About six months ago, Meta announced they were making major changes to the way teens interact with Instagram, and it looks like the social media company is not slowing down. In fact, they just launched new features to the Instagram Teen Accounts that they rolled out in September, and things are not going how you might have expected.
What are Instagram teen accounts?
If you don’t have a teen in your life — or if they didn’t notice or notify you when their account was automatically switched to an Instagram Teen Account in the fall — let us break it down for you. Meta initially rolled out Instagram Teen Accounts in the United States, Canada, the U.K., and Australia before expanding to the European Union, Japan, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa where it continues to roll out.
According to the company, there are currently 54 million Teen Accounts in use. Everyone on the social media platform who is under the age of 18 was automatically changed to a Teen Account, and anyone new to sign up was, of course, given the same guardrails. There are various goals with Instagram Teen Accounts: Keep teens safer, get them to take time away from their phones, and get them to open up to parents.
So how exactly is Meta making this happen?
Current Instagram Teen Account Features
Private accounts: The default setting is for Teen Accounts to be private. This means a teen has to accept any follow requests and not just anyone can see their posts. As with many of the other features, if a teen under 16 wants to make their account public, they have to have a parent’s permission to do so.
Messaging restrictions: Teens can only receive direct messages (DMs) from people they know (no soliciting!). Similarly, teens can only be tagged in posts or mentioned in comments by people they follow. There is also an “anti-bullying” feature that works to filter out offensive words from both private messages and public comments.
Time limit reminders: After each hour that they are on Instagram, teens will get a notification telling them to get off the platform. It’s a bit of a nudge to help reduce screen time. Teens over 16 will be able to get extended time, but younger teens will need parental approval.
Sleep mode enabled: For teens who need more than just a nudge (Read: Some of them) and for those who need their sleep (Read: All of them!), sleep mode is automatically turned on between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. This “bedtime” of sorts mutes all notifications and sends an auto-reply to DMs to let other users know that the teen has entered sleep mode. It’s like an OOO from social media.
Sensitive content restrictions: Teens are automatically placed in the most restrictive setting for sensitive content controls meaning violence, cosmetic procedures, or other types of sensitive content won’t randomly pop in their feed.
Parental supervision: Parents who have been added to a teen’s account to make any changes to settings will be able to see who their child is messaging (although they can’t see the messages), who they are following, who they have blocked, and more useful information.
New Instagram Teen Account Features
Restriction on Live Streams: Teens under 16 will be unable to use Instagram Live without parental approval.
Nudity protection: There will be a nudity protection feature that teens under the age of 16 can’t opt out of. The feature blurs suspected nude images in DMs and gives a PSA about the risks involved with sending nude images.
Facebook and Messenger are following suit: Facebook and Messenger will also roll out Teen Accounts with similar features so teens have the same protections across Meta’s apps. And we know what you might be thinking, but the answer is yes: Some teens are indeed on Facebook!
How are teens responding to Instagram teen accounts?
So … how is it going? If you are [understandably] wondering if kids are getting around the parental controls, Meta is working to fine-tune their age verification process and to figure out which existing users might have lied about their age. Their system can guess a user’s age based on the ages of the other users they interact with and their interests. Or, Instagram can request a selfie video that AI can then identify as being someone over or under the age of 18 with 98% accuracy. Plus, there are limits to how many accounts one “parent” can manage. So no, an older sibling cannot vouch for a dozen of their younger sibling’s friends.
But it turns out that teens don’t seem to be searching for loopholes. Meta revealed that 97 percent of teens aged 13-15 kept their built-in protections on. So nearly all 54 million Instagram Teen Account users (and counting) agreed to have a private account, restricted messaging, automatic sleep mode, and more.
At an event announcing the new additions to Instagram Teen Accounts and the launch of Teen Accounts for Facebook and Messenger, Tara Hopkins, Global Director of Public Policy at Instagram told SheKnows that her team understood that these restrictions might make teens use the platform less.
“But we’re kind of OK with that because we want them to have these protections built in and we want parents to feel comfortable and have peace of mind,” Hopkins says. “We were kind of happy to take the hit … and I think that 97 percent actually has given us a lot of encouragement that we’re on the right track.”
She and her team have spoken to a lot of families and the consensus has been that teens appreciate this more protective experience. Older siblings are glad their younger siblings have these guardrails, and parents are happy to have an eye on what their kids are doing and an easier way to start important conversations with their kids. (“Hey, I see you blocked ‘so and so.’ Why is that?”)
“Our most important priority is building trust with parents, taking the pressure off parents, and making sure the teens are having that much more protective experience, and we feel like they are,” she says. “We feel like it’s working.”
Before you go, check out these celebrities who have shared their technology rules for their kids.
