Instagram, which is owned by Meta (FB), is finally implementing long-awaited parental controls. Instagram's new capabilities, which are now available in the United States, allow parents and guardians to limit their children's app usage time and see who they follow and who follows them.
You've also come to the perfect place if you're a parent or guardian looking to limit your child's online activities. I'll guide you through the steps and explain what the tools aren't capable of. At least for the time being. But first, let's recap how we get here.
The business recognized Instagram had a harmful influence on young girls' body ideals, according to internal Meta papers provided to media outlets by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Haugen testified before the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee in October, accusing Meta of purposefully increasing the addictiveness of Instagram for underage users.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced shortly after Haugen's testimony, and before his own hearing before Congress, that the company's parental control tools will be released soon. In fact, before his testimony, Mosseri stated in a blog post that Instagram had been working on them for some time.
Now that you're up to speed, let's look at how to use Instagram's new parental control function.
Keeping an eye on your kids on Instagram
Users between the ages of 13 and 17 are the only ones who can use the tool. If your child is under the age of 13, they are in violation of Instagram's terms of service, thus they should be deleted. You can set up parental restrictions if they're 13 or older.
The second thing to keep in mind is that you'll need your own Instagram account to use these tools. If you don't already have one, you'll have to make one.
Because I don't have a child, I made a phony 14-year-old boy named Bert Howitzer. To make my experience more realistic, I had Bert follow a few accounts, including The Rock's profile and Nike's website.
After your child logs in, take them to their profile page and pick Settings from the Options menu (the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of the screen).
Select Supervision from the drop-down menu, then have your kid submit you a supervision request.
Your Instagram account will be linked to your child's account once you tap the subsequent notice on your phone.
Once your accounts are linked, you can use the Supervision option in your Instagram app's settings menu to put time restrictions on your child's usage and check who they're following and who they're following. As I followed more pages on Bert's account, for example, I received notifications on my own Instagram account alerting me to the fact.
Bert was also given a 15-minute usage limit. And, as claimed, the software stopped operating after 15 minutes, telling Bert that he may use it again the next day.
That's pretty much all you can do. Instagram's parental restrictions are, without a doubt, inadequate. Parents, in particular, are unable to unfollow profiles that their children have already followed. If you can see who your children follow using the parental supervision feature, it only seems sensible that you should be able to unfollow such pages for them. That, however, is not the case.
To be fair, Instagram's Mosseri says these are only the first set of capabilities the business will offer, so expect more in the future. However, you'd think a service under such scrutiny would have more to offer.