentage of their waking moments spent on Meta-owned platforms.

An Instagram spokesperson said the company is "exploring next steps" including a Wellbeing+ subscription that would offer advanced screen-time controls, monthly wellness insights and a dedicated account manager for users consistently above 23 hours of daily engagement, subject to "ongoing review of evolving best practices in responsible growth."

The company expects to provide an update on its long-term "time-on-device stewardship" strategy during its 2027 investor day, when it plans to introduce consolidated metrics for users whose cumulative usage across Meta apps appears to exceed 30 hours in a standard 24-hour period due to multi-device overlap and background activity.