Instagram adds parental controls for the first time

The first three Instagram parent-supervision tools—available Wednesday in the US—will let parents see how much time their teens spend on Instagram and set limits, before arriving globally in the coming months. Parents can see which accounts their teens follow, as well as who follows them. It also lets teens notify their parents when they report inappropriate behavior. The company plans to eventually make the tool available on its other platforms, such as Facebook.

The company doesn’t give parents any details about what their teens watch or what they discuss via direct message. And since the controls apply on a per-account basis, they don’t prevent teens from keeping secret accounts, known as “finstas.”

Parental controls for Instagram and Meta’s other services will remain inside a new website called Family Center. Along with supervision tools, the hub will include educational resources such as tips for how to talk to your kids about social media.

In a blog post, Instagram head Adam Mosseri called the new controls “the first step in a long-term journey to develop intuitive supervision tools informed by experts, teens and parents.” The VR parental-supervision tool, which will limit Quest headset access to content that isn’t appropriate for younger ages, will debut in April.

Instagram said in December that it planned to provide more tools to protect teens online. According to a Wall Street Journal article published as part of the Facebook Files series in September, internal research found that Instagram is harmful to a large percentage of young users, especially teenage girls with body-image concerns. . Its parent company disputed the characterization of the findings.

Following pressure from the series and lawmakers, Meta indefinitely halted efforts to create a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13. The executive overseeing that product left the company earlier this month.

The new parental-control tool requires teens to give their parents access through Instagram’s mobile app, so parents need to initiate the conversation first. In June, parents will be able to request their teens from the app or website. Still, teens must approve parental supervision before the tool can work.

The tools will not allow parents to view or comment on their teen’s posts, send and receive direct messages, or view the content they are viewing. Instagram is also not implementing an age-verification tool, which would make it more difficult for children under 13 to join the app.

While the tools may give some control over how teens use Instagram, it’s not enough to change what they consume on the app, parenting experts say. Even with parental controls in place, Instagram’s algorithm can serve up self-harm content, such as eating disorders, said Devora Hetner, author of “Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World.” post about.

Instead of putting the responsibility on parents, “the app needs to do more to make it a safe place for both children and adult users to interact,” Dr. Hetner said.

In the coming months, Instagram said it would add more features to parental controls, such as letting parents set hours during which children can use the service (something that is now available with device-specific parental controls). Controls such as this can be done using Apple’s Screen Time.) Instagram also said it would allow more than one parent to monitor a teen’s account.

Along with new Instagram controls, Mosseri expands new parental tools to Meta’s Quest VR headsets, such as preventing teens from downloading age-inappropriate apps. It will also offer a parenting dashboard with supervision tools linked to the teen’s account – “based on the consent of both parties,” Mr. Mosseri said.