What you need to know
- Instagram is getting more parental controls and features for teens.
- Parents can now initiate invitations to supervise teen use and can set specific times during the day or week to limit their teen's use of Instagram.
- Teens will also see new nudges designed to help them discover a different topic if they're repeatedly looking at the same type of content.
Instagram has today announced new parental control features and protections for teens, including limiting use time.
In a release Tuesday parent company Meta unveiled new tools for Instagram and its Quest headsets.
Over on Instagram, parents and guardians can now send invitations to teens to initiate supervision tools, previously this could only be sent by a teenager. New controls include setting specific times during the day or week that can be used to limit how long a teen spends using Instagram, as well as more information about when a teen reports an account or post including who was reported and why.
These are already available in the U.S. and are coming to the UK, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany, and more this month. Instagram wants these solutions rolled out globally before the end of the year.
Instagram is also trying to support teens with nudges that will encourage them to explore new topics if they spend too much time looking at a particular type of content:
Teens in certain countries will see a notification that encourages them to switch to a different topic if they're repeatedly looking at the same type of content on Explore. This nudge is designed to encourage teens to discover something new and excludes certain topics that may be associated with appearance comparison.
The platform cited an external study that states nearly 60% of respondents felt nudges improved their social media experience, with one in five teens on Instagram switching to a new topic when prompted.
Instagram is also adding new reminders for teens to turn on Take a Break if they've been scrolling reels for too long. Instagram is one of the best iPhone apps for social media connection and sharing pictures and videos on devices like the iPhone 13. The platform has put a lot of effort into Reels in a bid to compete with the success of TikTok's short-form video content.
