Instagram’s latest safety features make the platform safer for teens

Instagram is one of the widely used social media apps globally. Among the billions of users of the app, many are teens and school goers who may unwillingly witness sensitive content, including posts and comments. To curb this problem, Instagram has introduced new teen safety features in India.

The latest features on the platform ensure the utmost safety for teens under the age of 16, while also allowing parents to have some amount of control of their teens’ Instagram account. Here are all the new teen safety features on Instagram you should know about.

New teen safety features on Instagram

Instagram has introduced a bunch of teen safety features, making it a safe platform for those under the age of 16. Starting from enhancing the privacy of teen accounts to parental control, here are all the latest teen safety features on Instagram.

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– Better privacy

– Stricter messaging and content settings

– Anti-bullying feature

– Time Limit Reminders and Sleep Mode

– Better parental control

Better privacy

By default, all the teen accounts are now set to private. This means no one can directly follow without getting approved. Also, non-followers cannot view or interact with any content on teen accounts. This applies to all users under 16, and also for those under 18 when signing up.

Stricter messaging and content settings

Instagram says that teens will have the strictest messaging settings enabled. These settings will ensure that they will receive messages only from people they follow or are already connected with. Further, teen accounts will be automatically placed in the most restrictive settings, limiting their exposure to sensitive content. This will be applicable for the Explore and Reels tab.

Anti-bullying feature

What’s more is that teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. Also, their accounts will have the strictest version of the anti-bullying feature, ensuring they don’t see offensive language in comments and DMs.

Time limit reminders and sleep mode

Moreover, there will be a time limit reminder for teen accounts, allowing them to use the platform for a limited time. Instagram says that the app will prompt them to exit it after 60 minutes of daily usage. There’s also sleep mode that will be automatically enabled at 10 PM and end at 7 AM. Sleep mode will mute all the incoming Instagram notifications.

Better parental control

Apart from this, parents will also be able to have some amount of control of their teens’ account. Parents can see a list of people their teens have messaged in the past seven days, without displaying any message content.

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Parents will also be able to restrict Instagram access at night or during specific hours. They can also set daily time limits for the app, blocking access to the app for teens.