Instagram activates Teen Accounts automatically, helps parents secure online privacy for kids

Instagram has unveiled Teen Accounts for teenagers in response to parenting groups that have blamed social media for the rising cases of depression, online privacy and safety concerns. Teenagers under 16 years old will have this feature turned on automatically and will include the following restrictions. Some of these features aim to control what teenagers see on their feeds, who can message them, and time limit reminders.

Here is a list of features that will be automatically implemented for teens:

• Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app.
• Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to. 
• Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels. 
• Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. We’ll also automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens’ comments and DM requests. 
• Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day. 
• Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs. 

It’s been a long time coming for Instagram to introduce these online safety measures. One of the issues that persists is how teens and even children younger than 13 have access to Instagram because they — and even parents lie about their age. These are great features to have but are these measures too little and too late? Will teens rely on other social messaging apps and services like Telegram and Discord instead? Full press release here.