Instagram has introduced a new feature, "Teen Accounts," aimed at providing a safer and more positive social media experience for teenagers. These accounts offer a customized experience with parental guidance, incorporating protections to limit unwanted contacts and restrict access to inappropriate content. This initiative responds to parents' growing concerns over their teens' safety and well-being online.
Creating a Safer Space for Teens on Instagram
Instagram understands that parents want their teens to explore and engage with content in a safe environment. To address this, the platform has implemented stricter default settings and safeguards that empower parents to manage their teens’ social media experience. Teens also benefit from a new feature that allows them to personalize their feeds by selecting topics of interest, fostering a more enjoyable and secure online journey.
Key Protections for Safer Online Interactions
The development of Teen Accounts involved feedback from both parents and teens, focusing on three critical areas: interactions, content, and screen time. These accounts come with built-in protections, including limits on who can interact with teens, restrictions on inappropriate content, and tools to help manage time spent on the platform.
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Reimagining teens’ experiences on Instagram
- Private Accounts: Teen accounts will default to private, meaning teens need to accept new followers. People who do not follow them cannot see their content or interact with them.
- Messaging Restrictions: Teens will only be able to receive messages from people they already follow or are connected to. This ensures that unwanted contact from strangers is minimized.
- Sensitive Content Restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest setting of Instagram’s sensitive content control, reducing their exposure to content like violence, explicit material, or content promoting cosmetic procedures.
- Limited Interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by users they follow. Instagram will also automatically turn on the most restrictive anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, which filters out offensive language in comments and direct messages.
- Time Management: Teens will receive notifications reminding them to take breaks from the app after using it for 60 minutes each day. Additionally, the app will enter “Sleep Mode” between 10 PM and 7 AM, muting notifications and sending automatic responses to DMs.
- These measures ensure that teens are placed in a safer environment automatically. For those under 16, parental permission is required to make these settings less restrictive, giving parents the ability to oversee their teen’s online activities.
Parental Control and Supervision
Instagram Teen Accounts introduce an option for parental oversight, especially for younger teens under 16. To enable this, parents must set up supervision on Instagram. This allows them to approve or deny changes to their teen’s account settings. Soon, parents will also be able to modify these settings directly to offer greater protection.
For older teens (16+), parents who wish to have more oversight can enable supervision. This new approach aims to give parents more insight while still respecting teens’ independence. Dr. Rachel Rodgers, an Associate Professor of Applied Psychology, notes that “Instagram Teen Accounts reflect the importance of tailoring teens’ online experiences to their developmental stages, implementing appropriate protections.”
“Instagram Teen Accounts reflect the importance of tailoring teens’ online experiences to their developmental stages, and implementing appropriate protections. Younger adolescents are more vulnerable as their skills are still emerging and require additional safeguards and protection. Overall, the settings are age-specific, with younger and older teens being offered different protections.” - Rachel Rodgers, PHd Associate Professor of Applied Psychology, Northeastern University
More ways for parents to get involved, if they want
While Teen Accounts put new protections in place automatically, many parents want to be even more involved in their teen’s experiences, so we’re also adding to our supervision feature. Updates include ways to:
Get insights into who their teens are chatting with: While parents can’t read their teen’s messages, now they will be able to see who their teen has messaged in the past seven days.
Set total daily time limits for teens’ Instagram usage: Parents can decide how much time their teen can spend on Instagram each day. Once a teen hits that limit, they’ll no longer be able to access the app.
Block teens from using Instagram for specific time periods: Parents can choose to block their teens from using Instagram at night, or specific time periods, with one easy button.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health supports efforts to improve the online health and safety of young people, including changes that reflect the varying developmental needs of younger and older adolescents. It’s important that safety and privacy protections are the default settings, both to improve teens’ online experience and to reduce some of the burden that has fallen to parents. We look forward to hearing from teens about their experience of these new Teen Accounts and associated features and settings.” - Dr. Megan Moreno, co-medical director of the SAMHSA-funded AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health
Meta plans to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and to start placing them in Teen Accounts in the European Union later this year. Teens around the world will start to get Teen Accounts in January. We’ll also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year. These are big updates that will change the Instagram experience for millions of teens, and we need to make sure they work correctly.
“These updates to Instagram's Teen Accounts offer a balanced approach, empowering parents with essential oversight while respecting teens' right to participate and explore. In an ever-evolving online world, this update ensures that young people can engage meaningfully and safely, fostering positive connections while still providing the protection they need." - Lucy Thomas OAM, CEO & Co-Founder, Project Rockit
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