I can hardly blame Instagram PMs for pushing this change. Their main competitor is TikTok with average daily viewing times of 40+ mins per day (reported 24hrs/month as of Sept 2021). Internally, Instagram PMs have surely been tasked with matching this. Changing the minimum daily time limit was probably the easiest A/B test any PM has ever run.

As a society we should ask ourselves, how do we realign incentives such that social media companies aren't motivated to maximize engagement time? I don't think blanket bans or regulations on viewing time is the answer (that's not what the average user wants). My hunch is that we need to change the relationship between viewing time and value (advertising).

P.S. - perhaps I'm just out of touch and there is no total engagement time problem. Perhaps social media is just as valuable as any media before it. Nobody is argument that we should limit total daily time spent reading books, listening to music or watching Netflix.