Instagram on Tuesday introduced new features to protect the privacy of teenagers and limit the negative consequences of social media use by minors under 18 years of age. The network has announced the creation of what they call a “teenager account,” This means that accounts of those under 18 will be private by default starting in the next few weeks, meaning that only followers accepted by the account owner will be able to see their photos and posts. For now, these new measures will only apply in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. At the end of the year, they will be rolled out to countries in the European Union and in January to the rest of the world. Teenage Instagram users will receive a notice about the change.
The Meta-owned app also plans to stop sending notifications to minors from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to allow for better sleep in this age group. Instagram will also introduce more adult supervision tools, such as a feature that allows parents to see the accounts their children have recently messaged. Those under 16 will only be able to change these settings with their parents’ permission.
The new options allow parents to see the topics of posts their child has chosen to see most. The new features will not, however, include the option for parents to see the content of their child’s messages, in order to protect their privacy.
Examples of screens where parents can control the time and who their children chat with.
Meta also announced that it will show them less content in the main timeline from people they don’t follow and prevent them from being tagged by accounts of people they’re not connected to. “Teens will have the strictest settings for our sensitive content control turned on, which limits the type of sensitive content (like that which shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic surgery) they can see in sections like Explore or Reels,” the company says in a statement. They will also receive notifications warning them to exit the app if they spend more than 60 minutes using it during a day.
All of these developments are part of a growing concern among parents about their children’s mental health and how social media affects their attention and time management. Speaking to the NYTimes, Adam Mosseri, Instagram boss, has admitted that they are guided by the voices of families: “We decided to focus on what parents think because they know better than any technology company, any legislator or regulator what is appropriate for their children.”
These new features will apply to all accounts declared as under 18 years old. To bypass these new rules, all a teenage user would have to do is simply lie about their date of birth. Instagram does not currently have the ability to confirm the age or identity of a new user.
