Instagram is gradually becoming a safer place for teens and is giving new tools for parents to have control over their child’s experience. With that, Meta is unveiling new parental supervision features on Instagram, according to a company blog post today.
Expanded parental controls on Instagram
On the app, parents and guardians are now able to send invitations to their teens to initiate these supervision tools. Prior, only teens could send invites to a parent or guardian. Parents can now limit their teen’s Instagram usage by setting certain times and days when they’d like to enforce restrictions. Also, they can now see details on when the teen reports an account or post, like whose account was reported and what type of report.
These parental supervision updates are now available on the Instagram app in the US. Later this month the update will roll out to the UK, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France, and Germany. Additional countries will receive the update later in the year.
More features to enhance the teen’s experience
More features come to Instagram outside of the new parental controls. There’s a new feature for teens in some countries called “nudges.” If the teen is consistently looking at the same kind of content, Instagram will “nudge” the user to explore new topics on the “Explore” tab.
A teen edition of the new “Take a Break” feature is also set to launch soon. This will remind teens to turn on the feature if they’ve been scrolling in Reels for a certain period of time. It’s currently in testing in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, and New Zealand, with more countries coming soon.
9to5Mac’s Take
Personally, I feel like teens will get annoyed with some of these features. Also, if the parent isn’t on Instagram themselves, what good will it do? Apparently it does work, though; in the blog post, Meta mentions an example from internal and external research. For instance, 58.2% of respondents for one study found that “nudges” enhanced their social media experience. The users stated they felt their time became more mindful while navigating social media. Overall, I’d like to hear first-hand on how users feel about these new parental supervision tools.
What do you think of these new parental control features for Instagram? Do you think these will be effective in supervising your teen’s experience on the app?
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