New Instagram Update: Users may now set parental controls to monitor teens’ activities

Finally, Meta has introduced parental controls for its Instagram app. The company wants to allow parents to supervise their children’s activities on the social networking site.

Adam Mosseri, the head of the service, calls them the “first set” of parental control tools that will allow parents and guardians to monitor how much time their children spend on Instagram, see which accounts they are following and being followed by, and be notified when their children report another user.

This decision by Meta is in response to the criticism over Instagram’s ‘negative’ influence on children and teens. As of now, Instagram states that its mobile app’s supervision feature must be activated by teens themselves, but in June, it will allow parents and guardians to do so (although teens will still need to grant permission). “We’ll add additional features,” Meta says, “including letting parents set the hours during which their teen can use Instagram and the ability for more than one parent to supervise a teen’s account.”

Meta is also introducing a new Family Center, which it claims will eventually provide a single point of access to all of Meta’s monitoring capabilities. It has a section devoted to educating parents and educators on how to communicate to their children about the dangers of social media.

For its Quest VR headsets, Meta is also introducing new parental controls. For the first time, parents and caregivers will be able to restrict access to certain apps to protect their children from viewing content that is inappropriate for their age. A similar restriction will be implemented in May for minors between the ages of 13 and 17, but parents and guardians will still be able to override it app by app.

For parents, more VR supervision tools will be available in the Oculus mobile app including the option to restrict apps such as web browsers, examine all of their teenager’s app purchases and monitor screen time as well as see their teen’s friend list. Under the age of 13, Meta states their headsets are not recommended.

A whistleblower revealed internal studies that documented the negative effects of social media on young people’s mental health, and Instagram was compelled to “hold” the development of a dedicated app for children under the age of 13 as a result. After learning of the facts, lawmakers pressed Meta to completely discontinue work on Instagram Kids. They have not done so to this point.

For the time being, the update is only available to users in the US, and according to CEO John Mosseri, Instagram’s new monitoring features will be rolled out worldwide in the next several months.

Learn more about how to set up supervision on Instagram.